Agressive interview breaches ABC policies but Jon Faine to appeal ruling. ABC Political editor comes out in support of Faine.
Jon Faine’s agressive interview with former 2UE presenter Michael Smith about the unsubstantiated AWU slush fund allegations, has been deemed a lapse in standards.
After receiving at least one complaint, the ABC has found that the interview, with Smith and also The Age’s Mark Baker, on 23 November last year, broke standard 4.1 of the ABC’s Code of Practice which states: “Gather and present news and information with due impartiality”.
In a response to the complaint, the ABC’s Audience and Consumer Affairs department concluded that the interviews “were not conducted in keeping with ABC impartiality requirements. The argumentative style of the interviews by Mr Faine, combined with a pattern of strongly stated personal opinions that at times oversimplified the issues at hand, was not in keeping with the ABC’s rigorous impartiality standards for current affairs content.”
ABC Radio apologised to the complainant for this “lapse in standards.”
Faine has been cautioned, and this matter has been “brought to the attention of ABC Radio management… Jon Faine has been reminded of his obligation to gather and present news and information content with due impartiality.”
A full report on the judgement will soon be available on the ABC website.
In the latest on this story, Jon Faine has said he will appeal the ruling by the ABC’s internal committee and he has been publicly supported by the ABC’s political editor Chris Uhlmann in a series of tweets.
Michael Smith published the response letter on his website, with some of his readers commenting on it.
Smith lost his job at Fairfax Radio for pursuing the same unsubstantiated allegations against Prime Minister Julia Gillard. Gillard has repeatedly denied that there was any impropriety in her deadlings with an AWU slush fund when she was a lawyer at Slater & Gordon.
I'm a bit confused as to why you refer to the "unsubstantiated AWU slush fund allegations" and the "unsubstantiated allegations against Prime Minister Julia Gillard."
If you have just chosen that form of words to cover yourselves legally, there is no need to qualify "allegations" with the word "unsubstantiated."
The Prime Minister is now a person of interest in a Victorian police investigation into the AWU-WRA slush fund being undertaken by the Major Crime and Extortion Group. This collection of the creme de la creme of law enforcement would hardly be dedicating themselves to something which was "unsubstantiated."
Michael Smith (ex-2UE) has collected and posted a huge amount of material which is freely available at michaelsmithnews.com to anyone who chooses to examine it.
JBrogan
Thanks for your comment. It is a fair question.
The reason why we used this form of words is that the allegations have not yet officially been substantiated in any legal judgement. We acknowledge your point that there is now a lot of material in the public domain.
At some stage in the future, if there is a legal finding that validates the accusations and links to the PM, we will use another form of words in future.