ABC colleagues support Stan Gran after host walked away from Q+A trends now
Prominent media personalities have rallied to support Indigenous television host Stan Grant after he announced he would leave his job following racial abuse online.
Mr Grant has been the host of the popular current affairs talk show Q+A for nearly a year but said that Monday's program would be his last.
The veteran presenter said he had had enough of the 'relentless racial filth' and the perceived lack of support from his higher-ups at the public broadcaster.
He said he felt let down by ABC bosses who had not publicly supported him and condemned the attacks, which intensified after he appeared on the ABC's coverage of King Charles' coronation where he spoke of the hardships of First Nations people.
'This year the stakes are higher. There is a referendum on an Indigenous Voice to Parliament and I am not alone in feeling judged,' Mr Grant, a proud Wiradjuri, Gurrawin and Dharawal man, wrote.
'This is an Australian judgement on us. Such is politics. But racism is a crime. Racism is violence. And I have had enough.'
Stan Grant decision to leave Q+A after intense racist attacks on social media sparked a wave of support from colleagues
Sarah Ferguson from the ABC's 7.30 was furious her colleague had been forced to step down
Host of the ABC's 7.30 program, Sarah Ferguson, was quick to praise Mr Grant on Friday in a tweet that has been viewed by more than 238,000 people.
'Stan Grant is an admired colleague. The abuse directed at him is disgusting. There are no words adequate to the horror we feel at this,' she wrote.
'Stan is brilliant and cherished.'
Journalist Tracy Spicer wrote: 'He's walking away. This is always the aim of the bigots: To silence powerful voices'.
'Shame on the ABC for not backing him up,' she said.
Social commentator Jane Caro also weighed in.
'Horrified that Stan Grant was asked to comment on the Coronation, did so, & was hung out to dry... I don't always agree with Stan (so what) but racist attacks are never OK.'
ABC colleague Virginia Trioli wrote she was 'appalled and saddened that Stan Grant, a brilliant broadcaster and thinker, has been forced from the ever-crucial contest of ideas.'
'If this country can't have a civil debate about recognition, racism and the legacy of colonialism then we are lost. I hope he returns soon,' she wrote.
But her support of Mr Grant only caused her to then become a new target for trolls.
She gave an update less than a day later in which she said her 'feed had been flooded with the most awful racist s*** and inflammatory Voice disinformation.'
'Very few of these accounts actually follow me,' she added, and questioned whether Twitter's algorithm works in a way that would 'draw' trolls to her tweet.
Even Prime Minister Anthony Albanese weighed in
