#650: Cancer fight ‘cost my job’ at Toowong (Courier Mail)
The Courier Mail (Australia)
February 19, 2007 Monday
First with the news Edition
Cancer fight ‘cost my job’
BYLINE: Melanie Christiansen
‘I believe I was taken off air because of my role in
supporting breast cancer victims and my ABC
colleagues’ Ian Eckersley
A SENIOR ABC sports presenter has quit his job,
claiming he has been victimised for speaking out about
the breast cancer cluster, which forced the national
broadcaster to evacuate its Brisbane studios last
year.
Ian Eckersley, pictured, who acted as staff spokesman
during a six-month investigation of the cancer
cluster, said he was informed by email last week that
he would no longer present the sport on the weekend
television news.
”It was a terrible way to learn of such a major
decision affecting my 17-year career at the ABC and I
was deeply hurt to find out in that manner,” he said.
There has been no specialist sports presenter on the
ABC’s weekend television bulletins since the Toowong
site was closed just before Christmas.
Since then, reporters have worked from a temporary
newsroom at Mt Coot-tha with the bulletin’s presenters
operating from studios in Sydney.
But Mr Eckersley said he had expected to be back on
air when a new temporary television news studio at
West End was ready next week.
He said he did not accept his manager’s explanation
that the decision was taken for logistical reasons.
”I believe I was taken off air as sports presenter
because of my role with the staff reference group in
supporting breast cancer victims and my ABC
colleagues,” he said.
Mr Eckersley said he was left in an untenable
position, with no option but to resign and now
intended to talk to his lawyer about possible legal
action against the national broadcaster.
But ABC network head Alan Sunderland yesterday
rejected any suggestion Mr Eckersley had been
victimised.
”I’ve got to say in the current climate, I find it
very disturbing he would attempt to link this decision
to the breast cancer issue,” he said.
”I just cannot for the life of me understand how that
can possibly be substantiated or sustained.”
Mr Sunderland said the decision not to have a
specialist sports presenter was based on the
logistical difficulties of having the newsroom and the
news studio operating from separate locations about
half an hour apart.
With the opening of the West End news studio next
week, the ABC’s Brisbane operation will be split
between seven sites.
That does not include a facility at Channel Seven on
Mt Coot-tha, where the ABC spent up to $50,000 before
deciding not to move in.
ABC managing director Mark Scott told an estimates
committee hearing last week a decision had been taken
that the site was ”not an optimal place for us”.
JOURNAL-CODE: CML
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