Open Letter to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation
Most Australians know that the ABC is biased to a great degree, whether it’s climate change, the Covid jabs or now, the atrocities committed by Hamas and Israel’s response. Below is an open letter to the ABC, feel free to email it to the ABC.
The conservative government when it was in power should have defunded such a biased organization that taxpayers are paying for.
9 November 2023
An Open Letter to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation
To the Leadership and Editorial Team of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC),
In a divided and incendiary environment where innocent lives are at stake, it has never been more important to rely on the integrity of the largest government funded news source in Australia - the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). Its role is to provide all Australians with an independent source of news; shaping conversations, culture and stories.
Our nation, proud of its diversity and committed to the principles of fairness, inclusiveness and equity, looks to the ABC to uphold these values. Furthermore, we expect the ABC to adhere to its own Code of Practice. However, the Broadcaster's recent coverage has fallen short of these expectations.
As members of the Australian public, we are compelled to address this matter of grave concern, in light of the ABC’s portrayal of the Israeli-Hamas conflict in your broadcasts.
The gravity of our concerns centres around several key issues:
1. Misrepresentation of Facts and Terminology:
The ABC is obligated to ensure that all reported material is accurate and not misleading, as per Standard 2.1 and 2.2 of the ABC Code of Practice. However, in its reporting on the Middle East, particularly concerning the Israeli-Hamas conflict, there appears to be a troubling pattern of inaccurate reporting, leading to misinformation.
A glaring example is the ABC's ongoing and inaccurate reference to an Israeli 'genocide' against the Palestinian people - reflected in the ABC’s news headlines on television and its questioning of guests, such as ABC radio national breakfast host Patricia Karvelas’ leading questioning of Tony Burke.
Genocide, as defined in international law, refers to acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group. This term has been historically used to describe the Holocaust and is documented as being aligned with Hamas's intentions against Israel and Jews. This is substantiated by statements from Hamas members, their charter, and their leader, as well as events like the slaughter on 7 October 2023.
Applying this term to Israel's military actions, in the face of evidence to the contrary (e.g. letter drops, text messages to Palestinian civilians, civilian corridors) not only misrepresents the nature of Israel’s engagement in the region, it also misguides public opinion and inflames public tensions. Gerard Baker, in his article ‘Hamas defenders bombard with words to obfuscate and confuse, seed doubt in Israel’s just cause,’ (The Australian, 7 November 2023), highlights the malignancy of such misuse of terminology.
The ABCs misuse of 'genocide', and its preparedness to leave, unchallenged, third party claims of it, contravenes the Accuracy Principle and Standards in Clause 2 and the Impartiality Principle and Standard in Clause 4 of your Code of Practice.
Further to this, the ABC has failed to include contextual information in its broadcasts related to the Israel-Hamas conflict and, in particular, in relation to claims of genocide.
The starting point for ABC reporting must be that Hamas, a listed terrorist organisation, intends to destroy the state of Israel and the Jewish people. To achieve these dual objectives, Hamas spreads libels about Israel and Jews to incite violence against Israelis and Jews. Its accusation of ‘genocide’ is yet another libel right out of the playbook on antisemitism, and yet this context is missing in ABC reporting.
Other examples of omissions in the ABC reporting include:
The neglect to mention Hamas's use of human shields.
Failing to report that Hamas operates from within densely populated civilian areas, such as schools, libraries, and hospitals.
Failure to mention the continuous bombing of Israel's civilian areas by Hamas. The effectiveness of Israel’s Iron Dome in intercepting these attacks is a crucial aspect of this context.
Failing to acknowledge that a portion of Hamas’ rockets land in Gaza, short of their Israeli civilian targets.
Quoting the Gaza Health Ministry as a source for the Gaza death toll, without explaining the unreliable nature of the statistics
Failing to recognise the proportion of Gazan deaths that are likely Hamas terrorists
These omissions obscure the full context of the situation, misleading the public and skewing perceptions of the conflict. The ABC must correct and clarify such material errors, in line with Standard 3 of its Code.
2. Imbalance and Bias in Reporting
The ABC coverage has tended to question verifiable facts presented by Israel while uncritically accepting claims made by sources within Hamas controlled Gaza.The different standards of evidence required from different parties raises concerns about objectivity and fairness in ABC reporting.
For instance, the Israeli report that babies had been beheaded by Hamas terrorists, backed by substantial evidence, was portrayed by the ABC as unverified, while uncorroborated death toll figures from a Hamas-run Health Ministry were presented as facts. In one piece ABC journalist, Georgia Roberts, explicitly misleads readers into believing that the beheading of babies in Israel by Hamas is “yet to be verified”, despite there being reliably sourced and internationally accepted evidence of the horrors from October 7, 2023. In the same article, Roberts quotes a Gaza Health spokesperson, stating unequivocally, the number of Palestinian deaths. This “fact” comes from a terrorist organisation with a track record of deliberate misinformation to advance its cause.
As well as misrepresenting the conflict through words and statistics, the ABC has failed to visually represent the Israel-Hamas conflict in a balanced way, selectively using images and videos, and choosing interviewees that distort public perception of the conflict. In this article covering the aftermath of the massacre on 7 October, the ABC has chosen to tell the story of the Israeli experience without showing even one family. No human faces of suffering and no injured civilians waiting on hospital beds; despite the fact that terrorists had just killed over 1,400 people, with thousands more injured and awaiting treatment. In coverage of the Gazan experience, the ABC has used an abundance of emotive images to tell the story. In this article, in which the ABC is reluctant to acknowledge CNN-verified claims that the Al Shifa Hospital rocket was not fired by Israel - the ABC has selected photos of Gazan people suffering.
Through its interviews during the Israel-Hamas conflict, the ABC has given a platform to those who wish to spread misinformation and hate speech. For example, Ms Francesca Albanese, who was invited to appear on Q&A on Monday 13 October, has long held anti semitic views - alleging in 2014 that “America and Europe, one of them subjugated by the Jewish Lobby, and the other by the sense of guilt about the Holocaust remain on the sidelines…” This allegation that Jews collectively exercise control over America and Europe and deploy the Holocaust as a tool to extract favourable political outcomes makes a mockery of the Holocaust and is profoundly antisemitic. And through its recent invitation to her, the ABC has enabled Francesca to offer credibility to the libel that Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians, by her dog-whistles that the “Palestinian people are at risk of genocide.”
Balance, and not cause aligned bias, is what is needed from the ABC.
This is not the first time for the ABC. After being interrogated for its bias in reporting in August 2022 by MediaWatch, the ABC reinforced that the “focus of our coverage is what is happening in Australia.”
What is happening in Australia right now includes a staggering surge in antisemitic incidents - over 1000% in some jurisdictions - and chants of “Gas the Jews'' at rallies, boycotting of Jewish businesses under the guise of anti-zionism, chants that translate to the eradication of Israel, physical violence at freedom rallies, and a division between Australians including young people, that our generation has never experienced.
3. Impact on Domestic Harmony
The way in which conflicts are portrayed through the media matters, with far reaching ripple effects on social harmony. In Australia, we are seeing division and hostility, which is antithetical to our values as a nation. The ABC has a responsibility to contribute to social cohesion and inclusiveness, not its erosion, and must recognise the current and potential implications of its Israel-Hamas coverage, on our way of life in Australia.
Recent incidents of violence against Jewish individuals, both domestically and internationally, underscore the serious repercussions of feeding antisemitism. At the time of writing, a Jewish person has died while accosted at a Free Palestine rally in America, a Frenchwoman has been stabbed, a swastika painted on her door.
What will the incitement of hatred mean for Jews in Australia? We have already seen increased security at schools and religious institutions, University students not feeling safe on campus, school children not wearing uniforms so they cannot be identified as Jewish, posters of innocent babies and children are being ripped down, and Nazi-era stickers placed around Jewish homes.
It is time for our largest national broadcaster to be accountable to its own Code of Practice which steps out the ABC’s “statutory duty” to maintain principles of fairness, impartiality and accuracy, as these principles are not being adhered to in its reporting on the Israel-Hamas conflict.
In light of these concerns, we urge the ABC to:
Rigorously adhere to the Australian Press Council's Statement of Principles, particularly regarding accuracy, clarity, fairness, and balance.
Reassess its reporting practices to ensure that all sides of the conflict are represented with objectivity.
Recognise and mitigate the negative influence of its reporting on social harmony within Australia
ABC bias in the current Australian context is especially dangerous. We trust that ABC will take these concerns from the Australian public seriously and undertake a thorough review of its reporting practices against standards, particularly in relation to the Middle East conflict.
The Australian public relies on the ABC for unbiased and reliable information. It is crucial that this trust is not misplaced.
Thank you.
Absolutely. The ABC is a left-wing propaganda machine.