ABC managing director David Anderson has been questioned about the welfare of a radio journalist whose work was the subject of a recent ABC ombudsman review — and the centre of a subsequent media storm — amid fears competing news outlets are “misreporting” the national broadcaster’s coverage.
In the face of questioning during Senate estimates on Tuesday, Anderson addressed the findings of an ABC ombudsman report that found ABC News breached editorial guidelines on accuracy and impartiality in a radio report on a community meeting in Alice Springs.
It included comment from one attendee who described it as a “total white supremacist fest”.
The report, which was the independent ombudsman’s first since she was appointed in September last year, found that the AM radio report published on January 30 “should not have gone to air” because it “unduly” favoured “one perspective over all others”, and inaccurately reported the number of people at the event.
The editorial error caused a storm of media coverage, in no small part led by titles across the News Corp stable. Anderson said the media response forced the broadcaster to release clarifying statements to combat misinformation.
Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young asked Anderson if “media pile-ons” like the one that followed this reporting could have a “chilling” effect on the work of ABC journalists, after one of their reporters became the “scapegoat” for “culture war” rhetoric.
Liberal Senator Sarah Henderson agreed: “It seems that she was grossly let down by ABC News management. Can you explain exactly what happened? How did that occur?”
“We do need to make sure we put the right support” around the reporter, Anderson said, and leadership has “attempted to do that”. He said the ABC otherwise thinks highly of the reporter’s work, who is considered by leadership to be an “experienced Indigenous journalist and specialist”.
“The misreporting of our reporting — that’s the bit that worries me,” Anderson said.
“When it is stated in other media that we’ve done something, which is a distortion of what we’re actually reporting — but is done for reasons of heightening community concern — that is something that we deal with quite often.”
But Anderson did not reveal takeaways from internal investigations into what exactly went wrong in the lead-up to the publication of the one-sided radio report, which was eventually amended for publication on two further occasions later in the day.
He said he couldn’t comment on whether the package went to air with approval, if it was green-lit with concerns, or if any other prepublication advice was given to the reporter before the package went to air. He said on Tuesday that he hasn’t yet been in contact with the journalist.
“You are the editor-in-chief, the buck stops with you,” Henderson said. “Surely by now you would have established what happened on that day. I called for an investigation within days of this report going to air.”
Anderson said he was still getting a “complete picture” of “precisely what happened” to allow for the failing in an “otherwise good system of editorial checks and measures” in place.
The ABC ombudsman, former ACMA executive Fiona Cameron, said she received 19 complaints related to the report. Most were concerned that the package only reported the views of those at the meeting who thought it had been racist, “despite a range of different perspectives being expressed at the event”.
“Some complainants who said they attended the meeting were concerned that the introduction to the report inaccurately stated that hundreds of people were at the town meeting when thousands were reported to have been present,” Cameron wrote.
Cameron considered the number of community members present at the meeting as “material to the story”, given Alice Springs’ relatively small population of “some 32,000” people. The original report put attendance in the “hundreds”, when many reports put the attendance at over 3000.
ABC News accepted the report’s findings, saying it “ought to have included further perspectives and context”, and that it took measures throughout the day to have them included.
“ABC News management takes responsibility for the AM story going to air in that form and stands by the reporter, who provided important perspectives on complicated issues,” the ABC said.
Interesting how the ABC is always called to account for “lack of balance” but News Ltd outlets get away with it all of the time.
News Ltd is by far the worst offender, but I dont buy into that as an excuse to allow ABC to do likewise. One is a private business and one is the national broadcaster and so it needs to be held to a higher standard.
Even ‘Aboriginal Leader Warren Mundine’ called the report “disgraceful”. So spare me various deflections that this is a beat up and unfairly criticizing the journo and the ABC.
Of course it’s a beat up. Mr Mundine certainly is not representative of Alice Springs Aboriginal people or citizens of the NT generally.
That’s because we pay for the ABC directly through our taxes, whereas we pay for “‘Free’ to Air” indirectly, through our groceries, cars, banks, insurance companies and sports gambling.
Very true DF. But I expect the companies who I buy groceries etc from with my hard earnt cash, to not advertise on conspiracy theorists programs.
It’s a requirement of the ANC’s Charter.
It seems very improbable that 3000 people attended this meeting, i.e. ten percent of the town’s population. Is there a venue in Alice Springs which would hold 3000? Capacity of the Sydney Opera House Concert Hall is 2700. I’d suggest that hundreds, i.e. lots of people, attended as reported.
If racist views were aired, given the situation, is that not a significant fact which deserved to be reported? Must the ABC also then report that non-racist views were also expressed? If somebody was assaulted, must we always, for balance, be assured that others were not assaulted?
We’ve recently seen that when the ABC reported the fact that a prominent person had been accused of a wicked crime, before long we were being told that the ABC had made the accusation, and the ABC was then actually sued for defamation.
Get a grip, folks. This is ridiculous.
Agreed. It’s all a bunch of pseudo news. “oh my gosh ABC made an error, let’s turn it into a media circus”!
The report was based on a conversation with a few (one?) people OUTSIDE the meeting because the journo arrived late and could get in.
300? 3000? I dunno, but the ombudsman found the number to be problematic and material and hence called out the ABC for it. So maybe take it up with her.
I prefer to take it up with all those so ready to agree that the ABC is yet again at fault. Yet again over trivialities. In other words, another beat-up.
Wow, Liberals beating up the ABC, how surprising. Bored with the culture war. So white supremacist made a comment, and there was no balance? We make the ABC jump through all sorts of rings for so called “balance” to pander to the right wing snowflakes. Yet daily we are inundated by all sorts of right wing ideology via an international news corporation with an appalling track record.
One young reporter recorded a person who was a white supremacist, deal with it.
Life was not meant to be easy (or fair).
I’d agree with News Corp on this, except their demented rabid pathetic ongoing anti-ABC campaign makes their arguments entirely redundant
Ho hum. Another example of the woeful management, from the top down at the ABC.
It’s obvious the production of News & Current Affairs has gone to the proverbial bow wows.
Young journos not mentored properly, lousy programming, appalling editing.
An example is the all new singing & dancing Q&A intro worthy of the Price is Right; which btw has more integrity because it doesn’t pretend to be anything else than a games show.
Understaffed, poorly funded and demoralized ABC management probably missed trying to balance the racists along with FAS kids.