Campbell: Why did no one in ABC management wonder about hiring a Palestinian cause supporter?

The Australian government banned TikTok from all government devices on security grounds, so James Campbell asks why the state-owned broadcaster is producing content specifically for it?

It was a busy week down there at the ABC, where in addition to deleting a couple of presenters whose views about the situation in Gaza were deemed unacceptable, the management was forced to rework a TikTok video from a young journalist that had to be seen to be believed.

While the exits of the Sydney presenters got the most attention because they involved highish-profile people who were doing jobs on the ABC’s core business of radio, the TikTok case was far more disturbing.

With the benefit of hindsight, the most surprising thing about Antoinette Lattouf’s removal from her fill-in wireless gig was that at a time when the biases of its presenters are sure to be under close scrutiny, no one in ABC management seems to have wondered whether it was a good idea to hire a supporter of the Palestinian cause.

The TikTok video, on the other hand, was different. Unlike the other case, which related to comments from a presenter of this little film, while looking like an explainer of the sort the kids’ show Behind The News specialises in. It was nothing less than a straight-out ad for the boycott of Israeli businesses and businesses that do business in Israel, produced by a reporter holding a big ABC microphone.

The ABC News TikTok account posted a video from a Palestinian reporter outlining the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions scheme.

The best thing to be said about this disgrace was that in its first version, it was honest when it said the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement urges the boycott of companies “that have some sort of tie to Israel”, which it indeed does, whereas the reworked version claims – falsely – that it’s a movement “that’s campaigning for Israel to leave Occupied Palestinian Territory” and that discourages buying from businesses “operating in the West Bank or East Jerusalem”.

How this was ever published, or why it was re-edited rather than pulled, is beyond me. Perhaps the TikTok bit of the ABC is staffed by the kids for the kids, and the adults down there can’t be arsed checking out what they’re up to.

Was this a one-off? Don’t be silly.

Abbie Chatfield. Picture: Matrix Media Group

Greens Leader Adam Bandt. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Martin Ollman

Another ABC TikTok is a recording of a breathless encounter between podcaster Abbie Chatfield, who said recently she would refuse to “platform a Zionist”, and Greens leader Adam Bandt in which she tells him she had “never been so starstruck” and “I obviously vote Greens and I guess you’re my Jesus in some ways”. The pair then get a selfie.

While it isn’t true that all the ABC’s TikTok material is anti-Israel, even though the overwhelming majority is, the videos with the big audience numbers are unfriendly to the Israeli side.

In other words, the issue isn’t just the obvious bias of the material being produced, it’s that for whatever reason, TikTok is predisposed to serving up the worst of it.

From the bottom of one the posts, it seems this is the work of a special team of people called the “Israel-Gaza Domestic Reporting team”.

According to my sources in the Jewish community, their organisations haven’t heard a peep from this team. It goes without saying there is unlikely to be an equivalent Ukraine-Russia Domestic Reporting team. Normally, I wouldn’t bring this up, as media organisations have their biases, and these arguments between hacks are usually boring to outsiders.

But earlier this year, the Australian government banned TikTok from all government devices on security grounds, so it’s reasonable to ask why is the state-owned broadcaster producing content specifically for it?

Because in tailoring material for that platform with an eye to maximising its reach, the ABC is effectively handing editorial control to an arm of the Chinese government.