“I’m comfortable with acknowledging I made a mistake. Immediately I became aware of it, I offered correction… I’m not seeking to excuse the error.”
On air this morning Alan Jones responded to news that 2GB will be required to increase its emphasis on accuracy and fact checking.
Jones went on to detail the station’s dealings with ACMA during its investigation and explained the error in his figures about climate change:
“I tell you honestly, because I’ve done an awful lot of reading and work on this as you know, I’m not in the business of throwing stuff out off the top of my head. How I got into the .001 mistake about CO2 produced by human beings I don’t know, because as I’ve shown, I’ve stated the 3 per cent figure over and over again…
“…we are fastidious on this programme about getting it right, if my staff think I’ve got it wrong they’ll immediately come in to correct me, but I have offered the simple proposition on many occasions that if there is warming, how can the human beings be doing it when 97 per cent of carbon dioxide is produced by nature, 3 per cent by human beings.
“I’ve made a mistake. I’m sure I’ll make some more in hours and hours of broadcasting. And that argument was made to the media authority when they sat in judgment over this.”
Listen to Alan Jones’ editorial here.
Jones replayed logger tapes of comments he had made days before the 0.001% remark to show that he had previously referred to the correct 3% figure, asserting that the mention of 0.001% was a one off mistake.
After acknowledging his mistake, Jones went on to set out his view that ACMA’s actions were politically motivated:
“… is this another chapter in the campaign of punishment for anyone who dares challenge the prevailing Government ideology of global warming? Is this another attempt to silence me with the seeming threat that one complaint will prompt an investigation and as a result of that investigation, you’ll produce headlines like we’ve had in the last 24 hours…”
Jones also commented publicly, for the first time, on how “fed up” he is with being blamed for the Cronulla Riots. He replayed audio of comments which show that he did not encourage people to take action into their own hands. “We don’t want that, we don’t want to play that tactic… let the police do their job, we don’t want vigilante groups,” were some of the grabs from Jones which demonstrated that he was against violent action.
View a transcript of today’s comments here.
As fallout from the broadcaster’s remarks about the PM’s father continues, in Darwin, Territory FM has dropped the Jones show after surveying its audience. A statement from the station’s owner, Charles Darwin University said:
Territory FM has accepted the recommendation of the station Advisory Group to suspend the Alan Jones Hour indefinitely effective immediately.
The Advisory Group’s decision was based on the response to an on-line poll conducted on the station website over the last two weeks, the results indicated this was the community preference following the widely reported comments made by Mr Jones about the death of Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s father. Station licensee Charles Darwin University also received considerable response to the recent controversy.
The survey attracted a total of 634 responses of which 459 were valid as originating from our license area, hence the following result:
Keep Alan Jones on Air – 41.0% (188)
Take Alan Jones off Air – 55.8% (256)
Keep the ban for another month – 3.3% (15)
answered question (459) , skipped question 0