★★★★★ 0/5

Media Watch apologises

Jonathan Holmes says sorry after an ACMA breach but poses complex questions on when to offer a right of reply.

5
Leave a comment

“I’m sorry,” Media Watch host Jonathan Holmes told Daily Telegraph reporter Andrew Clennell last night, after an ACMA ruling the the show had breached the ABC Code of Practice.

The show didn’t shy away from the ruling it received last week, nor could it really, after the (other) media watchdog ruled it had failed to give Clennell a right of reply to a story it ran last year.

The ABC show spent more than half the show on the issue last night, acknowledging it had got it wrong. The ruling, said Holmes was “The biter bit. The critic castigated. The pontificator pwned.

“….In this case, we and the ABC accept the umpire’s ruling that we should have done – and that had we done so, the Telegraph’s response would have lessened, in our viewers’ eyes, Andrew Clennell’s personal responsibility for a one-sided story,” he said.

But perhaps the bigger issue was one of whether it was appropriate to offer a right of reply when the show defends it was critiquing an article.

It referenced former executive producer, David Salter, describing the program’s attitude:

David Salter: there’s a recurring bleat from my colleagues in the media that in Media Watch, at least during our time there, Stuart and myself, they were never offered the right of reply. Absolutely true. So what? It’s not a debate. It’s not ah a ah Four Corners program where you’ve got to have the for and against. It’s a program of opinion, commentary and review.

In relation to the breach after comment on Clennell’s article, he said,

“But Media Watch argued – and the ABC agreed – that I was commenting on what was actually published – and that we weren’t obliged to offer a right of reply to that opinion.”

In disputing the Media Watch view, Clennell had argued some of his article had been deleted by editors.

But that’s part of journalism. It’s fair to critique what was actually published, not what was intended to be published. I agree that right of reply isn’t necessary for review and comment, but if it is reporting news and misrepresents, it crosses into a greyer area.

Either way it’s encouraging that Media Watch has said Sorry at its earliest opportunity following the ACMA ruling. Hopefully the newspaper can take note and follow suit in the future too.

You can read the full transcript here.

5 Responses

  3. Media Watch did offer a right of reply a few years ago. They would criticise someone or something then there would be an insert showing the subject responding to the criticism. It was great because for a few weeks the show was impartial and a serious media critic.

    After a few weeks that format was dropped and it sunk back into the hard left, political correctness which had made the program such an object of ridicule with zero credibility.

    Let’s hope this incident is the catalyst for a return to the right of reply format because at the moment the program is a waste of airtime.

  4. Am I the only one who finds it humourous that the Tele would waste an entire page on this apology to them from another media outlet, yet when it comes time for them to apologise (about once a week or more), you are hard-pressed to find it because it is on tiny writing hidden on about page 23?

    The hypocrisy is breathtaking. Unfortunately David, until ACMA grows some teeth, the Telegraph will never act in such an appropriate manner 🙁

    Well done Media Watch for doing the right thing.

Leave a Reply