Australia’s National Broadcaster Probed Over Fact-Checking Processes

Dissidents argue right of comment not properly provided

An employee walks past the logo of the ABC located at the main entrance to the ABC building located at Ultimo in Sydney, Australia, on June 5, 2019. AAP/David Gray

Australia’s national broadcaster has been probed on its fact-checking processes in its coverage of the persecuted spiritual group Falun Gong, which currently faces ongoing suppression from the Chinese Communist Party.

Local Falun Gong adherents allege that portrayals of the practice by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s (ABC) Foreign Correspondent and Background Briefing podcast series were inaccurate and caused them to suffer religious vilification.

The Victorian Civil and Administration Tribunal is examining four episodes of the podcast series Background Briefing (titled The Power of Falun Gong), as well as an episode of Foreign Correspondent, which has been criticised for allegedly inciting “undeserved hatred and hostility toward members of a religious minority.”

The shows were promoted by ABC as an investigation into the experience of former members of Falun Gong.

ABC Executive Producer Cross-Examined

However, on Aug. 7 to 8 (part of a two-week hearing) at the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal, barrister Peter King questioned the executive producer of the Background Briefing podcast, Alice Brennan, over whether enough was done to verify its story.

“Until Falun Gong approached the ABC, your program had no intention of contacting or consulting with any Falun Gong practitioner; that’s correct, isn’t it?” asked Mr. King during the cross-examination.

“No, that’s not correct,” said Ms. Brennan.

“No interview was sought with the Falun Dafa Association of Australia prior to July 10, 2020, was it?” Mr. King further asked.

“As far as I could recall, no, it was not requested,” replied Ms. Brennan.

“No interview occurred with any Falun Gong practitioner before that date,” Mr. King said.

“I don’t know. Hagar Cohen, [a reporter at Background Briefing] is a highly respected journalist with integrity. She goes about her journalistic process somewhat independently of me for the first part of the investigation. So I am not entirely sure who she did and didn’t speak to in the process of that investigation,” said Ms. Brennan, who also revealed the story had been approved by ABC’s head of foreign affairs reporting, John Lyons.

Representatives of the Falun Dafa Association in Australia contacted ABC on July 10, 2020, after a trailer for the broadcaster’s programs was made public. Local representatives were concerned that ABC did not reach out for comment locally.

One member of the Association, John Deller, was later contacted and interviewed for the fourth episode of Background Briefing.

Over the course of its programs, ABC interviewed a family member of an Australian practitioner, a former adherent in Taiwan, and one in the United States.

Yet barrister Mr. King stated that the ABC failed to contact the relevant organising bodies for the practice in the United States and Australia.

“The only interview with any American Falun Gong practitioner was with Mr. Jonathan Lee on the 19th of June, almost a month before, was it not?” he asked.

“Yes, we included former practitioners from America,” said Ms. Brennan.

“How did you know they were former practitioners if you didn’t contact the Falun Dafa Association?” said Mr. King.

“If we are speaking about [the former U.S.-based practitioner] Anna, who appeared in our programs, we went through an extensive corroboration and fact-checking process around her story and the events that affected her. So I believe, through our fact-checking process, that we verified everything that she was saying to us,” Ms. Brennan said.

A final decision will be handed down in late October.

Falun Gong is a spiritual practice of the Buddhist tradition whose adherents are taught to live by the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and forbearance.

It was first introduced to the public in China in 1992 by founder Mr. Li Hongzhi. It spread rapidly, mostly by word-of-mouth, and by 1999, a government survey estimated that about 70 to 100 million people were practicing all across the country.

Believing the popularity of the spiritual practice to be a threat to his power and the atheistic ideology of the Chinese Communist Party, then-Party leader Jiang Zemin ordered the practice to be eradicated on July 20, 1999.

Since then, millions of Chinese people have been targeted by the regime; thousands have or are facing arbitrary detention, forced re-education, torture, or have been murdered for their organs.

Religious Tolerance Laws in Victoria Being Tested

The ABC is alleged to have contravened Section 8 of Victoria’s Racial and Religious Tolerance Act 2001, where a person must not engage in conduct that incites hatred, serious contempt, or revulsion of a class of persons.

ABC is arguing its programs were produced in the public interest, an available exception under Section 11. However, it is not arguing the exception that its program was a “fair and accurate report of any event.”

In response to an October 2020 Senate Committee question into the matter, the ABC stood by its reporting (pdf).

The broadcaster said it believes that its case studies on concerns from a range of “ex-practitioners and observers” was important.

The Falun Dafa Association of Australia has expressed other concerns with its reporting saying there were misrepresentations of the spiritual practice’s beliefs.

ABC told The Epoch Times it had no further comment.

This legal case comes as ABC fights defamation proceedings in a separate court battle in Sydney with former Australian special forces commando Heston Russell.

Mr. Russell is suing the broadcaster over two online articles, a television program, and a radio broadcast published in 2020-21, which included allegations that his platoon executed a prisoner in Afghanistan.

Recent documents reveal the taxpayer-funded ABC has spent almost $2 million (US$1.3 million) on defamation lawsuits over a three-year period.