Photo: Antoinette Lattouf (CC BY-SA 2.0)

Peter Marks and Gael Jennings, ABC Alumni Board members, have a good look at the new guidelines and question whether they stack up against international media.

One of the first acts of new managing director Hugh Marks when he joined the ABC in March was to hose down the blazing inferno which was the Antoinette Lattouf imbroglio.

Lattouf, who was sacked in December 2023 over a social media post while casually employed as a radio host, brought an unlawful termination case against the ABC. While it played out in the Federal Court, Marks apologised to ABC audiences and staff, and behind the scenes commissioned his Editorial Director Gavin Fang to create new, stricter guidelines which encompassed the public comments of its workers, not just their use of personal social media.

The ABC lost the unlawful termination case on June 29 this year and the new Public Comment Guidelines were published on August 20 (read ABC Alumni director Johnathan Holmes excellent analysis).

So, will the new guidelines better protect the ABC from a repeat of the Lattouf disaster?

We compared the ABC’s new Public Comment Guidelines with the social media guidelines of the BBC, CNN and The New York Times.

All four organisations share the core tenet that employees must act as if anything they say publicly could be attributed to that media organisation in the public’s mind, and as such, should not undermine editorial credibility, public trust, independence and integrity. They all prohibit employees from expressing partisan political opinions, endorsing candidates, or making statements that could harm their organisation's reputation for impartiality.

All four consider all social media activity by their employees to be covered by the guidelines and that no personal social media is separate from the employees role; “everything posted or ‘like(d)’ online is to some degree public” (New York Times). Each emphasises that disclaimers like “these views are entirely my own" provide no real protection. Private and “secret” groups on Facebook and other platforms that may have a partisan orientation hold no protection either.

The organisations also share common practical rules: don't break news on personal accounts before official channels, respect workplace confidentiality, treat others with civility, and be transparent about corrections or deletions.

The BBC creates detailed tiers based on role type, with strictest rules for news/current affairs staff and senior leaders, while exempting actors, comedians, and musicians. Similarly, the ABC policy specifies workers whose public comments carry the highest risk of undermining the independence and integrity of ABC content, to include journalists, producers, news editors and senior leadership. CNN and NYT focus primarily on newsroom staff, with less detailed role differentiation.

The ABC's guidelines are the broadest, applying to all workers during their entire engagement with the organisation.

All four reflect the challenging balance which modern news organisations must strike between allowing employees personal expression and protecting institutional credibility, in an era where individual social media presence can quickly become organisational liability.

An organisational liability … or a massively expensive unlawful termination case? 

For whilst the Lattouf affair was in part because it wasn’t clear to employees or managers what a worker could actually post on their personal social media accounts, much of the disaster that unfolded during the trial and judgement was how it was managed by the ABC.

Justice Rangiah of the Federal Court, who found that Lattouf was unlawfully terminated, stated in his judgement that there was an “orchestrated campaign by pro-Israel lobbyists to have Ms Lattouf taken off air” (Landers and Young), and that this pressure led to ABC management failing her.

He stated that “when senior managers at the ABC became aware of Lattouf’s Human Rights Watch post titled ‘The Israeli Government is using starvation as a weapon of war in Gaza’ ... ‘the consternation of senior managers of the ABC turned into what can be described as a state of panic’ and within one hour of becoming aware of this post, the ABC decided to take Ms Lattouf off air.”

Justice Rangier also held that the ABC breached clause 55.2 of the Enterprise Agreement by failing to inform Ms Lattouf of the content of an allegation and to provide her with a reasonable opportunity to respond before a decision was made as to whether the allegation is substantiated. (Landers and Young).

The prevention of catastrophes like this require both clear public comment guidelines for employees, and clear guidelines, policies and processes for managers and senior executives, to support media workers against pressure groups and enable them to do their jobs.

Hugh Marks is adamant that he sees the problems within ABC culture and that the existing policies for management of staff, complaints and allegations will provide support which complements the new guidelines. Nonetheless, it is interesting to note the difference in tone between his new Public Comment Guidelines and those of The New York Times.

The NYT guidelines come from consultation with employees and use present tense. They speak to their employees as a valued part of their organisation. They give very specific advice directly to their workers.

In contrast, the ABC’s guidelines do not state that they are consultative, and are more directive- they focus on the ABC’s rights and the need for employees to behave correctly. In return, the employees union, the Media Arts and Entertainment Alliance says “The ABC’s new public comment policy doubles down on the punitive approach the national broadcaster has taken for some time towards its staff, and appears to be a mechanism to further entrench insecurity within the workforce.” (The Guardian)

 ABC Alumni has a watching and hopeful brief on how the ABC and its valuable employees go forward from here. The practical test will be at the first alleged breach of the guidelines.