Radio broadcaster 2GB engaged in a culture war when repeatedly criticising the ABC’s war crimes reporting, the public broadcaster’s head of investigations has told the federal court.
The ABC executive Jo Puccini was the final witness in a six-day defamation trial brought by former commando Heston Russell, who is suing the ABC and investigative journalists Mark Willacy and Josh Robertson.
“The 2GB broadcasting strayed into abuse and deriding all the war crimes coverage,” Puccini told the court.
“I mean, it was a culture war, this issue. This ‘Josh’ allegation was a way to criticise all the war crimes reporting, including the one that was currently subject to charges.”
Earlier in the week the court heard evidence from Robertson that 2GB and broadcaster Ben Fordham had broadcast multiple stories that were critical of Willacy and the ABC’s reporting.
Russell’s suit involves two online news articles, a television news item and a radio broadcast published in 2020 and 2021 about the November platoon’s alleged actions in Afghanistan in 2012. Russell commanded the platoon.
In a preliminary decision, Justice Michael Lee found in February that Russell was defamed by the ABC in the series of articles that linked him to war crimes and alleged he left “fire and bodies” in his wake during his service in Afghanistan.
The ABC defence relies on the new public interest defence, seeking to prove the articles and broadcast concerned “an issue of public interest” and they “reasonably believed that the publication of the matter was in the public interest”.
Puccini said it was frustrating when 2GB interviewed Russell and broadcast negative editorials about ABC reporting because the public broadcaster knew there was a criminal investigation going on but could not report it at that stage.
As head of investigations and current affairs, Puccini said she trusted the highly experienced journalists she worked with, such as Willacy, and she did not need personally to check their reporting.
Puccini said Willacy, who gave extensive evidence earlier in the week, was a meticulous journalist of 30 years’ experience and she “trusts his journalism”.
“With Mr Willacy and all the other journalists on the team, I don’t do their journalism for them,” Puccini said under cross-examination about why she didn’t check Willacy’s interviews and material.
“That’s not my job. I might have 15 very complicated stories going at once. I check that he has checked or that they have checked. I say, ‘Have you done this? Could you do that? Have you fact checked it?’ But I don’t do their journalism for them.”
Photograph: Nikki Short/AAP
The investigative journalist Dan Oakes, who contributed to some of the reporting, and ABC journalist Alexandra Blucher, also faced cross-examination about their roles in the stories.
Puccini said she was satisfied Willacy had “a credible allegation” and had spoken to a confidential source who “believed that the allegation was credible”.
“I knew that he had a number of commando sources who provided him with reliable information,” she said.
Puccini admitted that she had not noticed an error in an online article until it was pointed out to her, and it was subsequently corrected.
“I made an error by not checking,” Puccini said.
Puccini disagreed the ABC had been dishonest in its correction on the article and rejected that the ABC conduct over the articles was “dishonest unethical and absurd”.
The case will return for closing arguments on Monday.
