Stan Grant, the presenter of the ABC’s Q+A, was given a standing ovation after citing the “poison” of the media as the reason he had decided to step away from the show.
In an emotional end to Monday night’s episode, Grant faced the studio camera and said he was not leaving because of racist abuse that he had received, but because he felt he was “part of the problem”.
“I’m not walking away for a while because of racism,” the Wiradjuri journalist said. “We get that far too often. I’m not walking away because of social media hatred. I need a break from the media. I feel like I’m part of the problem. And I need to ask myself how, or if, we can do it better.
“We in the media must ask if we are truly honouring a world worth living in. Too often, we are the poison in the bloodstream of our society. I fear the media does not have the love or the language to speak to the gentle spirits of our land.”
Grant announced on Friday he was standing down from the show, saying he had received “grotesque racist abuse” that escalated after he spoke on the ABC about the impact of colonialism on Indigenous Australians ahead of the king’s coronation.
On the show on Monday, Grant also thanked those who had offered their support, while adding that those who had targeted him with racist abuse had “succeeded” in hurting him and his family. “To those who have abused me and my family. I would just say if your aim was to hurt me, well you’ve succeeded, and I’m sorry.
“I’m sorry that I must have given you so much cause to hate me so much, to target me and my family and to make threats against me. I’m sorry.
“Sometimes we need to just take time out. Sometimes our souls are hurting and so it is for me. I’ve had to learn that endurance is not always strength. Sometimes strength is knowing when to say stop.
“I am down right now, I am. But I will get back up. And you can come at me again, and I will meet you with the love of my people,” he said.
“To my people – I have always wanted to represent you with pride. I know I might disappoint you sometimes, but in my own little way, I’ve just wanted to make us seen. And I’m sorry that I can’t do that for a little while.”
In a column published on the ABC website on Friday announcing his decision to step away, Grant said he had seen people in the media “lie and distort” his words, and also targeted ABC’s management, saying no one had supported him publicly since he appeared on the panel.
“I am writing this because no one at the ABC – whose producers invited me on to their coronation coverage as a guest – has uttered one word of public support,” he said. “Not one ABC executive has publicly refuted the lies written or spoken about me. I don’t hold any individual responsible; this is an institutional failure.”
The managing director of the ABC, David Anderson, and the ABC news chief, Justin Stevens, both apologised to Grant, with Stevens saying he regrets not defending him earlier. “I’m the person who’s responsible ultimately for the journalism and the decisions,” Stevens told Raf Epstein on ABC Melbourne. “I’m saying stop going after people for doing their jobs.”
Stevens said Grant faced racist attacks on social media fuelled by what he described as a “relentless campaign” against the ABC’s coronation broadcast from Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. Stevens accused News Corp of targeting the ABC because it was “trying to chip away [at] people’s sense of trust in what we do because we threaten their business model”.
The Australian, Sky News and other papers have criticised the ABC for hosting a panel discussion about the impact of colonialism on Indigenous Australians and the relevance of the monarchy in 2023. The discussion went on for 45 minutes in the lead-up to the coronation, and was over hours before the event itself.
Much of the criticism focused on Grant, with Stevens saying sections of the media engaged in a “piling on”, “with a clear agenda” and that they played a part in “amplifying and giving agency” to the racist trolls on social media.
On Monday, Stevens addressed a gathering of Indigenous and non-Indigenous staff outside the ABC office in Sydney, who were among the many staff across the country rallying in solidarity with Grant.
The newly appointed head of Indigenous news at the ABC, Suzanne Dredge, spoke to the gathering in Ultimo, which included supporters from the Indigenous public broadcaster NITV.
“We want this to be a turning point for the ABC, for First Nations journalists, the media as a whole and for the Australian community,” Dredge said.
“We need to call out racism and do more to address this awful blight on all of us. The impact it has on First Nations communities across the country is devastating. We know First Nations and diverse journalists are targeted more than anyone else on social media.”
Guardian Australia has approached News Corp for comment on the criticism from the ABC.
