Critical to-and-fro between ABC and News Corp not ‘a bad thing’: News Corp boss

The boss of News Corp’s Australian operation, Michael Miller, has downplayed friction between his company’s commentators and staff at the ABC, who he said all do a “good job” of serving their audiences.

He was speaking on Sean Aylmer’s Fear & Greed podcast released on Monday, in response to questions about whether media companies are as political as readers think they are.

“I don’t know that our audiences see us as being as political as both media commentators and political commentators like to amplify,” Miller said, adding that News Corp and its major competitors at Nine and the ABC each reach a broad spectrum of readers through various brands.

“And so I don’t think it’s a bad thing that on any particular day, you’ve got a small handful of people at the ABC questioning News, and a small handful at News questioning the ABC. But in the majority, I think both organisations are doing a good job at serving their broader constituents.”

In late May, Miller defended how News Corp reported on the ABC’s coronation coverage, which drew broad criticism for its undue focus on Q+A host Stan Grant, who later cited a barrage of media criticism that “distorted” his words and drummed up racist social media commentary as reasons for taking extended leave from the broadcaster.

In the aftermath, ABC News boss Justin Stevens accused News Corp of targeting Grant and the ABC because it posed a threat to the publisher’s business model. “I regret not doing this sort of interview 10 days ago,” Stevens told ABC Melbourne’s Raf Epstein in a radio interview.

“The ABC needs to stop passing the buck and blaming others for its own internal problems,” Miller told The Australian the following day.

Tensions flared again late last month after the ABC announced it would cut some 120 jobs as a result of the largest restructure at the broadcaster in more than five years.

The ABC considered filing a formal complaint with the Australian Press Council over media reports in The Australian that cited anonymous quotes suggesting the broadcaster’s diversity efforts had compromised its news coverage, after political editor Andrew Probyn was made redundant.

In the Fear & Greed interview, Miller maintained most of the conflict has been overplayed by smaller publishers that don’t have “big audiences” but position themselves as “being alternatives” to the “mass broadcasters” and the “mass trusted media”.

“And I think that’s where the debate has kind of been amplified in recent years. I won’t name them, but [there are] those smaller publishers that are trying to carve a niche through positioning their bigger competitors against themselves.

“I understand the business model; I don’t particularly get enamoured by it, but it’s good that Australians have choice.”