Sky News sought to justify misleading Covid commentary then-host Alan Jones put to air, saying it was balanced by coverage of the daily Covid press conferences, according to a letter sent to the broadcasting regulator.
Prior to axing his show at the end of 2020, Sky News had long defended Jones’s Covid commentary, which contributed to the removal of several videos from YouTube along with a week-long ban from the platform, and included a series of errors and apologies.
In July, Sky News removed from its website and corrected a broadcast of Jones’s show in which MP Craig Kelly wrongly claimed people who were vaccinated were more likely to die in the UK’s Delta wave than unvaccinated people.
In August, the deputy chair and CEO of the Australian Communications and Media Authority (Acma), Creina Chapman, sent a letter to Sky News CEO, Paul Whittaker, which Guardian Australia obtained under freedom of information. In it, she noted that Sky News had taken steps to correct errors Jones had made in a timely fashion, but said more needed to be done.
“Timely correction of errors is important. However, they do not stand instead of effective editorial control over programming before it goes to air where reasonable steps could have been taken to identify an error prior to broadcast,” she wrote.
“Arguably, this is even more important at a time where accurate public health messaging is vital and where latter corrective action can create more confusion about the facts for audiences.”
Chapman wrote that Acma was considering whether the commercial and broadcast codes of practice needed an overhaul, and that she needed reassurance from Whittaker about “measures Sky is taking to prevent recurrence of recent issues prior to broadcast”.
In a response the following day, Whittaker noted Sky News had never been found in breach of the subscription and commercial TV codes of practice for over ten years and there was “no evidence” Sky News was breaching existing regulations or that the codes were failing.
Whittaker pointed to the fact that since March 2020, Sky News had sought to cover every news conference of the prime minister, state premiers and chief ministers regarding Covid, either live or near to live.
“It is not possible to give an exact number of hours of such coverage, although a conservative estimate would be at least two hours a day since the first lock down began in March 2020 and at least one hour per day Saturdays and Sundays. It should be noted on some days, [Australia News Channel] has covered up to five hours of news conferences live,” he said.
He went on to list experts such as the Australian Medical Association, various epidemiologists, and top health officials who were interviewed on the channel, and said there were differing views in terms of the response to the outbreak, and the differences “are unquestionably subjects of public interest”.
“There has been criticism and robust debate on these matters of public interest published widely, including on Sky News Australia,” he said.
Jones was axed from the network a little over three months after the letter was sent.
The documents obtained under freedom of information reveal that as of late last year Acma had received 42 Covid-related complaints about Sky News, with 19 regarding Jones, and seven of those related to the Alan Jones broadcast Sky News removed from its website and corrected. Most of these complaints were made after ABC’s Media Watch program aired a segment about the removal in July.
The day after she wrote to Sky News, Chapman also wrote to Google seeking advice on the company’s misinformation policy and whether any of the videos it had removed from YouTube had also been broadcast on the Sky News’ TV channel.
In response, Google’s head of government affairs and public policy in Australia, Lucinda Longcraft, confirmed 20 videos had been removed, but could not say whether the videos had first aired on Sky News.
“We would not be able to speak to any alternative delivery channels used by YouTube partners, however we understand that Sky News’ most common practice is to upload videos on to YouTube that had been broadcast on their owned and operated broadcasting channels,” she said.
The removed videos seen by Guardian Australia last year had all been clipped from Sky News’ broadcast.
Jones has been on a break after launching his streaming show late last year. The last full episode aired on 22 December, with the audience sliding from 116,000 views of the first episode on Facebook, down to 18,000 for the most recent.
