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July 6, 2006
The issues is outlined here. As the book, Jonestown, neared publication, lawyers acting for Jones wrote to the ABC complaining that its contents could be defamatory, and the ABC decided not to publish on the ground that the prospect of legal action made the project commercially irresponsible. Chris Masters, the author, was free to take his manuscript elsewhere, and immediately five commercial publishers began bidding feverishly for it, with Allen & Unwin emerging the winner.
The ABC's argument about commercial irresponsibility was rendered irrelevant, and it has left itself open to the perception, at the least, that it has buckled at the first sign of pressure from Jones.
Nicholson
The ABC buckles under political pressure over a book to be published by one of its own on a conservative shock jock. In 2002 Masters profiled Jones for Four Corners and was t commissioned by ABC Enterprises, the national broadcaster's commercial arm, to extend his work into a full-length book entitled Jonestown.
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