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Stan Grant is stepping down as host of the ABC’s Q&A program.Credit:ABC

Grant,a 59-year-old Wiradjuri man from the Griffith region in NSW and a triple Walkley Award winner,has been the sole host ofQ+A since August last year. Before that he had been one of three – alongside Virginia Trioli and David Speers – who shared hosting duties from August 2021,following the departure ofHamish MacDonald,who also cited social media vilification as a factor in his decision to quit.

Throughout his tenure on the show Grant has frequently been targeted with accusations of political bias,from both the Right and the Left,as well as slurs about his ethnic and cultural identity.

“On social media my family and I are regularly racially mocked or abused,” he wrote inhis column on Friday. “This is not new. Barely a week goes by when I am not racially targeted. My wife is targeted with abuse for being married to a Wiradjuri man.

“I don’t even read it,yet I can’t escape it. People stop me in the street to tell me how vile it is. They tell me how sorry they are. Although I try to shield myself from it,the fact it is out there poisons the air I breathe.”

Grant expressed frustration at what he perceived as a lack of support from senior management in the fortnight since the coronation,during the coverage of which he had made statements about the role the Crown had played historically in the dispossession of First Nations people.

“I am writing this because no one at the ABC – whose producers invited me onto their coronation coverage as a guest – has uttered one word of public support,” wrote Grant. “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 ABC declined to make senior executives available to respond to Grant’s claims and they did not respond when contacted. The broadcaster instead pointed to a statement from news director Justin Stevens,the only manager at the broadcaster Grant praised,who supported Grant and rejected attacks on him in “the usual sections of the media that target the ABC”.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told reporters travelling with him in Japan that Grant had his respect and he was concerned about the level of hatred on social media in the leadup to the Voice referendum. “To see some of the comments that are,quite frankly,completely out of line,” Albanese said. “We can have respectful different views without engaging in vilification and that’s important.” He declined to comment specifically on Grant’s dispute with the ABC,saying he was not aware of the specifics.

Flagging that this would be “the last column I will write for the ABC for a while”,Grant said Monday night’s episode ofQ+A would be his last,adding “for how long? I don’t know.”

While observing that the mainstream media was not without blame for the state of discourse,having “turned public discussion into an amusement park”,Grant saved his strongest criticism for social media,which he said,“at its worst,is a sordid spectacle. A grotesque burlesque. Lives are reduced to mockery and ridicule.

“I want no part of it,” Grant added. “I want to find a place of grace far from the stench of the media. I want to go where I am not reminded of the social media sewer.”

Revealing the ABC had lodged an official complaint with Twitter about the abuse to which he has been subjected on the platform,Grant observed that “racism is a crime. Racism is violence. And I have had enough.”

Twitter no longer has staff in Australia and does not respond to press inquiries.

Though critical of ABC management in general,Grant did single out Stevens,the broadcaster’s news chief,for his friendship.

“He has been a support and a comfort. He is trying to change an organisation that has its own legacy of racism,” he wrote.

In his own statement noting Grant’s decision,Stevens observed that his colleague “has been subject to grotesque racist abuse,including threats to his safety”.

Noting the attacks had become particularly strident since the coronation coverage,Stevens said they were “abhorrent and unacceptable”,and said any criticism of the broadcaster’s coverage “should be directed to me,not to him”.

Stevens described Grant as “one of Australia’s best and most respected journalists and broadcasters”,adding that “the ABC stands by him and condemns the attacks directed towards him”. He said that some outlets’ coverage of the coronation broadcast was “unfair,inaccurate and irresponsible” and had “contributed to fuelling horrendous personal and racial abuse.”

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