There was pressure from “higher up” in the ABC to sack Antoinette Lattouf from the very first day she was on air, Lattouf’s line manager has told the federal court.
Elizabeth Green, the ABC manager who had approached Lattouf for the temporary hosting role, told the court she had “tried to stop them” from firing Lattouf but that “there was pressure coming from higher up”.
Even before Lattouf made the social media post that ABC managers say was the catalyst for her dismissal, Green said that “there was pressure from the Monday to get rid of Ms Lattouf”.
A casual broadcaster, Lattouf was dismissed from hosting ABC Radio’s Sydney Mornings program in December 2023, after a coordinated campaign of complaints about her being on air, because of her views on the Israel-Gaza conflict.
Lattouf has brought an unlawful termination case before the federal court, which has seen a succession of ABC senior managers called to give evidence, and revealed the corporation’s internal debate about Lattouf’s “managed exit” and its institutional reputation “damage control”.
Ostensibly, Lattouf was dismissed for a single post on social media, allegedly in breach of a direction from her managers – which she disputes – but the court heard Wednesday the pressure to take her off-air preceded her post.
Lattouf began hosting the Sydney Mornings radio program on Monday 18 December 2023.
On Tuesday 19 December she reposted a post on Instagram from Human Rights Watch which reported the Israeli military was using starvation as a weapon of war in Gaza. Independently, the ABC also reported on the HRW finding.
After the program aired on Wednesday 20 December, Lattouf was told she would not be hosting the final two mornings of her contract and told to leave the ABC. She had not discussed the war in Gaza during any of her three programs.
An affidavit from Chris Oliver-Taylor, the chief content manager of the ABC, said: “Ms Lattouf had not complied with an instruction or direction not to post anything during the week in which she was engaged with the ABC that would suggest that she was not impartial in relation to the Israel-Gaza war.”
But Elizabeth Green, Lattouf’s line manager and then ABC Radio Sydney’s content director, said there was pressure from Lattouf’s first day on air for her to be removed.
Green told the court she saw Lattouf in a state of distress after she was sacked and told her she “had tried to stop them”. She said she was sorry Lattouf had been dismissed.
In a conversation the pair had in a board room, Green told Lattouf there was “pressure coming from higher up”.
“I said there was pressure for her to be removed from the Monday. I believed it was coming from higher up. I understood it had been referred up,” Green told the court.
“There was pressure from the Monday to get rid of Ms Lattouf.”
Oliver-Taylor’s affidavit stated that he believed Lattouf had been instructed not to post on social media for the duration of her contract to present on-air for the ABC.
But both Green and Lattouf say, in their discussion, it was agreed Lattouf could post information that had a factual basis and came from credible, verified sources or from reputable organisations.
Under cross-examination, Green told the court she had cautioned Lattouf about “being mindful about posting on social media” and to uphold the ABC’s obligations to impartiality.
Green told the court she told Lattouf the ABC had “strict editorial guidelines” and it was “all about a perception of bias”.
“I was doing what I was instructed to do, which was to tell [Lattouf] to keep a low profile on social media.”
Green told the court she had told other ABC managers she “did not see anything wrong” with Lattouf’s post.
Within the ABC, there was initially resistance to removing Lattouf from her on-air position, with some managers cognisant it would appear as though the public broadcaster had acquiesced to a partisan, coordinated lobbying campaign.
Oliver-Taylor said in an internal email that “the blowback will be phenomenal” if Lattouf was fired. He recommended the ABC keep her on air until Friday, when her contract ended.
Following Green into the witness box, the ABC’s head of audio, Ben Latimer, told the court he was not sure Lattouf had breached editorial policies which he knew to refer only to material broadcast by the ABC.
The case, before Justice Darryl Rangiah, continues.
Article by:Source: Ben Doherty
