Lee Lin Chin Says She Left SBS Due To Management’s “Lack Of Common Human Respect”
She came forward in support of other staff who claim SBS is a toxic, racist environment.
Following allegations of racism and a toxic work environment by multiple ex-SBS workers, veteran journalist Lee Lin Chin has revealed she left the broadcaster due to management’s “lack of consideration and common human respect” for other employees.
Revealing her 2018 resignation letter to Guardian Australia, Chin stated she wanted to come forward with her own frustrations in support of several ex- and current SBS staff who have publicly detailed their experiences with racism at the broadcaster, which is run to a pointedly multicultural charter.
“It is deeply dispiriting that the misrule at the network continues to thrive unchecked, unexamined,” Chin told Guardian media reporter Amanda Meade.
“Only the glare of exposure would put an end to this unhappy state of affairs. One hopes.”
In her resignation letter, Chin told then SBS chairman Hass Dellal she was unhappy with the broadcaster’s management and the ‘direction’ SBS was moving in.
“My reasons for arriving at this difficult decision is the general unhappiness at the style of management of the network, the culture resulting from it, the mistreatment of staff in the lack of consideration and common human respect, as well as the direction SBS is moving,” she wrote.
Chin says she did not personally experience racism in her 30 years at SBS, but supported those coming forward with their own experiences, and was frustrated by management’s lack of diversity.
Since 1978, SBS’s news director has always been a white man, bar Irene Buschtedt, who held the position between 1993 and 1995. With the current news director retiring in December, staff are pushing for SBS to break the streak.
In response to the Guardian, SBS says they tried to reach out to Chin twice after her resignation to discuss her grievances but received no response.
Chin left SBS in 2018, after presenting the Weekend News since 1987.