ABC’s Coverage of Alice Springs’ Meeting Inaccurate, Partial: ABC Ombudsman’s Office

The logo for Australia's public broadcaster ABC is seen at its head office building in Sydney, Australia, on Sept. 27, 2018. Saeed Khan/AFP via Getty Images

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation has violated impartiality and accuracy standards in its radio report on the Alice Springs community meeting, the newly created ABC Ombudsman’s office found.

The ABC’s flagship radio program AM on Jan. 31 aired a report in which it accused locals worried about the alcohol-fulled crime wave in the remote community of being “racist.”

It also featured interviews of people criticising the meeting as a “white supremacist fest” and describing the vibe as “scary.”

The report comes as Alice Springs, a remote community in Australia’s Northern Territory, grapples with escalating crime rates and increasing youth violence. Residents blamed the issue on the state government’s decision to lift an alcohol ban in the community in 2022.

Members of the Mutitjulu Aboriginal community walk through the grounds in Mutitjulu, near Alice Springs, Australia, on July 6, 2007. Ian Waldie/Getty Images

Breach Of Impartiality

In a report published on Feb. 13, the Ombudsman’s Office said the broadcast breached impartiality standards by “unduly favouring one perspective over another.”

The taxpayer-funded broadcaster has received 19 complaints about the AM report, most of which were concerned that the report “presented only the views that the meeting had been racist, despite a range of different perspectives being expressed at the event,” the Ombudsman’s report stated.

“It is the Ombudsman’s view that because the newsworthy focus of the broadcast was the concerns and divisions within the community about recent outbreaks of lawlessness and violence that were presented in the town meeting, there was an editorial requirement for the story to present a range of those relevant perspectives.”

“On review of the perspectives included in the report, it is considered that the report presented one critical perspective on the event, that it was racist, without identifying the range of other concerns and issues expressed by attendees.”

Breach Of Accuracy

The Ombudsman’s Office added the taxpayer-funded broadcaster also breached accuracy standards by “not making responsible effort to ensure that material facts were accurately presented in context.”

In particular, the introduction to the AM report incorrectly stated that “hundreds” of people attended the meeting, while in fact, more than 3,000 had been present.

“Considering the meeting was organised by local business owners to discuss action the community could take in response to the considered failings of the Northern Territory government, it is important for the audience to be informed of how many people were sufficiently concerned that they chose to attend the meeting,” the report said.

“Attendance in the thousands represents a materially different proportion of the population than attendance in the hundreds.”

The ABC Ombudsman’s Office is independent of the Corporation’s content-making divisions. The Ombudsman’s Office is led by the ABC Ombudsman, Fiona Cameron, who reports through the Chair of the ABC to the Board.

The ABC has apologised for providing an incomplete picture of the meeting, re-edited the report and published an editor’s note on the online version of the AM report.

“ABC News apologises to audiences for providing an incomplete picture of the event in this instance. ABC news management takes responsibility,” the statement read.

However, the broadcaster didn’t retract the report despite calls from Alice Springs Mayor Matt Paterson, who called ABC’s coverage of the community meeting a “kick in the teeth to residents who have put up with this for far too long.”

ABC Boss Acknowledges Mistakes

In a Senate estimates hearing on Tuesday, ABC managing director David Anderson admitted there were mistakes in the AM report and that it “should not have gone to air.”

“I do think that the systems and processes we have in place did not pick up the issue with that story before it was included in the AM package,” he said.

“Certainly, when I heard it, I knew that we had a problem with that particular story, and I think it’s now been corrected and reposted. So the story has now been reproduced by that reporter and then put back online.”

He said the broadcaster does not have an Indigenous reporter based in either Darwin or Alice Springs, despite the large population of Indigenous Australians in the regions.