ABC investigative journalist Louise Milligan has revealed seven legal threats were made ahead of her expose at Cranbrook School.
The ‘Secrets of Cranbrook’ report will be broadcast on Monday evening on the public broadcaster’s Four Corners programme.
Milligan tweeted earlier on Monday that she was aware of multiple legal threats that had already been made regarding the elite private school segment in Sydney’s eastern suburbs.
“To: Myself and ABC, people on our show, people not on our show,” she said.
‘Even coming from people associated with Cranbrook NOT in our story.
‘Power and influence in Australia’s richest enclave. Switch.’
ABC investigative journalist Louise Milligan has revealed that seven legal threats were made ahead of her revelation about Cranbrook School
Milligan tweeted earlier on Monday that she was aware of multiple legal threats that had already been made regarding the elite private school segment in Sydney’s eastern suburbs.
The school, which charges Year 11 and 12 students $46,497 a year, had previously declined the ABC’s invitations to participate in an on-camera interview.
Cranbrook School Council chairman Geoff Lovell spoke to 2GB’s Ben Fordham instead on Friday morning.
Mr Lovell raised concerns about the intentions of the program and suggested the ABC could be trying to portray a negative image of the school’s culture and leadership.
“Especially about the way women are treated,” he said.
Mr Lovell said this was deeply ‘disturbing and disappointing for our school community’, especially the female staff at the all-boys Anglican school.
‘Fifty-eight percent of our staff are women; we have good gender balance across the school,” Mr Lovell said.
‘Female staff are very angry that it does not seem to reflect the lived reality in Cranbrook and ultimately what we do for the students in our care.’
In the promo for the Four Corners program, interviewees described the school as a boys’ club.
Milligan is seen asking a young man, “How do you feel when you walk past that place?”
Sydney’s exclusive private school for boys, Cranbrook, will be put in the spotlight at Four Corners on Monday evening
“It’s a facade because I know what happened inside,” he answers.
Another man says, “There’s a moral failure here.”
A woman also says in the promo: ‘It’s like lambs to the slaughter and it has to stop.’
Milligan asks sexual consent activist Chanel Contos why the rest of Australia should worry ‘what’s happening at this fancy school?’
“Those people will continue to rule our country, for better or for worse,” she answers.
Cranbrook alumni include technology billionaire Mike Cannon-Brookes, two generations of the Packer media and gaming dynasty, Kerry and James, and a string of illustrious business high-flyers, politicians, academics and media and sports stars.
Mr Lovell said they declined an interview “because we have little confidence that the school’s position will be presented in a balanced way or in the right context”.
‘The tone, structure and content of the questions asked of the school by the ABC give every indication that the issues in question have been assessed in advance and that the school’s participation would make little or no difference to the way the program wants to portray the school,” he told The Australian.
An ABC spokesperson said Cranbrook was given “detailed information and sufficient time and opportunity to participate” in the report.
“Four Corners conducts important public interest investigations,” the spokesperson said.
‘The public can watch the program and form their own judgement.’