Investigation Report No.3302
File no. / ACMA2014/848Broadcaster / Australian Broadcasting Corporation
Station / ABV (ABC1)
Type of service / National broadcasting service (television)
Name of program / Lateline
Date of broadcast / 8 October 2014
Relevant code provisions / Standard 4.1 of the ABC Code of Practice 2011 (revised in 2014)
Date finalised / 9 March 2015
Decision / No breach of standard 4.1 (impartiality)
The complaint
In November 2014, the Australian Communications and Media Authority (the ACMA) commenced an investigation into an interview conducted during the program Lateline, broadcast by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (the ABC) on ABC1 on 8 October 2014.
The complainant alleged that the interviewer exhibited ‘characteristics of prejudice, racism and discrimination’ and breached the impartiality standard of the ABC Code of Practice 2011 (revised in 2014) (the Code).
The complainant was not satisfied with the broadcaster’s response to their complaint and referred the complaint to the ACMA.[1]
The program
Lateline is a news and current affairs program. The ABC website[2] states:
The program is a provocative, challenging and intelligent window on today's world.
Lateline engages the foremost experts or commentators - wherever in the world they may be - to bring you penetrating insights from a range of perspectives. If they're making news, launching new ideas, or at the forefront of debate, the team at Lateline will track them down and bring them to you.
The subject of the complaint is an interview conducted by presenter Emma Alberici, of Wassim Doureihi, a prominent member of the organisation Hizb ut-Tahrir.
Hizb ut-Tahrir describes itself as:
[A] political party whose ideology is Islam, so politics is its work and Islam is its ideology.
[…]
Its aim is to resume the Islamic way of life and to convey the Islamic da'wah to the world. This objective means bringing the Muslims back to living an Islamic way of life in Dar al-Islam and in an Islamic society such that all of life's affairs in society are administered according to the Shari'ah rules, and the viewpoint in it is the halal and the haram under the shade of the Islamic State, which is the Khilafah State.
[…]
The work of Hizb ut-Tahrir is to carry the Islamic da'wah in order to change the situation of the corrupt society so that it is transformed into an Islamic society.[3]
A transcript of the interview is at Attachment A.
Assessment
This investigation is based on submissions from the complainant and the ABC and a copy of the broadcast provided to the ACMA by the ABC. Other sources used 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 considers the natural, ordinary meaning of the language, context, tenor, tone, visual images and any inferences that may be drawn. In the case of factual material which is presented, the ACMA will also consider relevant omissions (if any).
Once the ACMA has applied this test to ascertain the meaning of the material that was broadcast, it then assesses compliance with the Code.
Issue 1: Impartiality
Relevant Code provision
4. Impartiality and diversity of perspectives
4.1: Gather and present news and information with due impartiality
The Code requires that these standards are interpreted and applied in accordance with the relevant principles, which include the following:
Judgements about whether impartiality was achieved in any given circumstances can vary among individuals according to their personal and subjective view of any given matter of contention. Acknowledging this fact of life does not change the ABC’s obligation to apply its impartiality standard as objectively as possible. In doing so, the ABC is guided by these hallmarks of impartiality:
o a balance that follows the weight of evidence;
o fair treatment;
o open-mindedness; and
o opportunities over time for principal relevant perspectives on matters of contention to be expressed.
[...]
Impartiality does not require that every perspective receives equal time, nor that every facet of every argument is presented.
Assessing the impartiality due in given circumstances requires consideration in context of all relevant factors including:
o the type, subject and nature of the content;
o the circumstances in which the content is made and presented;
o the likely audience expectations of the content;
o the degree to which the matter to which the content relates is contentious;
o the range of principal relevant perspectives on the matter of contention; and
o the timeframe within which it would be appropriate for the ABC to provide opportunities for the principal relevant perspectives to be expressed, having regard to the public importance of the matter of contention and the extent to which it is the subject of current debate.
Complainant’s submissions
The complainant’s submissions are set out at Attachment B.
Broadcaster’s submissions
The broadcaster’s submissions are set out at Attachment C.
Finding
The ABC did not breach standard 4.1 of the Code.
Reasons
The relevant provisions require the ABC to ‘gather and present news and information with due impartiality’ [emphasis added]. Inclusion of the word ‘due’ indicates an element of flexibility depending on the particular context.
Achieving impartiality requires a broadcaster to gather and present content in a way which avoids conveying a prejudgment, or giving effect to the affections or enmities of the presenter or reporter, who play a key role in setting the tone of the program, through their style and choice of language.
A program that presents a perspective that is opposed by a particular person or group is not inherently partial. Whether a breach of the Code has occurred will depend on the themes in the program, any editorial comment, the overall presentation of the story and the circumstances in which the program was prepared and broadcast.
It is also possible, indeed useful, for a reporter to adopt a strong contrarian stance without this necessarily amounting to a lack of impartiality – particularly if the contrarian stance encourages the interviewee to explain or defend a position or claim.
The current political climate in the Middle East and its local ramifications are topics that are highly newsworthy. There is a range of contentious perspectives on these topics and they are in the public interest to report.
In this case, the purpose of the interview was to seek a response from Hizb ut-Tahrir on comments made by the Prime Minister, the Hon. Tony Abbott, MP, that he wanted the organisation banned. These had been reported in the 7.30 program broadcast by the ABC earlier on 8 October 2014[5] which had described Hizb ut-Tahrir as a global Islamist group that authorities fear is radicalising young Australians.
7.30 had also reported that the group had organised meetings in Sydney in response to Australia joining air strikes in Iraq and included excerpts of an interview with the Prime Minister by Alan Jones on radio 2GB that morning[6] in which Mr Jones noted that the group had been banned in Arab nations. The Prime Minister advised that Hizb ut-Tahrir cannot be banned in Australia under existing law, but he was planning new laws to make it a crime to promote terrorism.
The interview in the Lateline program, the subject of this investigation, opened:
EMMA ALBERICI: With the Prime Minister today declaring that he'd like to put a ban on the radical Islamic organisation Hizb ut-Tahrir, spokesman for the group, Wassim Doureihi, joins me now. Thank you for coming in.
WASSIM DOUREIHI: Thank you.
EMMA ALBERICI: We've invited you here tonight to help Australians better understand what it is that you stand for. So tell me first of all, do you support the murderous campaign being waged by Islamic State fighters in Iraq?
WASSIM DOUREIHI: Well, thank you very much for the opportunity. There is an urgent need in this country to have quite open and honest conversation. I want to take a moment just to take a step back. (Inaudible). I will come specifically - I will come ...
EMMA ALBERICI: But I would like you to take this moment to my question only because we will have some time to go through a number of issues and I don't want to run out of time.
In the circumstances of Hizb ut-Tahrir’s public response to Australian operations in Iraq targeted at Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) fighters and the then current reports of comments by the Prime Minister that it was a ‘thoroughly objectionable organisation’, it was appropriate for the ABC to ask specific questions about what the group stands for and its attitude to the ISIS campaign.
As a ‘news analysis’ program, ordinary, reasonable viewers of Lateline would expect the program’s presenters to be probing and challenging in their interviews and in their presentation of topical or contentious subjects. The ACMA considers that in a discussion about matters touching on Australian national security, such as the radicalisation of local Muslims to jihad, a particularly probing interview would be expected and that unanswered questions would be repeated.
In this case, there was consistent interruption and talking over each other by the presenter and the interviewee. However, Mr Doureihi was given the opportunity to respond to Ms Alberici’s questions and he did make points that ISIS exists in a particular context being ‘a century or more of colonial occupation’ and about the absence of a discussion about ‘what Western Governments are doing in the Muslim world’. He also raised questions about Assad and Syria before Ms Alberici asked why he was not willing to condemn the actions of the Islamic State as other community leaders such as Dr Jamel Rifi, a Sydney Muslim leader, had done.
They subsequently debated whether Ms Alberici was asking ‘legitimate questions’ and what their roles in the interview were. Mr Doureihi also said ‘as Muslims we have a fixed moral compass that says unequivocally, under any conditions, it’s an aberration to kill innocent victims’ but he avoided answering Ms Alberici directly when she gave him the opportunity to tell young Muslim men not to join Islamic State fighters in Iraq and Syria. He returned again to ‘foreign occupation, political repression’ and asked why she did not condemn the Australian and American Governments for the killings in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Although the parties were at times argumentative and talked over each other, Ms Alberici’s tone was measured and courteous as she repeatedly sought answers to her specific questions and then moved to different questions on the same theme. At times she took a strong contrarian stance in order to elicit a response from Mr Doureihi, however, this occurred in the context of her attempts to explore Hizb ut-Tahrir’s reported position on the Australian operation in Iraq and concerns that it radicalises young Muslim followers.
In relation to the four hallmarks of impartiality, the ACMA notes the following:
A balance that follows the weight of evidence
As noted above, the questions asked of Mr Doureihi were topical and newsworthy. There is no dispute that Hizb ut-Tahrir’s response to the operations and events in the Middle East had occurred, nor that it was a key subject of the discussion that had unfolded on the day of the broadcast.
The focus of the interview was to provide Mr Doureihi an opportunity to respond to the Prime Minister’s comments about Hizb ut-Tahrir, as well as provide an opportunity to clarify the stance of the organisation on ISIS activities. In this context, the stance and balance of the interview followed the weight of evidence.
Fair treatment
Mr Doureihi did not respond to Ms Alberici’s initial question with a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer. Ms Alberici took exception to this and twice more asked Mr Doureihi to answer the question she had put to him before stating ‘you are clearly obfuscating’. In response Mr Doureihi said ‘absolutely not’.
During much of the interview both the interviewer and interviewee talked over one another and both parties appeared to be frustrated by course the interview took.
The ABC submitted to the complainant that Ms Alberici had:
[…] a duty to conduct a testing interview that does not allow the interviewee to use the occasion as a political platform. It is her duty to put other points of view to the interviewee and her responsibility to make reasonable efforts to ensure that the questions are answered.
By requiring the interviewee to respond to specific questions and not go ‘off topic’, Ms Alberici was giving fair treatment to the specific issue at hand.
In relation to Ms Alberici’s treatment of Mr Doureihi, the ABC submitted to the complainant that:
Every question posed to Mr Doureihi was relevant and based strictly on news value and he was afforded ample opportunity to respond to the questions that were asked.We are satisfied the interview was suitably courteous and respectful.