[LINK] Nick Ross doing AMA on reddit

[Andy Farkas]

AMA == Ask Me Anything. I'm not a reddit user, so I have no
idea how it works. But there is some good stuff there:

<https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/410n4q/i_am_outgoing_abc_technology_editor_nick_ross_ama/>

One of the questions was about his health. Amazing that ABC
can do this to somebody:

"5.you've indicated on twitter that being gagged on this issue has 
affected your health. I hope that this this AMA session proves to be 
greatly beneficial for your physical and mental health. What health 
issues has it caused (aside from stress?)

FIVE. Thank you for those sentiments. In July 2013 it had become 
apparent that the fallout from Media Watch and The Australian (and 
Commsday and the response of other journalists in my field publicly 
goading me etc etc) – all without being able to defend myself – that I 
was incredibly tense and having huge problems sleeping. I was diagnosed 
with Hypertension by my GP (Stress and Anxiety). It was becoming clear 
that all my ABC colleagues were avoiding me (requests for me doing radio 
and TV slots dropped from several per week to several per year) and I 
could not mentally move past Media Watch's beat-up which has driven me 
to distraction virtually every single day for years.

It also hurt that I had huge NBN articles on Copper and Telehealth (over 
two years' research for each) that were (near)complete that I couldn't 
publish even though the public and politicians REALLY needed to know 
about them before the election – at least the Libs might change their 
tune if they knew about the state of the copper and enormous 
revolutionary benefits of telehealth. Amirite?

The stress continued for the subsequent two years and I was on meds for 
very high blood pressure. I was hospitalised with chest pains on one 
occasion and put on a Holter monitor for a day on another. Eventually I 
went to a Psychologist who helped me with techniques for dealing with 
stress.

But it didn't go away. I was unable to address the root causes and knew 
that one day it would all come out anyway – which I dreaded. In Feb 2015 
I wrote this article (the first major one I'd done in ages). 
http://www.abc.net.au/technology/articles/2015/02/19/4183553.htm
When it went viral I actually got panic attacks as I thought some pollie 
would complain and I'd be put through everything again.

All this time I respected what my boss had told me – to keep quiet and 
let the news cycle pass and you'll be alright. I'd also been repeatedly 
told throughout that time (by many entities) that I'd be phased into the 
main News online team at some point "soon."

So when I was told that funding was being cut to my Tech Site (several 
months ago – because "traffic") it was a total betrayal – I'd kept quiet 
to protect the ABC and management for years and damaged my health doing it.

I was given an impossible mission to stay on at the ABC (build a tech 
audience on the business site even though it had been made impossible on 
the tech site). I acted grateful but knew it was bullshit and contacted 
unions and lawyers and was told about Comcare. Unions also told me that 
this was how the ABC often managed people out – marginalise them.

Comcare is like Work Cover for the public service. It means I can get 
income insurance and support due to a work place injury without work 
admitting liability. Amongst many other things.

It's an enormously lengthy process but Comcare agreed that the ABC had 
injured me psychologically and sided with me. However, the ABC HR Dept 
has a person who spent much of the last few months of last year creating 
a dossier against me which went through all my emails and conversations 
etc for the past three years in an effort to show that the ABC hadn't 
injured me and that they'd been a good employer. The spin and lies and 
bullshit in this dossier (which I have a copy of and is hundreds of 
pages) is unbelievable. It included anecdotes which could only have come 
from my boss which transformed from being conversations into 'proof I 
was some maverick journo who wouldn't do what he was told'. This was 
incredibly stressful and my stress and anxiety ramped up further. Also, 
depression was creeping in to the mix too – I was regularly seeing my GP 
and getting a K10 psychological evaluation assessment each time. 
Anything over 20 is bad. I peaked at 38 before Christmas.

I also had an ABC caseworker assigned to me to help with Comcare. She 
was very nice and assured me I could tell her anything in strict 
confidence. Then I got another batch of bullshit from ABC HR via Comcare 
which included information which only three people at the ABC knew 
about. My caseworker had basically told the whole of HR (who had been 
working with my boss – and the information was mainly about him) and god 
knows who else and it was being used against me in my Comcare claim. 
When I asked her why she would do such a thing I got a letter from the 
Head of HR telling me not to contact my caseworker again – another would 
be assigned if needed.

So at this point I was in an impossible position. My reputation was 
harmed by what had been said about me publicly, I was now "extremely 
severely stressed," "extremely severely anxious" and now had "moderate 
depression" too. I was on strong blood pressure meds, I was being pushed 
into starting anti-depressants. I was waiting for Comcare to rule on the 
ABC's request for reconsideration, I'd been betrayed by my ABC 
caseworker and boss and the head of HR was covering it up. And then 
some. Just to rub things in I'd also got the emails sent to the whole 
ABC regarding how great Mental Health week had been at the ABC.

I started on the antidepressants which are horrible. The depression goes 
away but anxiety goes off the scale and there are other side effects 
like massive fatigue and being completely unable to concentrate. I was 
on them for about a month and came off them earlier this week and am 
starting to feel better for that. There's no way I could do this if I 
was still on them.

I'm still stressed and anxious but the depression looks like it's gone. 
Maybe it will come back with the fallout from this. But I'm starting to 
feel better now I've left.

*unfortunate addendum* The above is a very watered down (rapidly typed) 
version of events and any use of them as proof of something against me 
for official reasons like Comcare (as has happened before) should be 
avoided."

-andyf