Jewish group files official complaint against ABC alleging bias

The taxpayer funded national broadcaster has been accused of misleading the public in its coverage of Israel and Palestine tensions, with a Jewish group concerned it could be “malicious”.

A Jewish organisation has filed a complaint against the ABC for allegedly biased reporting over the Israel Palestine conflict, saying they fear the public broadcaster has demonstrated a pattern of “distorted reporting”.

The latest complaint about the publicly funded broadcaster followed a story at the weekend about a Palestinian terrorist who shot dead a Tel Aviv city patrol inspector, before being killed himself by second municipal worker.

The ABC’s headline on the story reads: “Palestinian man killed in Tel Aviv shooting that leaves another critically wounded.”

The Australian Jewish Association (AJA) filed an official complaint on Monday and says it has raised multiple similar complaints over the ABC’s coverage of Israel recently and wants to know what disciplinary action will be taken.

The Australian Jewish Association says it has complained to the ABC before, but when its complaints are upheld, it results in an edit weeks later that no one sees. Picture: AFP

It alleges that by omitting the context of it being a terrorist attack the headline was misleading to the public.

News agency Reuters reported the same incident with the headline: “Palestinian attack leaves one Israeli dead in Tel Aviv, shooter killed.”

“The ABC has an extraordinary long and disgraceful record of anti-Israel bias,” AJA president Dr David Adler said.

“The ABC will go out of their way to omit the terrorism aspect of the story.

“We have a portfolio of incidents that goes back many years and runs to about 65 pages.

“It is a chronic problem.

“We recently had two complaints upheld by their complaint process, but the incidents are coming in almost faster than we can deal with.”

Australian Jewish Association president David Adler

His organisation posted on social media it was “outrageous” taxpayers were forced to pay for such reporting and it was looking more and more like there was a “malicious attempt to distort reporting”.

Dr Adler also raised the issue of the ABC being praised by the news arm of terror group Hamas last week.

The Hamas affiliated media, Quds News Network, retweeted an ABC TV news story about a Jewish man from Australia living in a West Bank settlement, with the comment “Very good report by ABC”.

But Dr Adler said: “Most people would think if you’re attracting the praise of a prescribed terrorist organisation maybe your report is not evenly balanced”.

In response to queries about the complaints, a spokeswoman said: “The ABC Ombudsman’s Office has six content complaints on hand and is investigating the concerns raised.”

It comes as the ABC announced late on Wednesday it will cut back on many of its X, formerly Twitter, accounts - complaining the social media giant was increasingly costly and was creating “toxic interactions” for staff.

The Twitter accounts the ABC will retain include the news and sports accounts, a Chinese account and an overall home account.

“...we have found that closing individual program accounts helps limit the exposure of team members to the sometimes toxic interactions that unfortunately are becoming more prevalent,” the broadcaster announced.

“Concerningly, X has reduced its trust and safety teams.”