ABC Head of News Justin Stevens addressed the Melbourne Press Club this week suppressing his natural inclination to work behind the scenes to speak to why access to public timely, accurate, trustworthy and impartial information is as critical as it has ever been.
Stevens reflected on pivotal moments of his personal and professional career, the importance of feedback, development and acknowledging mistakes and what he called a ‘crisis of trust in media’.
I want to talk today about the principles that drive ABC NEWS and the personal values that motivate me when I make decisions as its leader. It’s a responsibility I take seriously.
It comes down to two things.
One. We’re committed to public service in line with the ABC Charter. ABC News is about delivering Australians reliable information they want and need, when they want and need it, on the platforms and devices they choose.
And two. As technology and the world changes, ABC NEWS remains grounded in enduring journalistic values of integrity, impartiality and independence.
I’ve led ABC NEWS for more than two years now. I’ve spent more than 20 years in journalism before that.
I landed my first paid job in journalism at 19. I was the most junior staffer on Channel Nine’s Sunday program, working with then Executive Producer John Lyons, presenter Jana Wendt and a host of producers and reporters at the top of their game, including a talented video journalist named Sarah Ferguson.
My work has always been behind the scenes and to be honest I’m not naturally drawn to being in the spotlight. Those who do front our journalism have my enormous respect. But let me give a shoutout to all the producers and editors and camera operators and graphics artists and others out there whose work in the media isn’t always obvious to the public. The best journalism is way more often than not a team endeavour.
I joined the ABC in 2006 as the production assistant on The 7.30 Report. I then worked as Kerry O’Brien and then Leigh Sales’ producer on 7.30, and then moved to Four Corners and one-off programs, including the documentary series Keating: The Interviews and The Killing Season. I spent four years as Executive Producer of 7.30 until I moved to my current role in 2022.
In that first stint at The 7.30 Report, one of my tasks was logging voicemails to the program. That’s when I learned what “feedback” was all about. Once, the caller shared their view of the previous night’s interview by holding the receiver to a toilet and flushing.
Sometimes words just aren’t enough.
Working in the media comes with unrelenting pressure, but when I reflect on my career I gravitate to energising and fulfilling memories. Greeting Prime Minister John Howard or Opposition Leader Kim Beazley on a crisp Sunday morning at Channel Nine for a Laurie Oakes interview. Sitting in a hotel room while Kerry O’Brien interviewed West Wing creator Aaron Sorkin about his drug use — and an agitated publicist tried to stop him. Travelling through the Philippines with Peter Greste on assignment for Four Corners.
Or watching formidable interviewers such as Kerry and Leigh – who is in the room – or Sarah forensically research and refine their cross examinations.
The mindset I’ve had my entire career, from my start on the phones to where I am now as the Director of ABC News, has been to work overtime to enable others to do their jobs, to be the best team player I can and to not be an attention-seeker.
But today I’m swallowing my natural inclination to remain backstage because I want to do something that really matters to me, something I consider timely and necessary.
And that is to remind people — and make the best case I can — why what we do at ABC NEWS is so vital.
There’s never been a more important time for public broadcasting, in an age when the currency of truth, facts and integrity is being eroded. Our mission to deliver the public timely, accurate, trustworthy and impartial information is as critical as it has ever been.
At the ABC, this is not just a job. It is our perennial responsibility.
Against that backdrop, I’m going to explain to you what I’m doing to build on the legacy of ABC NEWS, staying true to our traditions while also equipping us for present and future challenges.
For most of the past 90 years, the ABC has been in a constant state of evolution – through forty years of radio through to television, and the dramatic changes since in enhancements of TV with satellites and mobile phones and the technology of film and video tape, the size and weight of cameras, through to creating ABC iview or commissioning new programs.
Change is not something we do for its own sake; the ABC has survived – and thrived – because at key moments in its history it has been bold about changing, to guarantee it can serve audiences in ways they expect and need.
I’m also going to share some snapshots of my personal history because it influences how I see the world and how I approach the principles and values that guide me as an editorial leader.
So, let’s start there. I grew up in Sydney. I went to a Catholic school with a strong Jesuit tradition. The key lesson from my upbringing was you take whatever opportunities you’ve been afforded, small or large, and use them to help others.
I’m the youngest of four children. My dad, now retired, was a doctor: the head of paediatric oncology at the Children’s Hospital, first at Camperdown, then Westmead. He spent all day, every day, and many nights and weekends too, treating children with cancer.
My mother, a nurse, worked tirelessly to keep the family ticking.
During the week, mum and dad would often attend events to raise money for the kids’ cancer ward to keep it functioning the way it should. In the 90s, they juggled their fundraising with local political lobbying to create the first children’s hospice in NSW, called Bear Cottage. To this day, it provides a vital service to our sickest children and their families.
My dad’s job meant that from a young age all of us Stevens kids had a clear sense of what a terrible hand life can deal some people.
I didn’t realise it at the time, of course, but the values I grew up with were the ideal principles for a career in journalism: an interest in other people and understanding it’s not all about you.
In a great trial for my own family, and a horrible coincidence, in 2018 my own son Harry was diagnosed with cancer when he was three. He relapsed in 2021 and completed his second two-year treatment late last year.
As well as saluting Harry’s strength, I’d like to pay a tribute to my wife Sarah and my daughter Matilda for their amazing resilience.
Harry now 9 is robust and funny and wise beyond his years.
I’m telling you this about Harry not to win your sympathy but because a little later in this speech, I want to return to Harry’s story to illustrate something fundamentally important of how our experience has taught me about journalism.
Now that you know a little bit about me, let me give you a very clear explanation of the kind of journalism I believe in and that we stand for at ABC NEWS.
We’re about giving Australians accurate, timely news that is reported with integrity, free from bias, proprietor influence, corporate pressure, commercial influence or government interference.
We aspire to fair and thorough reporting that allows audiences to make their own judgements about topics and issues that matter to them.
We pursue original journalism that exposes secrets and holds power to account.
And we deliver this high-quality news and current affairs to people on their preferred platforms, whether their TV set or through their ear pods.
Our central aim is always to give Australian information they can trust.
This is important because in Australia and around the world, there is a crisis of trust in media.
The ABC remains by far the most trusted media organisation in this country. 79 per cent of Australians aged 18-75 years say they trust or highly trust information from the ABC. That’s a mile ahead of everyone else.
But we never take that for granted. We need to vigorously protect that trust and work every single day to ensure we are worthy of it.
Everyone here knows there are big challenges and complex dynamics confronting journalism more broadly too:
- Audience fragmentation across proliferating channels and platforms.
- Polarisation and echo chambers, with some, hyper-partisan people increasingly only wanting reinforcement of their own opinions.
- The massive rise in social media as a source of news.
- One in four Australians now say social media is their main source of information.
- ABC NEWS recently passed the milestone of one million followers on its Instagram account.
- 9% use TikTok for news. In the US, a third of the people who get news on TikTok say that’s their only news.
All this means the public has access to more information than ever before.
But that ecosystem is being overrun by opinion, rumour, misinformation, disinformation, conspiracy theories, propaganda, clickbait and fakery.
While misinformation and disinformation proliferate on social media sites, the companies behind them change their algorithms to deprioritise legitimate news services – and threaten to kick them off at any time, as Facebook has with CBC, Canada’s public broadcaster.
If the same happened here, the third of Australians who use Facebook for news, the 16% turning to Instagram, the 10% who use Facebook Messenger and the 9% who use WhatsApp could be deprived of ABC content.
The rise of generative AI technology will see the proliferation of deep fakes and bad faith actors, diminishing trust even further.
People will increasingly not know what or who to believe, so we need a robust media sector at the top of its collective game.
The trust issue is being exacerbated by political polarisation in Western societies.
The 2023 Edelman Trust Barometer found almost half of Australians believe the nation is more divided today than in the past. Major dividing forces were identified as being “the rich and powerful” at 72%, hostile foreign governments at 69% and journalists at 51%.
Just think about that last statistic for a moment: Half those surveyed think that JOURNALISTS are responsible for this high level of division.
Simultaneously, we’re seeing an increasingly toxic media environment where media businesses attack each other – eroding public perception of all news and journalism.
The ABC is a frequent target.
Of course, the ABC should be scrutinised and held to account – just as we scrutinise and hold others to account.
Media companies are no more immune to this than anyone else. But we carry a heavy responsibility to have all the checks and balances in place.
At the ABC, we have to be accountable, prepared to listen to good faith criticism and open to improvement.
The ABC is by far the most transparent media organisation in the country, with an extensive complaints system, and an Ombudsman who independently investigates editorial complaints and publicly reports the findings.
Mistakes are certainly made. Missteps sometimes happen. And we must admit when we can do better.
During our coverage of the tragic stabbings at Bondi Junction we briefly broadcast unblurred images of one of the victims which should have been blurred. It was a human error. We were, frankly, devastated it got to air.
Just last week it was brought to our attention by Channel Seven that a video clip in an online story from two years ago had an error. A preliminary inspection suggests a section of audio was incorrectly edited.
We removed the video and are still looking into how this happened. Once we have the full facts we will determine the appropriate response.
Until we have clarity on how it occurred, I won’t be making further comments about it, so as to not pre-empt that.
It should never be used as an excuse – but it should be remembered that ABC NEWS is a team of more than 2000 human beings producing a massive amount of live and scheduled TV and radio, continuous news coverage, vertical video and online content every day.
Often at speed and under pressure. But I cannot think of a news organisation in this country whose staff engages more consistently in the pursuit of excellence and in the pursuit of accurate responsible journalism.
Between January and June this year the ABC Ombudsman received almost 2000 complaints and investigated about 240, with 27 upheld.
You can see our mistakes for yourself because they are publicly published on the Corrections & Clarifications page, and editorial breaches in findings and regular reports by the ABC Ombudsman.
We expect scrutiny on the ABC to be rigorous and thorough and I don’t shy from that when it’s warranted.
But sometimes what’s called “scrutiny” is really an agenda-driven attack motivated by ideological, personal or commercial interests, often directed at specific journalists with the goal of denting their reputations.
This trend across social media and from some media outlets – and let’s be honest and call it what it often is: bullying – is about more than just the ABC. Spurious attacks on SOME journalists can potentially erode the reputation of ALL journalists. And that feeds the public’s crisis of trust.
This is why the scale of unfair attacks on ABC journalists, whether by social media trolls, commentators or our media competitors, should be called out.
Disturbingly, we disproportionately see women, First Nations and culturally diverse journalists being targeted.
It isn’t just confined to those reporters, though.
Activists on X, for example, rarely go a day without piling on the ABC’s respected National Political Lead and Insiders host David Speers. David’s track record and work over decades is exemplary. Make no mistake: he’s a target of this vicious pile-on because a noisy cohort don’t want an impartial journalist in a role like his. They want somebody who barracks for their side. David has the ABC’s full support and respect.
These kinds of attacks – whether on social or mainstream media – should bother those of us who value the incredible contribution made by Australian journalists and good journalism wherever it happens.
Underpinning the ABC’s trust are our editorial standards. Our staff are rightly held to the highest standards because they work for the Australian taxpayer.
Crucially, those standards are not there to stifle us – they don’t stop us from being brave and doing agenda-setting, challenging, interesting journalism.
But make no mistake, part of my job description as Director of News is upholding and enforcing our high standards.
That can be personally very rewarding. When I’m reviewing high-profile stories that have made a huge impact, I’m often impressed by the professionalism of ABC journalists with their thorough marshalling of evidence and fact, and their commitment to fairness.
Sometimes it’s harder, when my editorial decisions attract criticism – whether it’s because I’ve put the brakes on a story to ask journalists to go back and do more reporting, whether it’s defending something that’s gone to air and ruffled feathers, or whether it’s acknowledging we made a mistake.
My job is not to be liked all the time by everybody, it’s to work for the public and to uphold the reputation of ABC NEWS so that we remain the best and most trusted media organisation in the country.
The standard of journalistic impartiality remains unchanged at the ABC, and it is this: Every person who signs up to work as a journalist for ABC NEWS, and who receives the privilege of the public trust that comes from working under that respected and hard-won banner, accepts a responsibility in return – to strive at all times for accuracy, objectivity and fairness.
Impartiality isn’t a choice at the ABC. It’s enshrined in the ABC Act, which calls on us to adhere to the recognised standards of “objective journalism”.
The concept of “objective journalism” takes account that everyone has different values, biases and perspectives.
But objectivity means we set aside those views and rigorously test information with evidence-based, open-minded and fair journalism.
It isn’t an easy discipline, but it is essential for those who choose to work at the ABC.
At times, the discussion about impartiality is misunderstood and oversimplified. Impartiality does not mean journalists don’t have feelings or opinions. Being human, of course they do. In fact, humanity is a grace note of the finest journalism.
In fact, more journalists should put themselves in other people’s shoes and think about issues from different perspectives. By doing so, we are more likely to consider all relevant perspectives and achieve impartiality.
It isn’t only ABC audiences who have the right to expect impartiality. Any credible media organisation should ensure their journalism is accurate and fair, and they should have training and processes in place to support that.
Just as importantly, we don’t ask journalists to seek false balance – to fall into reductive “both sides” reporting. In ABC content, we expect to see a diversity of perspectives where there is genuinely unresolved debate.
There should be a range of opinions and conflicting views with no significant strand of thought under-represented. All information should be fact-based and verified. We should present the fullest range of facts we can muster, even if sometimes those facts may paint a picture in shades of grey, rather than black and white.
We don’t go soft in political interviews because we may happen to personally agree with the views of the guest.
I can’t imagine a Patricia Karvelas or a Michael Rowland ever going easy on anybody.
The best political interviewers have their reputations because they hold all comers equally accountable. The audience is unable to discern any agenda for an interview other than getting to the bottom of matters.
We reject suggestions that we shouldn’t “platform” people with particular political views. We don’t “platform” people, we report on them – interview them, challenge them, scrutinise them. Again, so the public can make up their own minds.
We don’t aim to appease any side or audience segment. We reject any approach that selects and censors who we can report on, on the basis of an approved ideology.
Because who does the approving? It’s a slippery slope.
This is nothing new, of course. It is a proven approach. It has made quality journalism a central part of successful democracies around the world. It is how we recognise and celebrate great journalism and journalists.
It is the absolute key to why the ABC is trusted.
All of that says to me that THIS is the time for ABC NEWS to recommit and lean in further to the core values in which we believe: accuracy, fairness, quality, impartiality, integrity, independence. And underpinning these values is teamwork and respect.
These guiding principles are not an arbitrary philosophy exclusively for an elite group and nor do I buy the argument that younger generations of journalists are incapable of adhering to it.
It is a tested and consistent framework to ensure journalists serve the interests of the audience, and not their own agendas, in all their work.
These principles will keep us relevant and essential for the public in these complex and confusing times.
We also need to make sure we are meeting Australians on all the different platforms where they consume news.
Over the past year, the ABC’s digital reach has for the first time overtaken our broadcast reach. We aren’t a linear broadcaster striving to be digital, we are a digital news provider.
And this is happening worldwide. UK broadcast regulator Ofcom reported last week that online has for the first time overtaken TV in its annual survey of the UK’s news habits. 71% of the population said they used online services for news versus 70% watching TV news bulletins. For people aged between 16 and 24, the number saying they use social media for news was 82%.
In the US, this year for the first time advertisers are projected to spend more on digital video platforms than on television.
At the ABC, digital innovation isn’t new for us – it’s the norm and we’ve been doing it for decades. Our website started almost 30 years ago. ABC iview was Australia’s first broadcast on-demand streaming service when it launched 16 years ago.
The ABC Charter was amended with bipartisan agreement in 2013 to specifically include the obligation “to provide digital media services”.
When we talk about digital, we’re really talking about delivering our quality journalism to the audience in the ways they want.
Digital also doesn’t mean “young people”. All ages are digital now. One-third of baby boomers report engaging with news on social media.
Think about your own habits. Do you stream a scheduled program live or listen to podcasts, catch up on a show later, scroll through the news headlines on your phone, watch a video on the bus? Do you like having the option to do any or all of that?
ABC NEWS is not and will never abandon our loyal broadcast audiences who watch our free to air programs and listen to us on radio.
But nor we will ignore the reality that more and more people of all ages want to be able to choose when and where they consume our content.
Ensuring we deliver all audiences the ABC’s best journalism, wherever and however they want it, is one of my top tasks.
Let me tell you some of what we’ve been doing on my watch to cement our position as the nation’s most-trusted news organisation, and to ensure we’re future-proofing ABC NEWS.
Recently we’ve redesigned the ABC NEWS website to make it a more consistent, attractive, functional experience across all platforms. In July this year more than 12.7 million Australians came to the ABC via our website and app. That’s almost 60 per cent of the Australian population aged over 14.
You’ll note our website and TV news have the same look and feel now. We’ve brought back the old ABC news theme. It highlights the fact that all of our news, be it video, audio or written, is part of the same whole.
On the editorial front, we’re keeping up our scrutiny of State Governments by bringing Stateline back, this time in a digital-first format, and in coming months you’ll see more in this space.
I’m delighted to be able to announce today that we are forming an investigative reporting team within our state-based reporting teams.
This will comprise journalists from metro and regional teams overseen by a lead. The team would work with Investigative teams in other areas – the Investigative Reporting Team, the Regional Investigative team and specialist reporters in their locations to collaborate on investigations.
This team’s remit is to break, value-add and elevate stories about state governance, probity and accountability at a state and local level.
This will build on the ABC’s tremendous legacy of investigative journalism, embodied by the fearless, forensic Four Corners, which after 63 years on air still leads the pack and has grown its audience across broadcast and ABC iview over the past two years.
We’re helping to fill a civics education gap by expanding our well-respected Behind The News program from primary to high school students with BTN High.
We’ve created new digital roles, particularly in current affairs and at Canberra Parliament House. We’ve had to take tough decisions about ending some roles and rejigging others.
We’ve set up new stand-alone teams within our budget, including the Indigenous Affairs Reporting Team, the Climate Team and ABC NEWS Verify.
Structurally, we’ve combined our regional division and metro news teams to give regional issues a stronger voice and elevate to elevate those stories to national audiences.
Regional radio now sits within ABC NEWS and an estimated 1.4 million Australians listen to ABC Local Radio every week.
We’re also the home of ABC Rural and again we’re ensuring those stories reach all Australians on the web and app and in collaborations with Landline – while preserving the nearly 80-year tradition of the Country Hour across Australia every lunchtime.
One of the most fulfilling parts of my job has been travelling to the four corners of our country to visit many of our awesome regional bureaux – an unparalleled presence.
Those teams have a clear focus on serving their local communities with information they need and connecting the dots across our nation on issues such as education and healthcare.
The Emergency Broadcasting team now also lives in ABC NEWS and is Australia’s number one source of factual and reliable information in emergencies. Already since July 1 we’ve activated for 60 emergency events, which are defined as events which threaten people’s lives and/or property.
We’re resourcing our major bureaus as regional hubs to enhance our coverage across Asia, the Americas, Europe and the Middle East. And under the Pacific Local Journalism Network we’ve placed additional correspondents in six Pacific countries.
When people turn to the ABC, we want them to find news that is meaningful to them: whether that is international or national, local and regional.
ABC audiences demand to be informed, but they also want to be entertained, moved and intellectually stretched.
We offer stories that provide novelty, delight, intrigue and food for thought and that give people information relevant to all parts of their lives.
People’s interests aren’t binary or predictable – they can range from hard-edged politics and business news right through to health or entertainment stories.
Every newsroom in the world has always debated what issues should lead the news day to day. It’s incumbent on the ABC to provide a broad range of content to connect with as many Australians as possible. But we must always make it clear that our top news priority, amidst all the different things people care about, are stories that are significant.
We believe there’s a place for all sorts of news, hard and soft, breaking and features, worthy and ephemeral, but news of local, national and international significance is what the ABC chooses to lead with, regardless of platform.
I mentioned my son Harry earlier and said I would return to him because our experience as a family has taught me many things. One of them has strongly reaffirmed my view about the importance of diversity in newsrooms.
Even though through my father I had been somewhat exposed to the experiences of people dealing with childhood cancer, when my own family personally started down that road, I realised that I knew nothing about the LIVED experience of being a person with cancer or being the carer of a person with cancer.
Hospital rooms and specialists and horrible tests and painful treatments, and permanent sick bags in the car, and the constant nagging fear of never knowing what was coming next.
As we went through this awful experience, I fortunately had all these journalistic skills I could draw on to find out information. And also, I know, a lot of social privilege.
But I met so many other parents of children in adjoining beds who didn’t have that. Who didn’t have a workplace from which they could take paid carer’s leave. Who didn’t speak English as a first language or have a skill-set that involved trawling through medical papers looking for data and options.
I had a more vivid sense of how hard it is to hold down a job when you have a sick family member. I noticed how crippling parking and tolls and petrol costs become when you drive to hospital multiple times a week. I noticed what schools can and can’t do to support your child when they’re missing weeks upon weeks due to illness.
I got a better sense of how for some people the NDIS is absolutely life-changing but how hard it can be to navigate your way onto it. I was reminded of how our health system is primarily focused on the immediacy of treating physical illness while neglecting the broader and hidden impact of mental health on individuals and their loved ones.
Things I had never had to give much thought to before suddenly struck me as stories: such as the gap between what Medicare covers and what medical care actually costs you when you’re sick.
Of course, I knew about the gap. But I saw and felt the true scale of it with fresh eyes.
And I saw first-hand the full impact of it and the harder choices it created for people less fortunate than me.
My personal experience strengthened a view I’ve held for a long time about why diversity is newsrooms is important. It’s not so we look diverse or so we can, in that cynical term people sometimes use, “tick diversity boxes”.
It’s because having staff with a broad range of life experiences allows us to see stories and become connected with communities which are otherwise invisible to us.
That’s why in ABC newsrooms we want people from every background in all of our teams – people with disabilities, people from different cultural backgrounds, Indigenous people, people who live in regional Australia, people of all differing religions, people of all socio-economic backgrounds.
We need the widest range of people we can get so we can cover as many of our blind spots as possible. That’s what diversity means to me and it’s why I think in journalism it’s essential.
As journalists, we are relentlessly curious and seek out evidence and people with experiences well beyond our own. But by also working with colleagues who are, genuinely, from all walks of life, we’re so much better placed to deliver information the community needs, by knowing our communities intimately.
Our lived experience informs our journalism, and our standards around objectivity, impartiality, accuracy and independence guide how we approach and produce it.
My life experience as person with firsthand involvement in the hospital system doesn’t give me the right to use my privileged position as an ABC journalist to become an advocate or activist on issues in the news, such as the sustainability of private health insurance or what drugs land on the PBS.
All it gives me is an enhanced awareness that those things are important issues for many people and that there are a range of views.
It gives me ideas for stories, not motivation to share my own opinions.
It opens my eyes and ears.
Do we at the ABC always get it right? As I’ve stated directly, of course not. Good journalists will occasionally make mistakes / misjudgements, especially because so often they are working at speed, or live and on the fly.
While the ABC is not permanently in “crisis”, a lazy narrative you may sometimes read, I’m not saying it doesn’t have its moments.
It’s a big, varied, vigorous organisation, full of talented and driven individuals, doing a lot of things at once and often very quickly.
I’m damn proud of what we do at ABC NEWS and I will defend it every single day.
It’s not my job to win friends, to appease critics, to keep politicians or business leaders happy – or even to keep every single ABC staff member happy all the time.
It’s my job to protect my organisation’s great legacy – and indeed to build on it – to ensure we are match fit for our present and future challenges.
I am proud to be an ABC journalist, I am proud to serve the public and I will stand for integrity and impartiality in journalism while I have the privilege of leading ABC News.
Thank you to our loyal audiences – and welcome to those who are just discovering us. We hope we will be of value to you. Thank you to all Australians for your faith in us. You have my assurance that under my leadership, we will continue to do our best to deliver news that deserves your trust.
Melbourne Press Club photos: Emily Kulich