The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) has apologised for its “incomplete” coverage of an Alice Springs town meeting, in which locals worried about escalating crime rates in the community were accused of being “racist.”
On Jan. 30, more than 3,000 residents—including business owners, concerned families, and Indigenous leaders—gathered for a town hall meeting in Alice Spring, a remote community in Australia’s Northern Territory, to address ways to manage the ongoing alcohol-fuelled crime wave and increasing youth violence.
The gathering, which was organised by local business owner Garth Thompson, reportedly lasted for around 20 minutes.
ABC’s Program Criticises Meeting
The radio program featured ABC Indigenous Affairs reporter Carly Williams’ interviews with people outside the meeting, with one woman who had left claiming it was a “really a disgusting show of white supremacy.”“It was really, really disappointing. It was scary to be in that room,” she said.
Another woman outside the hall said: “I am far more concerned about the dangers posed by those people in there—those white people have a choice to live here—than those vulnerable Aboriginal children whose connection to this country cannot be broken.
“If they don’t like living here, if they have a problem with it, then leave.”
In a related TV segment, the ABC decided to air a man’s violent language as he spoke about Indigenous people, but no evidence of racism inside the meeting was shown, resulting in the accusations of biased reporting.
The national broadcaster also published an interview with Nareen Young, a professor of Indigenous Policy at the University of Technology Sydney, who claimed that fed-up locals attending the meeting were “living off the bounty” of the Aboriginal land.
Young likened the Alice Spring town hall to a scene in Mississippi Burning, a 1988 thriller about the disappearance of civil rights workers in the American South in the 1960s.
“If you saw that room in Mississippi Burning for example, Australians would say, ‘How terrible, that’s terrible that happens there,’” Young said on Wednesday night.
The Apology
ABC opened its apology on Friday evening by defending the views of those it chose to showcase in its program, saying their views were “accurately reported” and “clearly newsworthy.”“ABC News apologises to audiences for providing an incomplete picture of the event in this instance. ABC news management takes responsibility.”
The article hasn’t been retracted, rather, it remains online with an editor’s note and links to additional coverage later posted about other points of view in the community and further context.
“Over the course of the day, the coverage included information and perspectives that provided a balanced understanding of the event, including additional comments from the meeting and further context regarding allegations of racism.”
The public broadcaster noted that it “stands by its journalists covering this story.”
“The ABC has comprehensively covered the issues of substance abuse and public violence in Alice Springs and will continue to do so.”
ABC Bias In the Spotlight
The apology came just hours after Liberal Senator and shadow minister for communications Sarah Henderson, a former ABC journalist, said she would asked the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) to investigate the ABC over its Alice Springs meeting coverage.“Not only has it refused to retract the story, apology and investigate how it got to air, the ABC has arrogantly defended it,” she said at the time.
“A very big ABC fail.”
She also told Sky News that the broadcaster has “completely and utterly lost the plot.”
“They clearly do not understand what it takes to be an impartial journalist,” Henderson added, calling for a “training of journalists.”
After the national broadcaster issued its apology, Henderson said her complaint to the media watchdog would be proceeding.
Alice Springs Mayor Matt Paterson, who led calls for stricter punishments on crime in his town, called the ABC’s coverage of the community meeting a “kick in the teeth to residents who have put up with this for far too long.”
“It’s adding unnecessary anxiety when we are all trying to come together to address the issue and here you’ve got the ABC lighting the fuse to have a race war,” he told reporters.
Paterson had also called on the ABC to retract its story.
Meanwhile, Northern Territory Senator Jacinta Price has criticised the NT and federal governments on their decision to lift alcohol restrictions and said that both governments had been warned about what would happen by Indigenous community groups.
In a shared letter, nine local indigenous advocacy groups argued the alcohol restrictions were neither racist or discriminatory and that if the restrictions were lifted, it would lead to a spike in alcohol-related injuries and offending.