After a year of pressure from News Corp the Australian Press Council has removed Carla McGrath from the council because she is the deputy chair of activist group GetUp.
McGrath, the first Torres Strait Islander woman to be appointed to the media watchdog, declined to resign despite The Australian refusing to work with her and publishing a dozen articles in one month attacking her appointment.
The editor-in-chief of the Australian Paul Whittaker said GetUp was “effectively another wing of the Labor party and the Greens” and could not be objective.
But the council removed McGrath as a public member on Friday after a review found her membership was incompatible with her job.
“As McGrath chose not to resign either from the press council or as an officer of GetUp, the council further resolved to take steps in accordance with its constitution to remove her as a public member,” the council said in a statement.
Press council chair Neville Stevens said it was a difficult decision, especially as McGrath was a respected member of Australia’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community.
“[McGrath] would have brought an important perspective to the work of the council,” he said.
“While the council is committed to increasing diversity among its members, there is an overriding need for it to be independent and to be seen to be independent.”
Under the council’s constitution, any resolution to remove a public member before the expiration of their term must be passed by at least 75 per cent of members present at a general meeting.
The News Corp publication claimed there was a “potential threat” to the impartiality of the press council’s adjudications of complaints about the Australian.
“GetUp’s deputy chair Ms McGrath will be sitting in judgment at the press council on complaints over contentious newspaper stories about important matters in the public interest such as mining, climate change, immigration and asylum seekers — all issues of which the organisation she represents has aggressively campaigned on from a Green-left position,” Whittaker said last year.
The removal of McGrath is the latest attempt by News Corp to influence the composition of the Press Council.
Under the former editor-in-chief Chris Mitchell, the Australian was highly critical of the press council and its then chairman Julian Disney
Relations improved for a while under David Weisbrot, a former president of the Australian Law Reform Commission, but he resigned last year after what he said were the “persistent personal attacks” about the appointment of McGrath.
With Australian Associated Press
