As Malcolm Turnbull and Sharan Burrow pointed out yesterday, the Murdoch family’s far-right pay-TV outlet Sky News has become a platform for lies and misinformation about the Voice to Parliament, not just for its tiny subscriber audience but via regional free-to-air broadcasters and YouTube.
Turnbull and Burrow list multiple egregious lies being peddled by Sky’s coterie of extremists, including that the Voice will be more powerful than Parliament and is racially divisive, and that No advocates are being censored.
But don’t expect the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) to call out News Corp’s misinformation before the referendum. Any complaints about lies on Sky News are unlikely to be fully dealt with until the end of 2024, more than a year after the referendum is held.
The ACMA rarely investigates pay-TV, with the bulk of its investigations aimed at commercial free-to-air television and radio broadcasters or the ABC. Its investigations also take a long time. For the past quarter of 2022 — the ACMA’s most recent data period — the 12-month rolling average time taken to finalise investigations had grown to more than nine months, up from six months at the start of 2022.
The recent occasion in which the ACMA did inquire into Sky News — for blatant climate denialism on Outsiders — saw the regulator commence an investigation in June 2022 about broadcasts in late 2021. It was completed in December 2022 and was not released until April this year.
That probe might have been quicker if the ACMA had not been preparing its risible attack on the ABC in relation to Four Corners’ look at the role of Fox News in the January 6 insurrection — an epic investigation that ran a full year from December 2021 and concluded with probably the most bizarre and ridiculous report released since the ACMA was created from the Australian Broadcasting Authority 20 years ago.
Its findings included that Sarah Ferguson shouldn’t have used the word “mob” to describe the insurrectionists and that her report failed to cover social media’s role in the events. (Ferguson comprehensively demolished the ACMA’s report after its release.)
So, in the event that the ACMA can bring itself to investigate Sky News’ lies about the Voice, don’t expect any findings until at least late 2024, when it might finally produce a report saying it had ordered the organisation to provide more training to its presenters.
The ACMA, of course, will plead that it is hostage to delays at both ends of the process. Under the Broadcasting Services Act, it can’t receive complaints about broadcasting content until the broadcaster has first decided whether or not to deal with it, and it has to afford natural justice to the broadcaster when it has made its draft findings. But the steady blowout in investigation timelines over 2022 suggests the ACMA is again suffering from its long-term problem of being too slow to offer any effective check on egregious violations of content standards.
And that will make Sky News’ effectiveness at spreading lies and misinformation about the Voice all the greater.
Sky News won’t be held to account anymore than Peter Dutton will be. It’s perfectly legal to lie for political purposes in this horrid, backward country. If it wasn’t, perhaps Sky wouldn’t find it so easy. As it is, they just need to claim they’re reporting the opinion of the Coalition, they’re preferred party of government.
There are but two jurisdictions that have legislation applied to truth in advertising concerning political campaigns.*
1985: South Australia John Bannon’s Labor Government: Section 113 of the Electoral Act 1985 (South Australia)
‘Provides for an offence if a person authorises, causes or permits the publication of an electoral advertisement if the advertisement contains a statement purporting to be a statement of fact that is inaccurate and misleading to a material extent.’ 1997: Section113 was amended to empower the Electoral Commissioner to act on complaints of misleading electoral advertisements, which can be submitted by anyone to the Electoral Commission of South Australia (‘ECSA’).
1992:Australian Capital Territory Rosemary Follett, Labor Government: Section 297(1) of the Electoral Act 1992 (ACT)
‘A person shall not disseminate, or authorise to be disseminated, electoral matter that is likely to mislead or deceive an elector about the casting of a vote’.
*There are ongoing moves to legislate truth in political advertising laws to be applied to Federal elections.
As in a survey 86% of Australians agreed truth in political advertising laws should be in place before the next election with 73% of Australians having reported as coming across political advertisements they knew to be misleading during the last Federal election campaign.
Where else on Earth would a social misfit like Pikelet Dean get a job hosting a Pay to see TV show, other than at the Murdoch Maggotocracy.?
Does Dean always look like that or has he got a bad case of wind?
You’ll catch the same expression on the face of Donald Trump when thinking deep thoughts about which pickle to put on his next burger.
I forget his name in a comment a couple of days back, but the descriptor I used was ‘the rabid ferret.’ And yes, he does have a bad case of wind, but it ain’t coming out the front.
With these influencers of the fold, it’s ‘strange’ how whenever one of Rupert’s Limited News blathering/talking-heads gets a PR promo “guest spot” gig on one of those ABC “current affairs” revues (The Drum, Insiders, Q&A), they are never asked about that cohort in the context of what effect on a certain demographic, their activities are doing to society – let alone asked at all about their goings-on, as ‘insiders’?
Maybe, if you look at Sky (and the rest of Limited News) in the right light – as a ‘Rupert’s 24 Hour Muppet Show’ – it makes sense?
Nor are they quickly forthcoming about conflicts of interest or previous areas of employment.
When the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) investigates lies and misinformation the inevitable delays forced by the requirements of the Broadcasting Services Act ensure it is the equivalent of a doctor who never treats sick patients and instead only performs autopsies as a pathologist; not with any obvious competence. Whether this is a good use of public money is questionable.
None of Murdoch’s legion of trolls are held to account before they cause ruin.
There are basically two ways to rein them in before the worst is done:
* national controls with teeth and a responsive agenda
* taking money away from them by (us) making it clear to their advertisers that the advertisers are accountable for the lies they fund.
You won’t get any joy from trying to push point 1. Point 2 is the answer.
Well said. The only time I have watched Sky is when Media Watch is taking it to task. Murdoch’s mantra – “it’s the money, stupid”. No adds, no business.