Exclusive : website that drew fire from commercial publications axed in one of the first major decisions under new managing director Michelle Guthrie

This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

The ABC has axed its opinion website the Drum in a cost-saving move that is one of the first significant decisions in the reign of the new managing director, Michelle Guthrie.

The ABC insisted the decision had been driven by the ABC’s head of news, Gaven Morris, in an attempt to corral the news division’s online output into one place rather than under a separate masthead.

The Drum online is an opinion and news analysis website that publishes regular contributions from inside and outside the ABC, including from ABC journalists Barrie Cassidy, Ian Verrender and Annabel Crabb.

The staff on the website, which pays freelance writers for contributions, were told the site would close this week.

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The Drum has been repeatedly targeted by News Corp Australia and other publishers, including Crikey, as taxpayer-funded competition to commercial media.

In 2010 Crikey publisher Eric Beecher said the Drum sat “blatantly in the territory of sites like Crikey”.

“Operating in the commercial space, we expect vigorous competition from other commercial publishers,” Beecher said. “But to see the ABC tanks roll up on our lawn was bewildering.”

The Drum has been edited by the former Sydney writers’ festival artistic director Chip Rolley since 2012.

Rolley replaced founding Drum editor Jonathan Green, now the presenter of Sunday Extra on Radio National.

Beecher also accused the Drum of compromising the ABC’s editorial integrity by running “wacky” personal opinions that were “mainly from the left”.

The Drum was started in 2009 by former managing director Mark Scott, three years into his tenure. Early on it attracted controversy for a piece by Marieke Hardy, which criticised the Liberal politician Christopher Pyne, and another by the late Labor speechwriter Bob Ellis, which said “wowser-feminism [had] gone too far”.

In 2010 Hardy wrote “that perhaps there is nobody in the entire world who is loathed by Australia more than Christopher Pyne”. The article was later taken down and the ABC apologised.



In 2011 Ellis was dropped by the Drum after an outcry when he suggested women cried rape to “bring down left-leaning artists and politicians”.

The Australian’s associate editor, Chris Kenny, has been one of the chief critics of the Drum, blaming it in part for the demise of newspapers.

“But the ever-expanding provision of taxpayer-funded free content cannot be making the commercial climate any easier,” Kenny said in March. “As we have documented here, apart from copious news copy, the ABC runs extensive online commentary and analysis on The Drum and now SBS is commissioning long-form text profile pieces online. Apart from the direct competition, it also conditions the marketplace to expect something for nothing.”

Chris Kenny (@chriskkenny) An outbreak of common sense? https://t.co/ZSN0OTGJ2u

The Drum website’s sister program on ABC TV is not affected by the closure.

After the May budget the ABC had to find savings of $7m due to the Coalition’s decision to reduce the corporation’s $20m annual news gathering grant.

Guthrie decided to axe the ABC’s Fact Check unit and made 12 news positions redundant.

The axing of the Drum masthead will not save a huge amount as it had only two staff and didn’t pay its outside contributors handsomely. However, Guthrie is keen to streamline the ABC’s online analysis and focus more on news analysis and less on outside opinion.

Morris told staff the Drum was being discontinued because of “ tight resources” and because it was time to do analysis and opinion in a different way. “An analysis and opinion page will remain on the ABC News site and there are no redundancies as a result of this change,” he said.

“However, The Drum editor, Chip Rolley, has taken the decision to leave the ABC when his current contract expires.

“Ending The Drum as our online brand in no way reflects on its quality. The excellence of its work is shown in its strong audience numbers and its loyal following.”