The Australian Broadcasting Corp. News is under government scrutiny for its coverage of Israel.
This is noteworthy partly because the examples cited by Senator Eric Abetz were initially repeated on air plenty of times. But more eye-opening were the publicly funded news service's flat-footed efforts to correct the record.
The following is from a hearing whose transcripts are online here (pdf format).
In brief:
1. The ABC widely reported the false UN claim that Israel shelled an UNWRA school at Jabalya – a claim that the UN retracted a month later (on 4/2/2009). By my count, the ABC mentioned it on at least 28 occasions, including on Radio National AM, PM and the 7.30 Report.
2. The ABC reported the UN’s retraction on just 2 occasions – 1 brief News Online report and 1 The World Today segment. Mark Scott’s excuse for the disparity in coverage was that the Victorian bushfires dominated the news at the time of the UN retraction. However, the Victorian bushfire commenced 3 days after the UN retraction; within 3 days of the UN’s making its false allegation, the ABC had reported it on 22 (out of the 28) occasions. Mark Scott’s Victorian bushfires excuse is false as well as being contemptible.
3. The ABC repeated this false allegation on Radio National AM on 6/5/2009, at a time when it knew or should have known that it was false (since the UN had retracted it 3 months prior). The ABC ‘corrected’ this broadcast by appending an Editor’s note – 16 days later! – to the transcript of the broadcast located on the ABC’s web site. Of course, few if any of the ABC’s listeners would have become aware that this ABC allegation of Israeli war crimes was false.
At least the ABC admits that far more people saw the erroneous coverage than the correction:
Senator ABETZ—Would you accept that the story got out to a larger end audience than the retraction or clarification?
Mr Scott—I think that is likely, Senator, yes.
Its a fact of life that corrections don't get the same audience as the original stories (Jayson Blair's an exception to that rule). But even by MSM standards, the ABC's response is pretty sad.
Andrew Bolt fills in more details. See additional food for thought at the American Journalism Review.
