Australia’s media watchdog says the taxpayer-funded Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) misled audiences and inaccurately reported on Fox News and its relationship with former U.S. President Donald Trump.
The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) issued a statement on Dec. 21, saying that the ABC left out critical information “in a way that materially misled the audience” in its program, Fox and the Big Lie—a probe into Fox News’ role in the U.S. election.
The ABC described the program as a “special investigation into Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News and how the network promoted Donald Trump’s propaganda and helped destabilise democracy in America.”
In one case, ACMA found that ABC did not report on the role that social media played in inciting the Jan. 6 breach of the U.S. Capitol.
ACMA also discovered that one Fox News interviewee was not adequately informed about the way ABC’s show would be presented.
“By omitting key information, ABC did not give its audience the opportunity to make up their own minds about Fox News,” ACMA Chair Nerida O’Loughlin said.
“Both audiences and participants are entitled to the full picture. In this case, by omitting information the ABC did not do justice to the story or provide all relevant facts to its audience.”
In response, the ABC stood by its program and producers, with a spokesman saying their program was “an important and impartial investigation into the role of Fox News during a critical juncture for democracy in the United States.”
“This was a comprehensive investigation analysing the role Fox News played in helping promulgate the ‘big lie’—that the 2020 U.S. Presidential election was stolen,” ABC’s director Justin Stevens said.
“It is important the public does not lose faith in the democratic process of free and fair elections and journalism like this plays a key part in that.”
However, ACMA said that while current affairs programs are not discouraged from protecting a particular perspective on an issue or reaching a particular conclusion, they need to be “balanced against requirements to gather and present information with due impartiality.”
“The ACMA considers that ABC could have taken greater care in striking that balance in this program to avoid perceptions of partiality,” O’Loughlin said.
Fox News said it was pleased with ACMA’s findings “that the ABC engaged in multiple breaches of its own Code of Practice relating to accuracy and fair and honest dealing.”
Controversial Journalism
ABC’s journalism has also come under criticism from ex-soldier Heston Russell and Senator Jacinta Price claiming they were defamed.Shortly after the broadcast, ABC’s program was promoted by a website run by the CCP’s 610 Office, a secret police force established to eradicate Falun Dafa.
Falun Dafa is a spiritual practice of the Buddhist tradition, whose believers are taught to live by the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and forbearance.
On July 20, 2022, the 23rd anniversary of the persecution of Falun Dafa in China, a joint statement was signed by over 600 lawmakers from 30 countries calling for the Chinese regime to end the persecution of Falun Dafa.
