Former NSW premier Kristina Keneally, the patron of the Stillbirth Foundation, says she is “incredibly disappointed” that an ABC journalist responded so insensitively to a media release from the foundation about the number of babies born dead each year.
On Thursday the Stillbirth Foundation issued a press release with the news that Australian Bureau of Statistics data revealed that stillbirth claimed the lives of more than 1,700 babies each year – or five babies every day.
The brusque emailed response from one journalist at the ABC was: “Don’t care, take me off your list thanks”.
When Keneally was told about the email she decided to make it public to illustrate how hard it was to get the story of stillbirth in Australia in the public eye.
The mother of a stillborn child herself, Keneally tweeted the email with the ABC staffer’s name obscured.
— Kristina Keneally (@KKeneally) September 29, 2016
Hey @abcnews this is an insensitive answer to a media release. Incredibly disappointed. #stillbirth pic.twitter.com/rujScDxvHX
“One of the biggest challenges when it comes to stillbirth is getting people comfortable enough to talk about it,” Keneally told Guardian Australia. “I know how hard it is to talk about it. I have been trying to talk about it since 1999.
“I don’t understand how any human being could get an email that said 1,700 babies died last year and answer with I don’t care.”
On Friday morning the ABC apologised.
“This is not a sentiment endorsed by the ABC and we apologise for any offence it has caused,” an ABC spokesman told Guardian Australia.
Keneally said the ABC was generally supportive of the cause, which made it all the more shocking.
“The ABC has been pretty good to us,” she said.
“The ABC ran an entire Australian Story on my experience of being the mother of a stillborn child; the ABC has often run stories in the past about stillbirth. The fact that this person thought that a flippant and disrespectful response was appropriate to send back to the Stillbirth Foundation shouldn’t condemn the entire organisation but it should mean that there is some counselling given to that individual.
The ABC’s AM program interviewed Keneally and the foundation’s CEO, Victoria Bowring, on Friday in a segment organised before the email was sent.
“Sure journalists have to deal with lots of bad-news stories,” Keneally told Guardian Australia. They have to become a bit harder, a bit immune, I get that. I work in a newsroom. But to physically write those words ‘don’t care’ and to send it back to the very organisation that is trying to raise awareness one of the most tragic circumstances a family can experience? I don’t understand the thought process that thinks that is an appropriate response.
“There is a genuine lack of awareness about stillbirth. They think it is something that happens in their grandmother’s generation. They think it doesn’t happen anymore. They are shocked when they find out the rate of stillbirth in Australia and they’re shocked because it is so hard for the families who have gone through this to talk about it openly.
“Doctors also don’t talk to women and families about the risk in pregnancy and we don’t do a very good job in society of talking about grief and loss.
“This is the most tragic and horrifying form of grief and loss.”
In 1999, Keneally gave birth to a daughter, Caroline, who didn’t survive.
“Until we can get them to talk about it we won’t be able to get the funding we need.”
Keneally "incredibly disappointed" by ABC journalist"s reply to stillbirth release
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