Science journalist Robyn Williams presents Radio National’s The Science Show and Ockham’s Razor and said the move “effectively halved the number of science journalists working in Australia”.
“This week up to 17 Catalyst staff will leave the building, one of the top teams in the world dedicated to science communication, with not a farewell, a handshake or a stale biscuit – like felons out onto the street,” Williams wrote in an email obtained by Fairfax Media.
“ABC TV, its bosses responsible for this travesty, are morally and spiritually bankrupt – so in their stead I would like to thank Catalyst staff for 15 years of top-rating, prize-winning broadcasting of huge range and significance.”
ABC’s science reporter Mark Horstman, let go in redundancies affecting Catalyst, says he has been “gutted” by the loss of Australia’s one-of-a-kind science specialist television team.
Horstman described as “bizarre” the decision to axe its half-hour, weekly magazine-style program format and “trash” the public broadcaster’s warehouse of science experience, given the show was “cost-effective, highly valued by the community, and one of the ABC’s most popular programs”.
“Strangely, it means that the ABC has decided it doesn’t need in-house scientific expertise to make science TV,” he said in a Facebook post mourning the loss of Catalyst’s reporting expertise.
“I’m gutted,” he said, “For my 15 colleagues, that their incredible skills and dedication are not valued by the ABC. And gutted that our warehouse of unique experience in science communication is trashed in one fell swoop.
“As a true believer in the role of the public broadcaster, I always trusted that science was at the core of what the ABC made. The media need more, not less science.”
Horstman says he was informed two days ago that his position was “no longer required for the efficient and economical operation of the ABC”.
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Fairfax
