STANDING in front of senior journalists and program makers and challenging them about "groupthink" and uncritical reporting is, at best of times, a dangerous thing to do. At the national broadcaster, and using the climate change debate as an example, it was bound to be incendiary.

On Wednesday morning, chairman Maurice Newman opened the ABC's annual leaders conference - attended by about 250 senior program makers, journalists and executives at its Ultimo headquarters in Sydney - to deliver an unprecedented address. It was a barely disguised attack on his perception of journalistic culture at the ABC.

"I would like you to think about how we might encourage, in our internal debates, more open minds and diverse opinions," Newman told employees.

"How might we ensure that in our newsrooms we celebrate those who interrogate every truth, both convenient and inconvenient; create an atmosphere in which one can hold a view that runs contrary to prevailing wisdom without fear of ridicule from those with whom we work.

"This is part of the journalistic culture we simply must get right if we are to continue to be trusted by all Australians."

At a time when the ABC is using new technology to push the boundaries of its original charter and has displayed an entrepreneurial zeal under managing director Mark Scott, Newman has set off an internal political battle Scott has so far skilfully avoided.

Scott has been forced to defend his journalists. A brief statement read by Tony Jones on ABC1's Lateline on Wednesday said: "Tonight, ABC management responded to Mr Newman's speech, saying it stands by the integrity of its journalists and its processes."

To the surprise of many present at Wednesday's speech, Newman, a Howard government appointee, spent some time outlining the case that many climate change sceptics have been making about the ABC: that there is a bias towards climate change alarmists and anyone questioning the science tends to be "labelled and mocked".

"This collective censorious approach succeeded in suppressing contrary views in the mainstream media, despite that fact that growing number of distinguished scientists were challenging the conventional wisdom with alternative theories and peer-reviewed research," Newman said.

He cited the BBC's reporting, highlighting that the BBC Trust was carrying out a review of the accuracy and impartiality of the British broadcaster's coverage of science amid allegations the BBC had sat on the climategate emails from the University of East Anglia for a month. "While disturbing," he said of the controversy, "it is heartening to know that the BBC takes quality control seriously."

The clear implication is that Newman would like the ABC to do something similar. It is a not-so-veiled suggestion that editorial director Paul Chadwick, installed in 2006 under Scott and Newman, should ensure editorial balance.

The responses to Newman's speech have been predictable. Some see it as management interference in the ABC editorial processes, others as a case of Newman expressing some hard truths.

Perhaps not surprisingly, first to express outrage was Jonathan Holmes, the presenter of ABC1's Media Watch.

After Newman spoke, Scott followed with his own speech but, according to those present, did not directly address the chairman's comments. He then opened the forum for questions in which Holmes rose to his feet and, according to those present, said: "It was an excellent speech, Mark, but I found it difficult to concentrate because I'm so angry about what the chairman just said", or words to that effect.

Holmes's view is that it was an inappropriate forum for the remarks. An ABC spokesman says it was an internal discussion, though a speech to 250 people at the ABC was unlikely to remain internal for long and Newman reiterated his remarks in a lengthy interview on ABC radio's PM that night.

The Friends of the ABC says Newman's criticism of the coverage of global warming was "extraordinary and inappropriate".

Spokesperson Glenys Stradijot says Newman "is entitled to his personal views on controversial matters. But his expression of them while he remains head of the ABC damages public confidence in the national broadcaster's independence". She goes on: "Just as worrying, Mr Newman's comments look to be an attempt to influence ABC programming to be more favourable to global warming scepticism."

But others wonder if this argument holds, as the ABC board, as a taxpayer-funded entity, is responsible under the Australian Broadcasting Corporation Act to "ensure that the gathering and presentation by the corporation of news and information is accurate and impartial according to the recognised standards of objective journalism".

The ABC has been under heavy fire in the past few months for its reporting on climate change, partly with reference to the climategate emails, and as public opinion shifts on the issue, particularly after the failure of the Copenhagen climate summit.

In an editorial in the Australian edition of The Spectator, Tom Switzer, a former opinion editor of The Australian, writes that ABC "journalists, with honourable exceptions (such as Chris Uhlmann), actively campaign for an alarmist cause the public no longer buys".

"Around the world, media outlets both public (including even the BBC) and private (including even The Guardian) are doing real investigative work into the science and the scientists at a time when the political climate is changing dramatically. It is an embarrassment that `our' ABC is stuck so resolutely in the past."

For climate change agnostics or sceptics, Newman's speech is long overdue. Self-proclaimed agnostic Bob Carter, a geologist and environmental scientist with James Cook University in Queensland, says the ABC refused to publish an article on its The Drum website, despite initially requesting it. This followed a series of articles by well known climate change advocate Clive Hamilton on the website.

Carter says he was asked to contribute after what he says were complaints to the ABC for not publishing alternative views.

"They wrote to several so-called climate sceptics seeking to commission a series of five articles expressing a different point of view on climate change for publication the week after Hamilton's were run," he says.

"The Drum, after advertising that these five articles would appear, subsequently chose to publish only three - by Alan Moran, Joanne Nova and Tom Switzer - and declined to publish the invited articles by me and Sydney geologist Marc Hendrickx."

Carter says the ABC emailed him saying the reason for declining the article, which was critical of visiting US climate scientist Jim Hansen, was that: "The Hanson [sic] theme feels that it's been overtaken by the interview with him that Fran Kelly did on RN [Radio National] this morning".

Carter's article was subsequently published on the conservative website Quadrant Online.

Newman cited the British newspaper The Guardian in his speech on Wednesday, saying: "The moment climatology is sheltered from dispute, its force begins to wane. Which raises an important question for a media organisation. Who, if anyone, decides what to shelter from dispute? And when? Should there be a view that the ABC was sheltering particular beliefs from scrutiny, or failing to question a consensus, I would consider it to be a dangerous perception that could lead to the public's trust in us being undermined . . .

"We can see that history has at times proven not to be on the side of conventional wisdom or the consensus view, but on the side of those who dissented from them. More significantly, we see too how media have failed us by not being rigorous and questioning enough, resulting in many misrepresentations taking too long to be discovered. We have seen so often the time of greatest certainty is, in fact, the time to be most sceptical.

"If we spent more time on biopsies in journalism, as [US-based blogging journalist] Arianna Huffington has suggested, there would be far fewer autopsies."

What's clear is Newman has shifted the debate back on to the ABC, just when its managing director found himself in a sweet spot, looking to expand and take advantage of the commercial pressures his competitors (as he calls them) find themselves under as they struggle to compete amid declining advertising dollars and rapid technological shifts.

Last October, Scott spoke on the subject of "The fall of Rome", an examination of what he saw as the age of declining media empires. "When you have been so powerful and dominant for so long, it is hard to believe that empire is slipping away." he said, in a speech that also focused heavily on Rupert Murdoch, chairman and chief executive of News Corporation (publisher of The Australian). But on Wednesday, Newman, a friend of John Howard, reminded Scott of the dangers of hubris.

"The ABC has never been more popular, never stronger. Never has more attention been paid to the ABC by both the public and our competitors," he said.

"I think that now, when the corporation is at its strongest, is an ideal time to take a look at ourselves. Not when our critics choose to.

"To question ourselves about how well we are meeting the ABC's high standards. Just as we ask hard questions of others, we need to ask ourselves: how we might better fulfil and honour the contract we have with the Australian people."

Pointedly, while noting Murdoch had been a critic of public broadcasting, at the end of his speech Newman quoted Murdoch to emphasise his argument that the ABC should not underestimate its audience, saying he was struck how Murdoch pointed to an American study that reported many editors and reporters do not trust their readers to make decisions. "This is a polite way of saying these editors and reporters think their readers are too stupid to think for themselves," Newman quoted Murdoch as saying.

The media industry's destiny then lay within the organisations themselves, he said: "In the culture and ethical constructs of each organisation, not in the latest technological innovation."

This is an alternative view to Scott's speech and in that sense Newman is leading by example, as now the ABC has a debate and a very public difference of opinion between the chairman and the managing director.

 

Here is the editorial about this issue in the same edition of The Australian

Open issues need open debate

ABC chairman Maurice Newman struck a blow for good journalism when he told staff to avoid "group-think" in covering climate change, even if it did bring Media Watch presenter Jonathan Holmes to his feet in anger.

On questions as complex as climate change, news organisations, whatever their editorial positions, fail the public if they become censors, suppressing information and argument. For the record, The Australian has long accepted the probability of anthropogenic climate change and favoured the introduction of an emissions trading scheme. But reputable scientists and stakeholders deserve their say, regardless of whether they subscribe to a newspaper's editorial line. This is why we have published views as diverse as those of geologist Ian Plimer and former executive director of Greenpeace International, Paul Gilding.

Yesterday, for example, as an opinion writer in a financial tabloid claimed erroneously that The Australian campaigned against science, the lead author on our commentary page was none other than James Hansen, director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, who is known to some as the "father of climate change". The prominent publication of Hansen's views was consistent with The Australian's policy of encouraging vigorous and informed debate. The only bias should be towards intelligent discussion. Such plurality, however, grates on the totalitarian mindset of some green activists.

Climate change is a new, inexact and contestable science, and the computer modelling on which all of the more alarming claims depend are only ever as good as the data fed in. As well as greenhouse emissions, that data should take account of other determinants of temperature, primarily the sun and the heat of the earth's core. Current predictions for sea-level rises range from a few centimetres to catastrophic levels of several metres that would swamp coastal areas. Faced with such variations, it would be negligent not to examine first-hand observations, even when they contradict the results churned out by laboratory computers.

For centuries, vital scientific discoveries began with observation. So we make no apologies for reporting that the Great Barrier Reef is defying predictions and showing minimal signs of bleaching or that surfers who have frequented the same beaches for 50 years have found no increases in sea levels, apart from temporary erosion. As the chairman of the ABC recognises, the key to covering a contentious issue is balance. Listeners and viewers should be extended the courtesy of being allowed to make up their own minds.