No apology, but Cardinal George Pell description ‘inappropriate’: ABC
The ABC acknowledged it was ‘inappropriate’ to describe Cardinal Pell as ‘disgraced’, but didn’t apologise.
The ABC says it was inappropriate for its news channel to call Cardinal George Pell “disgraced” during a news bulletin last month, but stopped short of apologising for the mistake.
The public broadcaster posted a brief statement on its corrections and clarifications page online on Monday afternoon, acknowledging that it was “inappropriate” for its news channel to describe Cardinal Pell as “disgraced” in the bottom of the screen text during a news bulletin on October 1.
“The ABC recognises this was inappropriate in light of his successful appeal and acquittal by the High Court of his previous conviction for child sexual abuse,” the ABC said in a post titled Cardinal Pell.
The statement comes just weeks after an ABC journalist said the coronavirus should be awarded a Nobel prize “if it killed (Cardinal) Pell”.
ABC cameraman Lincoln Rothall, in an email inadvertently copied across the newsroom, made the statement in response to an internal news alert noting Pope Francis had met Cardinal Pell.
“I would have voted Covid for the Noble (sic) Prize if it killed Pell,” Rothall wrote on October 12.
Rothall’s comment was in response to an email from the ABC’s London-based supervising producer, which read: “The Pope has met with Cardinal George Pell at the Vatican this morning.”
Cardinal Pell, who returned to Australia in mid-2017 to face child sex abuse charges in Victoria, met the Pope last month in Rome for the first time since his release from jail. He was convicted and jailed for 13 months but cleared by the High Court in April.
The ABC, which receives more than $1bn in government funding annually, came under fire last month for not covering the latest corruption revelations from the Vatican linking the demotion of powerful Sardinian-born Cardinal Becciu to the transfer of $1.1m cash to Australia, a transaction Italian newspapers tied to the failed Victorian pedophile case against Cardinal Pell.
The television and radio broadcaster has published several investigations about Cardinal Pell, while the broadcaster’s high-profile investigative reporter Louise Milligan has separately authored a book.
The ABC wasn’t immediately available to comment on its Cardinal Pell statement.
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