The public response to the axing of The Religion Report and other specialist programs late last year by ABC Radio National management was astonishing. Thousands of people came out to support the programs, particularly The Religion Report.
The response of the ABC was abysmal. As Dr Peter Pockley, founding head of the ABC Science Unit said in a letter to the Financial Review, 'ABC managers have failed to engage in public debate with their critics. Apart from some anodyne form letters which did not address the substantial issues, there has been no public response justifying the changes. The letters do not cite any ... evidence substantiating the axings. Managers have opted to bunker down.'
I wrote personally to the prime minister and seven weeks later received a letter from the Department of Communications. Every paragraph began 'I am advised that ...'.
The problem was that much of the 'advice' was wrong. I know because as former Specialist Editor of Religion I know the history thoroughly. The problem is that Mark Scott, managing director of the ABC, knows none of it. Originally a Fairfax manager, Scott has no experience in the electronic media, is besotted with technology and has little or no editorial and content experience.
It is time to tell the whole story because what has happened to The Religion Report is the tip of the iceberg and is part of a much larger picture. The real issue is about the future of a viable specialist unit covering religion in ABC radio. TV is another story.
This all goes back to the 1980s. Since then the religion unit has faced a war of attrition from secularist elements who see belief as a purely private affair with no part in public discourse. These elements came mainly but not entirely from within the ABC itself. The unit has survived and maintained its independence with support from the churches and religious communities.
In the early 1980s religious TV and radio were split. With the establishment of Radio National in 1985, the radio religion unit was placed under the management umbrella of Radio National, but was commissioned to produce programs for other networks. This arrangement was described at the time as merely a matter of administrative efficiency. The religion unit maintained its own distinct identity, editorial control and budget resources.
When changes to religious output on both Radio National and other