Journalists at the ABC who cover any topic which comes under the remit of the royal commission into antisemitism received a sobering edict from news boss Justin Stevens on Friday: they cannot send or receive confidential Signal messages because no communications can be destroyed.
Journalists use disappearing messages in some circumstances to communicate with confidential sources in an effort to protect what they tell them.
The ABC is one of a number of commonwealth departments and agencies which must comply with a disposal freeze order from the National Archives of Australia.
“This includes disappearing messages on apps such as Signal,” Stevens said. “Going forward, if you receive or send messages on Signal or any similar apps on these topics, continuing to use a disappearing messages setting would be a breach of the notice.
“If you regularly delete emails for storage and security reasons we have to exclude emails on these topics from deletion until further notice.”
The order also applies to staff at SBS, the Australian Communications and Media Authority and the eSafety Commissioner.
The ABC had a similar notice in 2020 around the Afghanistan inquiry, Stevens said.
The topics ABC staff are not allowed to delete include: social cohesion in Australia; antisemitism and religious and ideologically motivated extremism and radicalisation; the capabilities and powers of law enforcement, border control, immigration and security agencies to respond to antisemitic conduct; the circumstances surrounding the Bondi terrorist attack.
Gremlins at ABC News radio
The arrival of the president of Israel, Isaac Herzog, on Sunday is not only a major news story but a highly sensitive one. There are heightened emotions on both sides: those in favour of the visit and those opposed.
So it was more than a little unfortunate that ABC News took the statements of two of the leaders of two Jewish groups with diametrically opposing views on the visit and attributed them to each other, in not one but two radio news bulletins.
Quotes from a fractious debate, hosted by Fran Kelly on the Radio National Hour on Wednesday, were picked up for a radio news bulletin overnight. The story said Sarah Schwartz, the executive officer of the Jewish Council of Australia, welcomed the visit of Herzog. In fact, Schwartz said his presence will “fuel the flames of division”.
The error was compounded by the airing of a second bulletin early on Thursday morning which said Lillian Kline from Project A opposed the visit. She does not. The co-founder of the community group formed after 7 October 2023 has written the visit will “affirm solidarity in the face of terror”.
Around midday the ABC published a correction online.
“On Wednesday 4 February and Thursday 5 February, the ABC broadcast two stories in radio news bulletins on Israeli president Isaac Herzog’s upcoming visit to Australia. In one story, a statement was attributed to Sarah Schwarz (sic) from the Jewish Council of Australia, saying that she was in favour of the visit. In the other story, a statement was attributed to Lillian Kline from Project A, saying that she was opposed the visit. Both of these statements were incorrect and were not the opinions of either person. Ms Schwarz is opposed to Mr Herzog’s visit, and Ms Kline is in favour. ABC News apologises to both Ms Schwarz and Ms Kline for the error. An on-air correction and apology was issued on Thursday 5 February.”
However, when we spoke to Schwartz, no one from the ABC had told her about the snafus. Weekly Beast understands the news department also failed to tell Kelly or her producer about the error and they had to find out from Schwartz herself when she called to ask what went wrong. The gremlins were really rampant at Auntie this week: the correction managed to spell Schwartz as Schwarz three times.
Schwartz said she was also disappointed that Kline’s use of the phrase “anti-Jew” to describe her was allowed to go unchallenged.
“It’s not only offensive and completely inaccurate, but it’s also part of this broader pattern in regards to the policing of Jewish identity,” Schwartz said.
Hard lesson
Journalist and psychiatrist Tanveer Ahmed is a past plagiarist who despite being dropped by the Sydney Morning Herald and the Australian for a contentious column about men and domestic violence, continued to be published, in the rightwing outfits Spectator and Quillette. He has also appeared as a medical commentator on Seven’s Sunrise and on the ABC. A note was added to a cover story he wrote for the Spectator after it was noticed he had borrowed heavily from the writing of medical philosopher Carl Elliott in a piece which argued “transgenders may be the ultimate triumph of identity over biology”.
Ahmed clearly loves the spotlight because this week he turned up on ABC TV as a contestant on Hard Quiz hosted by Tom Gleeson.
His special subject was not “fair use of third party content in the modern information age”, as suggested by a wag on X, but noodles. But we didn’t get to hear his views on noodles because he crashed out early.
He managed to be the first person in the history of the show, according to Gleeson, who forgot to push his button before answering his first question.
Keeping up with Jones
Founding Q+A host Tony Jones has not slowed down since he left the ABC in 2019. (Q+A staggered on without him and founding executive producer Peter McEvoy until it was axed last year. Last week, a replacement show ABC National Forum was unveiled.) A seven-time Walkley award winner, Jones wrote two novels and is now a documentary director celebrating the screening of his film Sentient, at Sundance film festival in Salt Lake City, Utah.
Sarah Ferguson, 7.30 host and Jones’s wife, has also been on the red carpet at the festival, as she is executive producer on the project. Ivan O’Mahoney (Unbreakable: The Jelena Dokic Story) is producer and legendary Four Corners cameraman Andy Taylor is a co-director of photography.
Sentient asks whether we have the right to experiment on primates and whether abusing the animals really is necessary for medical research. The disturbing footage from highly secretive laboratories makes it a difficult film to watch and it is not advised for under-18s.
Jones reveals that lab workers at the Washington National Primate Research Center are struggling with the consequences of what they do to monkeys.
“Sentient is not an activist film, but rather one that helps you reach your own conclusions about some of the most contentious practices in modern science,” Jones says.
Ethical concerns
At the inquest into the Bondi Junction stabbings last year, families urged the coroner to make recommendations which may protect families in the future from intrusive media during mass casualty events.
On Thursday the New South Wales coroner’s court found that families were “retraumatised” by some of the coverage, including the airing of uncensored footage of victims, which Jade Young’s mother called “trauma porn”. Her daughter’s final moments at Westfield were broadcast on television, robbing Jade of privacy and dignity. Journalists scoured the social media accounts of victims for photographs and republished photographs without consent.
Intrusions on privacy listed by the state coroner, Teresa O’Sullivan, include: reporters waiting outside family homes; a young sibling of a victim being approached by reporters on the way to school; social media accounts being bombarded with messages from journalists, and constant texting of victims’ families and notes left in letterboxes. The coroner said inaccurate and sensational reporting included that Dawn Singleton had been shopping for wedding makeup and that her childhood friend was the offender. Dawn’s family said the cumulative effects of the reporting had caused “immense and immeasurable pain”.
O’Sullivan made two recommendations regarding the media.
First, that the Australian Press Council (APC), a self-regulatory body, should develop new advisory guidelines specifically for reporting on “mass casualty incidents” to balance public interest with the grief of families.
Secondly, that the Australian Communications and Media Authority (Acma) should consult with broadcasters on amending codes of practice to better govern the reporting of such violent events.
Sadly, these recommendations, if implemented, are unlikely to have a significant impact on media reporting.
Generally regarded as toothless tigers, both institutions are slow to act on complaints and media companies rarely face financial penalties for breaches.
Newspapers must publish adverse adjudications and broadcasters usually have to introduce more training for staff following breaches but these measures are widely seen as ineffective.
A case in point is The Kyle & Jackie O Show which had 12 breaches last year alone. Under the legislation, the Acma does not have the power to issue civil penalties or fines for breaches of the commercial broadcaster codes.
Guardian Australia is not a member of the APC but has an independent readers’ editor that investigates complaints and publishes corrections and clarifications.
