Australia’s Independent Complaints Review Panel (ICRP) has upheld a complaint made against a segment on the 7.30 Report, titled “Pulp mill could taint catch: fishing industry”, broadcast on 5 June 2007 and later made available on ABC Online. Read more here.
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About Me
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD has worked in industry and government. She is currently researching a novel technique for long-range weather forecasting funded by the B. Macfie Family Foundation.
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The on air correction to this story that breached Editorial standards and codes of practice has finally been made. However viewers of tonight’s program were not told that the ABC’s own Independent Complaints Review Panel (ICRP) believed these breaches constituted a serious misrepresentation of the situation, which could well have resulted in influencing public attitudes against the pulp mill development.
Nor did the on air correction mention that, the ABC wrote 12 months ago (14 December 2007) that:
“The ABC has already acknowledged that the report included specific segments, which through misrepresentation, lacked the impartiality required of ABC News and Current Affairs content”.
The ABC instanced the conveying of a false impression of risk to a “current scallop fishing industry in Bass Strait”. After indicating that the concerns had been thoroughly investigated, the ABC concluded by stating:
“It is clear that material was readily available on government websites indicating that there was no commercial scallop fishing industry in Bass Strait at the time the story went to air. This information was known to the reporter before the story was broadcast. The ABC agrees that this fact should have been made clear in the report and that the failure to do so breached the ABC Code of Practice. The report should not have gone to air in the form that it did.”
Surely now the ABC must make restitution by providing an accurate story on the mill’s neutral impact on the environment.