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Lee Lin Chin says “mistreatment of staff” is the real reason she left SBS

In 2018, Australia saw an icon walk away from the evening screen for reasons the former SBS newsreader kept to herself. Two years on, Lee Lin Chin has finally revealed why, alleging mistreatment of staff in the workplace.

In a report by The Guardian Australia, Chin has confirmed she resigned from SBS after 30 years because she was “unhappy with management’s treatment of staff and the corporate direction of the multicultural broadcaster.” 

lee lin chin, sbs

Lee Lin Chin has finally revealed the reason that she left SBS after 30 years was due to the management’s treatment of staff.

At the time of Chin’s exit, she described: “There’s not one big reason, there’s many small to medium-sized reasons, which for the time being I wish to keep to myself but may talk about one day.”

That day seems to be here, as revelations come from other former SBS staffers who, this month, have revealed they experienced racism and toxicity in the workplace.

Chin has said she personally did not suffer from racist attitudes whilst working at SBS, however, in her resignation letter to former SBS chairman Hass Dellal, she wrote her reasons for quitting before her contract finished were due to “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.”

A spokesperson from SBS said Dellal tried twice to meet with Chin but she did not respond back. In conversation with The Guardian, Chin has said the issues raised in her resignation letter had not been resolved since her departure.

In support of the SBS staffers who have come forward with their complaints and accusations around bullying, racism, and lack of diversity in the network, Lee Lin Chin leaves you with this: “Only the glare of exposure would put an end to this unhappy state of affairs. One hopes.”  

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