Lattouf judgment evidence of an ABC that has badly lost its way

The Federal Court’s judgment in favour of journalist Antoinette Lattouf represents not just humiliation for the ABC. It is also a victory for principles of impartiality and independence.

The story of the Lattouf case is as follows: Before Christmas 2023, the 42-year-old Arabic-speaking freelance journalist began casual work as a presenter of an ABC Radio Sydney program. After one shift, she posted on social media a Human Rights Watch report alleging Israel was using starvation as a weapon of war in Gaza in response to the Hamas terror attacks on October 7.

Whatever one thinks of such reports, it’s legitimate for journalists to report their findings or post them on social media, especially given that the ABC’s own news and current affairs division reported the matter.

And yet within days, the ABC terminated Lattouf’s contract as a fill-in host and cited her social media post for her dismissal. According to the Federal Court yesterday, she was unlawfully sacked and, as a consequence, she was awarded $70,000 in compensation.

From the outset, there were two troubling aspects of the Lattouf case.

The first was the sheer hypocrisy. The ABC sacked Lattouf for a social media post about a topical news story, even though the same ABC has protected more high-profile staff reporters, who have posted far more offensive messages about less newsworthy events.

For example, an ‘investigative reporter’ named Louise Milligan used social media to give her opinions, which, in one case, defamed a federal Liberal MP. ABC management stood by her, poured resources into her legal defence and, after it lost the case, paid for the defamation damages Milligan had incurred.

The second troubling aspect of the Lattouf case was the failure to protect the independence and impartiality of the public broadcaster.

Simply put, ABC management was intimidated by an intense campaign to pressure the broadcaster into silencing the journalist. Not that there is anything wrong with lobby groups putting their complaints to management.

In this case, it was a pro-Israel group called Lawyers of Israel, which took issue with the Human Right Watch report. However, that was no excuse for management to bow to the lobby and sack the presenter.

There was a way out of this mess. The ABC could have just settled the case that cost them more than a million dollars in taxpayers’ money and 18 months of bad publicity. So much for the public broadcaster being a model litigant.

What now for the ABC? Ita Buttrose and David Anderson — the two chief culprits in the Lattouf affair — have since been replaced by Kim Williams as chairman and Hugh Marks as managing director.

The new duo appears to recognise that the ABC’s conduct did not reflect the values of the broadcaster. In a lecture on Wednesday, Williams passionately upheld the ABC’s ethic of objectivity.

Taxpayers can only hope this means the ABC will live up to its founding ethic of fairness and impartiality.

Tom Switzer is outgoing executive director of the Centre for Independent Studies and a former presenter at the ABC’s Radio National.

Photo courtesy of AAP.