ABC skirts public duty to fairly cover Pell, analyse Victorian justice system

Cardinal George Pell. Picture: Sky News

Were it run by a real editor, as its managing director is meant to be, the ABC would have given more prominence to last Tuesday’s High Court rejection of a jury verdict against Cardinal George Pell.

Yet on Tuesday on ABC local radio, News Radio and Radio ­National it was hard until noon to find a mention that the High Court’s verdict was a unanimous 7-0. Coverage on ABC TV news and 7.30 was far from fulsome in acknowledging the failures of the Victorian judicial and law enforcement systems, let alone the corporation’s own missteps. ABC 7.30 ran a once-over-lightly, six-minute item. The 7pm TV bulletin in Melbourne failed to mention the verdict was unanimous.

Managing director David Anderson and head of news Gaven Morris should have made sure in advance that news editors knew they were expected to treat the judgment with appropriate weight. They should have expected the decision from the moment they read the powerful dissenting Victorian Appeals Court decision by Justice Mark Weinberg.

Yet on Twitter that afternoon ABC journalists were insisting the ruling did not make Pell innocent. It most certainly made him innocent of the charges laid by Victoria Police: that the nation’s most senior Catholic cleric, in his first months as archbishop of Melbourne, abused two choirboys in the sacristy of St Patrick’s Cathedral after either his first or second Sunday mass there as archbishop and weeks later in public grabbed the genitals of one of the boys.

The lack of grooming and public nature of the alleged crimes should have raised alarm bells for editors, reporters, book publishers and police investigators. Where was the evidence of the long-term grooming of a child that usually occurs before abuse by a trusted priest? Why would Pell, having just ascended to high office, risk everything with two boys he did not know? Their parents could have been police for all he knew.

Andrew Bolt in the News Corp tabloids on Thursday discussed false allegations against Pell that have fallen over in court. Some were first aired on ABC 7.30 by Louise Milligan as early as 2015. Others were made by people who had simply seen alleged incidents mentioned on 7.30.

In the lead-up to Pell’s acquittal, the ABC ran a three-part series, Revelation, by Sarah Ferguson. Promotion for the series claimed, falsely, that its third episode included many new revelations about Pell. This episode was removed from ABC iview and its website last week to be re-edited.

Guardian Australia media writer Amanda Meade wrote last Thursday: “The broadcaster responded to the decision by the High Court to quash Pell’s convictions by pulling the third episode …” Meade quoted an ABC spokesman saying, “the ABC has temporarily removed episode three of Revelation from its platforms while updating its content”.

“The ABC has — and will continue to — report accurately and without fear or favour on stories that are in the public interest, including this one. We stand by our reporters and our stories.”

To understand the internal ABC mindset it is worth listening to the podcast of Sky News’ Kenny on Media last Monday. Former senior ABC reporter and staff-elected director Quentin Dempster angrily rejects suggestions from Chris Kenny that the ABC blundered by running exaggerated stories — often driven by health editor Dr Norman Swan — suggesting Australia could soon be facing tens of thousands of COVID-19 deaths.

Dempster denied the ABC had any agenda and believed airing claims that perhaps 100,000 Australians would die was its duty. Correcting the record not so much, apparently.

The same mindset dominates ABC thinking about airing allegations against Pell that have subsequently collapsed, like the suggestion Pell digitally penetrated a boy in broad daylight in a Ballarat public swimming pool. So much for grooming and subterfuge.

Milligan is not for turning. She tweeted on Tuesday, “Hug your children”, immediately after the High Court announcement.

Hug your children.

— Louise Milligan (@Milliganreports) April 7, 2020

Later she retweeted comments by Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews, “ … I have a message for every single victim and survivor of child sex abuse. I see you. I hear you. I ­believe you”. Does Andrews really believe all those whose allegations have fallen over or been withdrawn in court?

Dempster on Wednesday tweeted criticism of Paul Kelly’s comment piece on the ABC’s coverage of Pell, saying: “Poppycock. ABC has been reporting/exposing child sexual abuse in ALL institutions without fear or favour.”

Paul Kelly @australian asserts High Court quashing George Pell’s conviction exposes the ABC’s “culpability” in its “relentless, biased and prejudiced campaign”. Poppycock. ABC has been reporting/exposing child sexual abuse in ALL Australia’s institutions without fear or favour. pic.twitter.com/azekv06ky9

— Quentin Dempster (@QuentinDempster) April 7, 2020

Former Insiders presenter Barrie Cassidy tweeted, “The High Court has found there was not enough evidence to convict … You are entitled to maintain your view …” So you are entitled to disregard a unanimous finding that Pell is an “innocent victim”?

The High Court has found there was not enough evidence to convict. It did not find him innocent. You are then entitled to maintain your view and you are under no obligation to apologise for holding those views.

— Barrie Cassidy (@barriecassidy) April 7, 2020

In response to a piece by left-wing former Melbourne ABC presenter Jon Faine that tried to make the case the High Court should not have repudiated the Pell jury’s verdict, ABC Sydney radio host Wendy Harmer tweeted approval of Faine’s conclusion: “No one in Australia has ever spent so much money trying to undo the sworn evidence of a single witness.” So Pell should turn the other cheek?

As editor-in-chief of The Courier-Mail, I learned from a seven-year series of pedophile revelations by journalists Michael Ware, Rory Callinan, Tony Koch and Amanda Gearing in the 1990s that all institutions — churches of all denominations, schools and political parties — protected their reputations before victims. Church leaders at the time saw Pell’s Melbourne Response, the first formal redress system in the world, as a way forward for institutions.

Many of our stories came from parents, some of whose children had committed suicide. In those days — before the pervasive victim-claiming culture of social media — young men were reluctant to admit in court or in the media that they had been abused.

It is right victims now speak up. But in the Pell case the jury did not hear of psychological issues with the central witness. Testimony of opportunity witnesses who argued that for logistical reasons the ­assault in the sacristy could not have happened were not given due weight. Nor was Pell’s role as a ­reformer.

Pell has paid a price for his church’s failings. The crimes of prolific Ballarat pedophile priest Gerald Ridsdale and the mishandling of them by the late bishop of Ballarat, Ronald Mulkearns, are at the heart of many victims’ grievances. Pell’s Melbourne Response was an attempt to address these. It might look too little today but looked good 25 years ago.

This newspaper’s Jack the Insider, Peter Hoysted, on Thursday published a potted history of Victoria Police’s covering up of crimes by pedophile priests since the 1940s. That day Bolt on his blog listed the failed charges brought by VicPol against Pell. Victorians should read both and ask why their ABC has not held Victoria’s policing and justice systems to account.