‘No idea how Alice report got to air’, says ABC boss

The since-discredited radio report aired claims of elements of ‘white supremacy’ at an Alice Springs community meeting.

ABC managing director David Anderson. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Gary Ramage

The ABC’s independent ombudsman has delivered a scathing assessment of the public broadcaster’s decision to air claims that there were signs of “white supremacy” at a town hall meeting in Alice Springs last month — but the media organisation’s boss is still unable to explain how the story got past its senior editorial gatekeepers.

Managing editor David Anderson’s admission to a Senate Estimates hearing on Tuesday that he still does not know how the since-discredited report made it to air came just hours after the recently established ABC Ombudsman’s Office posted the findings of its first-ever investigation into an editorial breach by the taxpayer-funded broadcaster.

Ombudsman Fiona Cameron confirmed to The Australian on Tuesday afternoon that she had spoken to both Mr Anderson and the ABC’s director of news, Justin Stevens, as part of her investigation, which identified two breaches of editorial standards in the report that went to air on the AM radio program on January 31.

Earlier, Mr Anderson was unable to answer questions about his own internal investigation into who allowed the report to go to air.

“I’ve asked for that information to be sought by the director of news, which is Justin Stevens, and I’m expecting a response soon,” Mr Anderson said in response to a question from Liberal Senator Sarah Henderson.

“So when did you ask Mr Stevens for that information?” Senator Henderson asked. “I asked for that in the week that this happened,” Mr Anderson replied.

Mr Anderson, who also acts as the editor-in-chief of the ABC, said he did not “have a complete picture” on what unfolded before the report was aired on the AM radio program.

He said he only “had some initial threads of information that has to do with senior staff changeover, a person handing over to another person, and I haven’t got the complete picture yet”.

That response drew a stinging rebuke from Senator Henderson, who said she was “incredulous” that Mr Anderson could not tell the hearing how the story got to air “on his watch”.

The ABC Ombudsman’s Office investigation found the broadcaster’s impartiality standards had been breached in the January 31 broadcast by “unduly favouring one perspective over all others”.

“It is the Ombudsman’s view that because the newsworthy focus of the broadcast was the concerns and divisions within the community about recent outbreaks of lawlessness and violence that were presented in the town meeting, there was an editorial requirement for the story to present a range of those relevant perspectives,” the report says.

“On review of the perspectives included in the report, it is considered that the report presented one critical perspective on the event, that it was racist, without identifying the range of other concerns and issues expressed by attendees.”

The Ombudsman also found that the report breached accuracy standards “by not making reasonable efforts to ensure that material facts were accurately presented in context”.

Mr Anderson told the hearing that the AM report had now been “reproduced and put back online”. “We are admitting that … it was not up to our standard, our position is to correct and clarify.”

Earlier, Senate Estimates Committee chair Karen Grogan told the hearing she wrote to Mr Anderson last week regarding concerns around his reluctance to disclose information about the internal handling of Four Corners’ reporter Louise Milligan’s breach of social media use and defamation proceedings involving her and ex-federal MP Andrew Laming.

As first reported in The Australian, Senate clerk Richard Pye told Senator Henderson in written correspondence that more information could be requested from the ABC, despite the organisation making a claim of public interest immunity.

The hearing was told Mr Anderson would “consider what information can be provided” by the end of February.