The Australian Broadcasting Authority has confirmed four of five draft findings that the ABC breached its Code of Practice during the Iraq war.
All broadcasts were on the flagship current affairs’ program, ‘AM, in March and April 2003.
ABA Acting chief, Lyn Maddock, says the four breaches all relate to clause 4.2 of the code, which says ABC news and current affairs’ must make ‘every reasonable effort … to ensure that programs are balanced and impartial’.
“While AM presented a range of views and perspectives during the period in question and was therefore balanced, the language and presentation styles used in some programs would have caused an ordinary reasonable listener to think that the programs were predisposed to particular views on some issues.
“The ABC plays an important investigative role in analysing and commenting on significant community issues, and studio presentation teams play a key role in setting the tone of news and current affairs’ programs.
“While scepticism and probing questions are a useful way to explore issues, when a program uses tendentious language in connection with a controversial matter, listeners are likely to understand that the program favours a particular view of the issue.”
The report confirms all but one of the ABA’s draft findings, set out in its preliminary report prepared in August 2004. Following consideration of the ABC’s submission in response to that report, the ABA decided that the edition of AM on 21 March 2003 did not breach the code.
The findings are in response to a wideranging complaint from former Communications Minister, Richard Alston, who identified 43 alleged breaches of the ABC code in editions of AM from 21 March-11 April 2003.
The ABC’s Independent Complaints Review Panel had considered all 68 matters in Alston’s original complaint to the ABC. The Panel upheld 12 matters on the grounds that the programs concerned contained serious bias and four on the basis that they failed to comply with editorial instruction against the use of emotional language or editorialisation. It upheld one further matter on the grounds that sources relied on by the program were not adequately identified.
Lyn Maddock says: “The ABA considers that the findings of 17 breaches of editorial standards by the ABC’s internal complaints’ handling process plus the four code breaches found by the ABA compromised the quality of AM’s coverage of the Iraq War.
“The ABA expects the ABC to take note of its findings and review its procedures to prevent further breaches of the ABC code. The ABA notes that the ABC’s Editor-in-Chief instructed senior news and current affairs’ management to take note of the Independent Panel’s review, particularly in relation to the upheld complaints.”
The ABA’s report can be obtained via the link below.
Last August, the ABA was under fire after its preliminary report was leaked to the ‘Media Watch’ program.
The draft report ran to 136 pages and was described by (then) Media Watch host, David Marr, as “…probably the silliest so far”.
Media Watch stated: “Not for the first time in our experience, the ABA has shown it doesn’t really know how journalism works”, accusing the Authority of getting the simplest details wrong and of being ‘slovenly and dishonest’.
“Richard Alston’s complaints are a perhaps the most sustained assault ever made on ABC reporting. They should be judged independently by a fearless panel that owes nothing to the ABC or the Government – and knows how journalism works.
“This mob doesn’t – but it’s only a draft report, thank God. You’d like to think the ABA might try to get it right before their final report comes out.”