0/5

ABC tells news staff ‘stick to basics’

ABC instructs news staff not to embellish reports of incidents at sea.

abcxHead of ABC news content Gaven Morris has sent a directive to senior staff to reports ”stick to the basics” in reporting incidents at sea.

It follows Prime Minister Tony Abbott claiming the broadcaster was unpatriotic in its news reportage.

Fairfax reports Morris wrote, ”As you know, we currently have a set of claims by asylum seekers our editorial teams are continuing to work hard to get an accurate account of and to verify.”

”During this process all our output should reflect the basic facts before us … we don’t need to interpret them beyond what we know, nor should be [sic] editorialising or seeking to add adjectives or any flourish.

”We’re not seeking to describe or embellish the allegations with descriptions like torture or mistreatment or violence and we’re not reporting whether we have proved or disproved anything the media has previously reported – the allegations and responses stand for themselves.”

Morris told Fairfax Media: ”The note was to senior editors on my team reinforcing the ABC’s enduring editorial approach.

”Amid the continuing varying reports of what may or may not have happened at sea and the responses to it, it was intended as a reminder that ABC news should continue to do as we always do and report the facts before us.”

Does the ABC present balanced news?

Loading ... Loading ...

21 Responses

  1. Will ABC/7/9/10 report on Tony Abbott’s YouTube account being closed down due to the postings being “deceptive”?
    We in the LNP think that Youtube is over funded and should be shut down. Actually, we are sure it was the ABC that took it down, damn those traitorous pinko spies working against us wanting to report the news to the Australian public. This is not what he meant by “scoring one for the home team” – or is it?

  2. @KFed
    Sorry to disagree, because whilst the connotation of your last sentence is correct, but I think you may have got the bit about just who is in whose back pocket A-se Up!.
    @Bass_A
    There is/was blatant bias openly evident on some networks, and to cite the most recent example, comparing it to Labor and PM Ms Gillard, where in her case it would have been repeatedly reported as an Open Revolt!
    This being the virtual silence by many in the media, when Dr Stone completely contradicted her own party leader and PM Mr Abbott and condemned the decision by her party, not to support SPC-A….I do not for one moment claim I to be across all the relevant details and rely mainly on her now validated contradictions, and ask if Mr Abbott deliberately misled us to implicate workers,(widely reported) or if he made this decision not fully aware of the actual working agreements with SPC-A staff??

  3. That’s fine that the ABC acknowledge the year, but in doing so, what benefit is it to the public other than to make silly memes embarrassing a prime minister that hardball utterly nothing to do with what happened in 2009

    Those carrying on about News and the “bias” as we saw the public made it’s decision, all News and other media did was report the internal rumblings and incompetance of a Labor govt that couldn’t help but resort to public recriminations and name call each other, behaviour you’d expect from a Hamas or similar organisation – if anything News held up a mirror to what was going on in the Labor party. Bitter pill for some but it’s true.

  4. I’ve been in a few newsrooms in my time, and despite a few insufferable “ABC types” (I have no better term), I haven’t seen another that was as committed to telling News and not trying to work out what story will rate best.
    Tony Abbott has enough media in his back pocket that he should surely get over this paranoid nonsense.

  5. The ABC should adjust their editorial policy into AA mode…Attack Abbott. They should ensure all senior editorial staff are card carrying members of the communist party or similar. It is time they stopped being so neutral, they are not Switzerland. Get off the fence, have some courage and attack the Lib govt….relentlessly

  6. @David Knox reply at 2-56pm
    David what you said about the ABC is correct, as for TT’s dubious reporting, I can only ask,does someone want a well cleaned out/deepened or drained etc, as in the recent Mc Cabe breakthrough in the Riverina where an excavator searched for days and the only result was the desilting of a couple of old dams at great public expense, or given that the TT well site is in NT wild buffalo country, of course there has to be bullsh-t everywhere.
    But has Mr Abbott done what he set out to do, and was the ABC just the vehicle he used to stifle any future media criticism, eg if a cat had kittens and Mr Abbott could blame it on Labor and former Labor PM’s he would have done so!, but this time he did not despite the platter it was served on?

    Is his real fear of ‘when and who initiated these type operations’ being revealed, and is the media silence about Ms…

  7. ABC has fantastic News coverage than any other network. Seven has crappy news coverage with some reporters waffling around and not sticking to the point.

  8. I’m really happy getting my 14 & 1/2 cents a day worth out of ABC, rather than finding about a new slim diet pill or a boob job scandal followed by an ad about another diet powder.

  9. @TT33
    The whole point is that the ABC didn’t just report the asylum seekers claims.

    They editorialised and claiming that the Navy had tortured asylum seekers and that Government condoned it and was covering it up — and that the Channel 7 video of burnt hands was proof of all this.

    Even yesterday morning they had not only failed to issue any correct but went further reporting unsupported claims that the Navy illegally used to chemicals on the asylum seekers, which caused them to burn their hands to try and deflect blame from them.

    As usually the ABC’s position is that whatever they do is correct and beyond question, and anyone who disagrees with anything they do is part of an evil conspiracy against public broadcasting and can thus be ignored.

    And it’s not just this. They did exactly the same thing and attacked viewers who critised their NYE coverage.

  10. We get it, the ABC hate that the Liberals are back in power, so rather than be patriotic, they are quite happy to tarnish a democratically elected government, they really should stick to the facts and not muckrake as they did with the phone tapping story!

    As it seems when the ABC report news that’s old, ie; 2009 Indonesia phone taps everyone cheers, yay, woohoo!

    When Today Tonight do it, (2011 Falconio story rehash) bad, very bad, outrageous, omg!

    Agendas being pushed much? :p

    1. Surely the difference though is ABC reported on a secret that had been enacted by previous govt, and indicated the year in the report. TT’s story suggested a new breakthrough and didn’t tell us it was filmed 3 years ago? Isn’t it about non-disclosure?

  11. I’m not an “ABC hater”. Indeed, I think they are the best news service around. And because of that fact I expect investigative journalism rather than mere “reporting” what some asylum seekers, who have their own agenda, have said.

  12. @Liv exactly, never let the facts get in the way of a good story. Just like the Murdoch press and Bolt and his fangirls at 10. Last time I checked, the ABC are there to report the news or would you prefer your taxpayer dollars to fund a network that does nothing but spit out pro-government (whichever side is in) propaganda?

  13. “ABC news should continue to do as we always do and report the facts before us.”
    As they did. “Asylum seekers claim”…”It is alleged”…
    Reserve Bank note printing bribes, Wheat Board bribes, phone tapping, live animal exports….etc.
    Thanks ABC for telling it like it was. Oh, yes, “children overboard”.

  14. Liv, how was the ABC ’embellishing’? They were just reporting on what an Asylum seeker told them and the Indonesian Police. This is called reporting the news.

    The government has made stories like this the ‘news’ buy telling us as little as possible about what is going on.

  15. “Stick to basics”? How about stick to reality. It is now clear that the whole asylum seekers burns story was an invention designed to discredit government policy towards refugees. The ABC deserves the political heat now being put on them.

  16. Considering two aslum seekers have already admitted their wounds weren’t caused by our naval defence team forcing them to hold onto a hot engine pipe, and one so-called witness wasn’t even on the boat in question, I think not “embellishing” the truth may be a good idea! Never let the facts get in the way of a good story?

Leave a Reply