Australia’s media watchdog has received a formal complaint over the ABC’s biased coverage of an Alice Springs crime crisis conference.
Former ABC staffer and liberal senator Sarah Henderson complained to the Australian Communications and Media Authority over two items the ABC published on a crime meeting.
Senator Henderson criticized ABC management for defending the reporting as “complete and total garbage” and described the article that appeared on the national broadcaster’s flagship current affairs program AM as well as a TV report as “monumentally twisted.”
The senator, who formerly held the position of consumer reporter for the ABC and previously hosted 7.30 in Victoria, called the broadcaster’s reporting “rubbish.”
However, she said that the investigation revealed a more serious problem with the publicly financed broadcaster, which is required by its mandate to be impartial.
She said that the ABC’s top management and spin doctors had defended the story.
“There should be a retraction, an apology, and a reconsideration of the requirements for journalistic education.”
“I’m requesting that ACMA look into whether the ABC violated its code of practice.”
Following significant media coverage of the town’s struggle with a crime issue and amid threats from citizens to sue the Northern Territory government for $1.5 billion in damages, thousands of irate people showed up at the Save Alice Springs conference.
Families with concerns, business owners, Indigenous leaders, members of the emergency services, police, and other professionals attended the town hall gathering.
However, the ABC’s coverage of the conference included solely negative interviewees and implied that “white nationalists” were in charge.
According to ABC Indigenous Affairs Correspondent Carly Williams, several attendees left the meeting early and that “a non-indigenous person” called it “a terrible show of white supremacy.”
She said, “Another reported that there was tension and animosity in the room.”
Additionally, she spoke with a number of attendees, one of whom described it as “a pretty ugly demonstration of white supremacy and incredibly sad, it was terrifying to be in that room.”
Ben Fordham, the morning presenter on 2GB, was informed of Senator Henderson’s complaint, according to the senator. Fordham said that the ABC broadcasted “false news” and “cherry-picked a few persons” from a gathering of many people.
The Senator wtote said on Twitter, “Instead of telling the complete narrative, the ABC aggressively and falsely portrayed the discussion as “obviously all about white supremacy.”
The ABC has smugly defended the report while refusing to withdraw it, apologize, or look into how it was broadcast. A catastrophic ABC error.
Senator Henderson’s objection came as an Indigenous professor from Sydney likened the disputed meeting to a Hollywood production about the KKK’s racial killings in the American south in the 1960s.
On ABC’s The Drum, Nareen Young, a professor of indigenous policy at the University of Technology in Sydney, said that some residents’ remarks were “appalling.”
According to Professor Young, a personal friend of Anthony Albanese, “if you saw the chamber in Mississippi Burning, for example, Australians would think “how dreadful, oh that’s terrible that occurs there.”
The hatred, prejudice, and disregard for those who were living on their land and benefiting from its richness was abhorrent, according to the speaker.
The Eora-descendant Indigenous activist said to the show that “the consequence of that land being seized” is seen in how “mob are treated on their own land, in their own community.”
The violent 1988 movie Mississippi Burning follows the FBI’s attempts to look into the abduction of civil rights workers while the Ku Klux Klan persecutes the local black populace.
The crisis conference was called in reaction to film that citizens in Alice Springs had captured of young males using weapons like machetes and axes, particularly at night, and of youngsters running amok, crashing into homes, and spitting over bar gates.
Following the arrival of the Prime Minister Anthony Albanese last week, the Northern Territory Government reinstated certain alcohol restrictions, prohibiting alcohol takeout sales on Mondays and Tuesdays and limiting sales on other days between 3pm and 7pm.
The NT government has also recommended banning alcohol in towns across central Australia, including the town camps in Alice Springs.
Other residents gave various accounts of the crisis gathering.
Garth Thompson, a longtime resident and owner of a local company, said on Facebook after the event, “I am so thrilled to see the amount of residents donating their time and support to help create change.”
Senator Henderson has been an outspoken opponent of ABC, criticizing the network’s reaction to ACMA’s conclusions over its Four Corners program’s coverage of the 2022 Capitol siege on Fox News last month.
The two-part broadcast on Fox by Sarah Ferguson in August of last year was judged to have “omitted key facts in a manner that substantially deceived the audience,” according to an ACMA inquiry.
The ABC was judged to have violated the ABC Code of Practice’s obligations for truth and fair and honest dealing, “but did not violate impartiality.”
Senator Henderson said that the ABC had “improperly attacked the independent regulator” by showing an intolerable contempt for the requirement to uphold its own Code of Practice when it rejected the findings and instead turned against ACMA.
This is totally wrong since it smacks of conceit and entitlement.
»ABC gets formal complaint regarding Alice Springs crime wave crisis conference«