Accuracy and impartiality are the cornerstones of journalistic ethics, and essential components of the credibility and reputation of a news source, especially in the context of culturally and politically sensitive and controversial issues.
Ideally, journalism must strive to achieve the normative goal of presenting news that encompasses a wide range of perspectives – which upholds the crucial role of journalism as a forum for exchanging ideas – and there can be significant implications for public interest journalism when the country’s national broadcaster is found in breach of its editorial standards.
Last week, the ABC came under scrutiny after an AM radio segment on the ‘Save Alice Springs’ town meeting was criticised for bias in conveying implications of ‘white supremacy’. The radio segment that was prepared by a First Nations Quandamooka journalist and contained comments from three local people, who described the town meeting as a ‘disgusting show of white supremacy’, ‘scary’, and ‘racist’. No other views were canvassed from the gathering of roughly 3000 residents. This triggered public and parliamentary attention and caused other media organisations to question the national broadcaster’s editorial standards.
While the ABC initially denied any bias in reporting, two weeks and 19 complaints later, the ABC Ombudsman’s Office found the segment had indeed breached two standards of the ABC Code of Practice: impartiality and accuracy. Importantly, the segment was found to have unduly favoured one perspective over another. Later at the Senate estimates hearing last week, ABC managing director David Anderson also admitted that the systems and processes in place had ‘somehow failed in this case’.
There is no doubt in the fact that a timely scrutiny by the ABC Ombudsman and the way the ABC accepted accountability for its ‘system failure’ is commendable and can be crucial to the reinstatement of public trust in the media. However, when it comes to the coverage of Indigenous communities and representing their voice in the media, can the ABC, Australia’s most trusted news source, afford to repeat such mistakes, which can, in some way, exacerbate political polarisation and social divisions, and lead to a breakdown in civic discourse, especially at a time when trust in media is declining globally.
Public broadcasters in a democratic country have a unique role in society and have a mandate to serve the public interest. Repeated breaches of accuracy and impartiality standards will lead to accusations of bias and agenda-setting and can create a perception that the media’s role in a democratic process is flawed and not serving the interests of the public.
Ayesha Jehangir, CMT Postdoctoral Fellow