Investigation Report No. 2865
File No. / ACMA2012/1146Broadcaster / Australian Broadcasting Corporation
Station / ABC Canberra
Type of Service / National broadcasting
Name of Program / 7.30
Date/s of Broadcast / 27 February 2012
Relevant Code Standards / Standards 2.1, 2.2, 4.1, 5.3 and 5.4 of the ABC Code of Practice 2011
Date Finalised / 30 May 2013
Decision / No breach of standards 2.1, 2.2, 4.1, 5.3 or 5.4 of the ABC Code of Practice 2011
The complaint
The Australian Communications and Media Authority (the ACMA) received a complaint regarding a segment of the program ‘7.30’ (the Program) broadcast by ABC Canberra (the ABC) on 27 February 2012.[1]
The complainant complained in the first instance to the ABC and was not satisfied with its response. In a subsequent complaint to the ACMA, she alleged that the segment was biased, inaccurate, failed to provide an opportunity to respond and failed to attribute information to its source.
The ACMA has investigated the ABC’s compliance with standards 2.1, 2.2, 4.1, 5.3 and 5.4 of the ABC Code of Practice 2011 (the Code).
The program
The Program is described on the ABC’s website as providing ‘the best analysis of local, national and international events from an Australian perspective, weeknights on ABC1’.[2]
The episode broadcast on 27 February 2012 featured a segment almost eight minutes in length entitled ‘Look inside a leadership tilt’ (the Segment). Earlier that day, the then Foreign Minister and former Prime Minister, the Hon Kevin Rudd MP (Mr Rudd), had unsuccessfully challenged the serving Prime Minister, the Hon Julia Gillard MP (the Prime Minister) , for leadership of the Australian Labor party in a bid to reclaim the Prime Ministership.
The Segment was introduced as follows:
The critical question for Julia Gillard is whether this truly marks the end of Kevin Rudd's campaign, despite his insistence that he won't mount another challenge and the Government's determination to present a united front after the open warfare of the last week. Sceptics think today was just stage one in a two-step bid to regain the Prime Ministership. In a moment we'll put that question to key Rudd backer Anthony Albanese, but first, [Reporter] reports on the stealth campaign Kevin Rudd denied he was waging.[3]
The Segment was introduced by a presenter (the Presenter) and featured a reporter (the Reporter) narrating the piece, and interviewing various political figures, including the Prime Minister and Mr Rudd, the Hon Kate Ellis MP (Ms Ellis), the Hon Simon Crean MP (Mr Crean), the Hon Tony Burke MP (Mr Burke) and the Hon Michael Danby MP (Mr Danby). The Segment also included comments by Mr David Koch, television presenter, in an excerpt from the Seven Network and an interview with (BH), an advisor to Mr Rudd.
A transcript of the Segment is at Appendix A.
Assessment
This investigation considered submissions from the complainant and the ABC, as well as a copy of the Segment provided to the ACMA by the ABC. Other sources have been identified where relevant.
In assessing content against the Code, the ACMA considers the meaning conveyed by the relevant material. This is assessed according to the understanding of an ‘ordinary reasonable viewer’.
Australian courts have considered an ‘ordinary, reasonable viewer’ to be:
A person of fair average intelligence, who is neither perverse, nor morbid or suspicious of mind, nor avid for scandal. That person does not live in an ivory tower, but can and does read between the lines in the light of that person’s general knowledge and experience of worldly affairs.[4]
The ACMA examines what the ‘ordinary, reasonable viewer’ would have understood the Segment to have conveyed. It considers the natural, ordinary meaning of the language, context, tenor, tone and inferences that may be drawn and, in the case of factual material, relevant omissions (if any).
Once this test has been applied to ascertain the meaning of the broadcast material, it is for the ACMA to determine whether the material has breached the Code.
Issue 1 - Accuracy
Relevant Code standards
2.1 Make reasonable efforts to ensure that material facts are accurate and presented in context.
2.2 Do not present factual content in a way that will materially mislead the audience. In some cases, this may require appropriate labels or other explanatory information.
The Code requires that the standards are interpreted and applied in accordance with the Principles applying in each Section.
Relevant Principles in relation to factual accuracy include the following:
Types of fact-based content include news and analysis of current events, documentaries, factual dramas and lifestyle programs. The ABC requires that reasonable efforts must be made to ensure accuracy in all fact-based content. The ABC gauges those efforts by reference to:
• the type, subject and nature of the content;
• the likely audience expectations of the content;
• the likely impact of reliance by the audience on the accuracy of the content; and
• the circumstances in which the content was made and presented.
The ABC accuracy standard applies to assertions of fact, not to expressions of opinion. An opinion, being a value judgement or conclusion, cannot be found to be accurate or inaccurate in the way facts can. The accuracy standard requires that opinions be conveyed accurately, in the sense that quotes should be accurate and any editing should not distort the meaning of the opinion expressed. The efforts reasonably required to ensure accuracy will depend on the circumstances. Sources with relevant expertise may be relied on more heavily than those without. Eyewitness testimony usually carries more weight than second-hand accounts. The passage of time or the inaccessibility of locations or sources can affect the standard of verification reasonably required.
The ABC should make reasonable efforts, appropriate in the context, to signal to the audience gradations in accuracy, for example by querying interviewees, qualifying bald assertions, supplementing the partly right and correcting the plainly wrong.
The considerations which the ACMA generally applies in assessing whether particular broadcast material is factual in character are set out at Appendix B.
In applying standard 2.1 of the Code, the ACMA usually adopts the following approach:
· Was the particular material (the subject of the complaint) factual in character?
· Did it convey a ‘material’ fact or facts in the context of the relevant segment?
· If so, were those facts accurate?
· If a material fact was not accurate (or its accuracy cannot be determined), did the ABC make reasonable efforts to ensure that the ‘material’ fact was accurate and presented in context?
In applying standard 2.2 of the Code, the ACMA usually adopts the following approach:
· Was the particular material (the subject of the complaint) factual in character?
· Was that factual content presented in a way that would materially (i.e., in a significant respect) mislead the audience?
Submissions
The submissions of the complainant and ABC are at Appendices C and D respectively.
In relation to questions of factual accuracy, the complainant submitted that the following had been inaccurate:
· Claims about photographs of the Prime Minister’s Office;
· Claims Mr Rudd used the foreign affairs portfolio ‘to his advantage’, including claims that the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group (CMAG) meeting was timed to coincide with the Royal wedding and that Mr Rudd was ‘conspicuous’ at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM);
· Claim that Mr Rudd briefed journalists on his alleged strategy to reclaim the position of Prime Minister; and
· Claim that Mr Rudd’s Chief of Staff, referred to in the report as [PG], met business representatives during the CHOGM summit and briefed them on the implications of the return of a Rudd government.
Photographs of the Prime Minister’s office
During the Segment, the following statement was made (relevant portion in italics):
Reporter: ‘But how long did it take for the deposed leader to start planning a resurrection? His enemies in the party, and there are many, believe it was instantaneous. So much so that staff in his office took care to photograph the place before leaving so they'd know how to set it up on Kevin Rudd's return.’
Use of the Foreign Affairs portfolio to Mr Rudd’s ‘advantage’:
a) The allegation that the CMAG meeting was timed to coincide with the Royal wedding, to trump the Prime Minister’s own appearance later that week
During the Segment, the following statement was made (relevant portion in italics):
Reporter: ‘In the Foreign Affairs portfolio the former Prime Minister found a high-profile, high-flying job and he used it to his advantage. But his performance in the role often raised eyebrows. When the world was focused on London's Royal wedding, he was there, convening a meeting of the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group... His colleagues at home saw it as an attention-seeking stunt designed to trump the Prime Minister's own appearance later that week.
Mr Rudd (on stage at the End Polio concert): I sing like a cow.’
b) The allegation that Mr Rudd was ‘conspicuous’ at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting.
During the Segment, the following statement was made:
Reporter: ‘At last November's Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting, Kevin Rudd was again conspicuous.’
Claim that Mr Rudd briefed journalists on his alleged strategy to reclaim the position of Prime Minister
During the Segment, the following statements were made (relevant portions in italics):
· Reporter: ‘But does the rumoured two-stage strategy still exist? In his campaign, Kevin Rudd is known to have briefed a handful of journalists on his intentions to challenge not once, but twice.’
· Reporter: ‘It seems fairly clear now that Kevin Rudd has been briefing journalists, that in those briefings he told them that there is a two-step strategy: challenge once and lose, and then come back and challenge again. Is that the path that he is likely to follow?’
Claim that Mr Rudd’s chief of staff met business representatives during the CHOGM summit and briefed them on the implications of a return of a Rudd Government
During the Segment, the following statement was made (relevant portion in italics):
Reporter: ‘7.30 can provide a glimpse of the behind-the-scenes lobbying underway [during the week of the CHOGM]. Mr Rudd's chief of staff [PG] met several business leaders on the sidelines of the summit. He reassured them that a future Rudd government "would not revisit past issues" with business. It would "let bygones be bygones". They were told that Kevin Rudd was being "practical and moving forward," that "old arguments" over workplace laws, emissions trading and the mining tax would "not be fought again”’.
Finding
The ABC did not breach standards 2.1 or 2.2 of the Code.
Reasons
The particular material the subject of the complaint (see extracts above) is appropriately characterised as factual in character in that it is stated in unequivocal terms without any reference to judgement or opinion. In the context of a report which purports to provide background to and evidence of a ‘stealth’ campaign, the relevant facts conveyed are material for the purposes of the Code.
Photographs
In relation to the accuracy of the material relating to the taking of photographs, the complainant has submitted that ‘staff were consumed by the effort to pack up the office’, that ‘there was little time for activities other than basic pack-up’ and that ‘all the photographs that I personally am aware of having been taken were mementos of serving the outgoing Prime Minister’.
The ABC has submitted that it ‘relied on a highly placed and highly reliable source for the information about Mr Rudd’s staff photographing his office’.
The ACMA has been presented with different interpretations of the same event and is unable, on the evidence before it, to determine the purpose for which each photograph was taken on the day.
The ACMA has examined the ABC’s efforts to ensure that this information was accurate. As noted above, the ABC has submitted that it relied on a highly reliable source. In this regard, the ABC has submitted that ‘the program has confirmed that the quality of the source, and their close proximity to the events concerned, allowed it to be satisfied of the accuracy of the statement.’ It further stated that ‘after careful consideration by the program’s senior editorial staff and adherence to the mandatory upward referral guidelines relating to the use of anonymous sources, 7.30 satisfied itself that the information was accurate and could be reported as fact.’
In this case, an important factor in the ACMA’s determination is that the broadcast itself included explicit denials by Mr Rudd of the core of the story: the notion that Mr Rudd had covertly been undermining the Gillard government for an extended period of time. Accordingly, the ACMA considers that the audience expectations and understanding of this issue were appropriately informed.
The ACMA finds the ABC’s efforts reasonable in these circumstances. Reliance on a source of this nature may not always amount to reasonable efforts and each situation is judged on its merits, taking into account the ABC’s own Principles in relation to gauging efforts.
CMAG meeting timing
In relation to the claim that Mr Rudd timed the CMAG meeting to coincide with the Royal wedding in order to trump the Prime Minister’s appearance later that week, the ACMA is persuaded by the ABC’s submission that the statement did not convey this information. Rather, it simply conveyed that Mr Rudd was present in London convening the meeting at the same time as the Royal wedding and that this had been perceived by some political figures as an attempt to ‘trump’ the Prime Minister’s presence at the wedding. The Segment did not state or imply that Mr Rudd’s presence in London was designed by him to outshine the Prime Minister’s appearance at the event, but rather that others had interpreted it in this way.
The ACMA has not been provided with any information that suggests that this claim was inaccurate, and accordingly considers that the ABC did not breach the Code in relation to these statements.
Mr Rudd ‘conspicuous’ at CHOGM
In relation to whether or not Mr Rudd was ‘conspicuous’ at CHOGM, there is some evidence to suggest that Mr Rudd did maintain a high profile at CHOGM, and to an extent that surprised some commentators.[5]