ABC responds to the ECAJ
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation has apologised to The Executive Council of Australian Jewry for publishing anti-Israel comments on its ABC2 Facebook page following the broadcast of ‘Five Broken Cameras’.Executive director of the ECAJ Peter Wertheim wrote to the broadcaster on August 20 lodging two complaints, one on general perceived anti-Israel bias and imbalance and the other on the Facebook comments.
Comment published on Facebook
The independent ABC Audience and Consumer Affairs unit examined both complaints dismissing the one of general bias but finding that some of the comments made relating to ‘Five Broken Cameras’ “should not have remained online.”
The unit detailed programs broadcast by the ABC on the Israel-Palestine conflict including interviews with Dror Moreh who made the documentary “The Gatekeepers” and with former Australian ambassador to Israel Ross Burns and was satidfied that ABC News had covered the conflict in accordance with their standards.
But the ECAJ did score a result on the Facebook comments.
The report continued: “The comments have been removed and ABC Television apologise for the oversight.”
The report concluded that “following the broadcast of ‘Five Broken Cameras’, audience members had the opportunity to post contributions on the A?BC2 Facebook page. The complaint has raised concerns that some of these comments were racist and antisemitic containing ‘malicious analogues between Israel and the Nazis’. ABC Television have agreed that these comments should not have remained online.”
Wertheim commented on the response to his complaints: “The ECAJ has a significant difference of opinion with the ABC about what the ABC considers to be “balanced” coverage of Israel. That the ABC cites interviews with film-maker Dror Moreh and former Australian Ambassador Ross Burns as “balancing” its otherwise negative coverage of Israel, suggests that the ABC has failed to understand our concerns about its coverage. The overtly racist comments of viewers posted on the ABC website, for which the ABC has now apologised, may indeed represent the cumulative effect of the consistent negative coverage of Israel in the ABC’s news and current affairs programs, including the screening of “Five Broken Cameras’. The ECAJ intends to again raise these and other issues with the ABC.”
I’ve heard the name Cathy Peters before (she wrote the first Facebook comment shown in your article), so I did a search on the name and the result came up via LinkedIn:
Current: NSW Greens Policy Co-ordinator at The NSW Greens, Radio Features and Music Producer at Australian Broadcasting Corporation – Radio National
Past: Local government councillor (Greens) at Marrickville Council etc
Marrickville Council…now that rings a bell too…
EACJ deserves to be congratulated for its consistent rational approach to the estbalished general bias allowances by ABC in all matters regarding the Middle East.
What, this clown, “ben” is talking about ………..”prejudice” !!!!!
Instead of diplomatic, legalistic, gentlemanly debates behind closed doors with an employee who is both a defender and a judge of the ABC, some nice demonstrations at the ABC’s headquarters might result in some quicker and more satisfactory outcomes of Jewish complaints about our tax-funded national broadcaster.
What a good idea. The problem is that no one has the guts to do it.
The first comment is truthful, the second prejudiced.
@ben, that might be your opinion because you are blinded by your contempt for Israel and do not appreciate the political dilemma that Israel has been in since its inception. Just six million Jews live in Israel – the significance of that number cannot be lost on anyone with an eye on recent history as Israel sits surrounded by over 300 million Muslims born and bred on a educational diet saturated with anti-semitism.