How a simplistic attempt to explain company tax proved not to be as easy as ABC

The fallout from Emma Alberici’s wayward economics analysis dogs her employer.

Bill Shorten tweets in support of the original opinion piece by the ABC’s chief economics correspondent:

Turnbull is in parliament attacking the ABC for telling the truth about his $65 billion handout for multinationals. Here’s the full story.

ABC website, when that link was clicked on yesterday:

Sorry, page not found.

From the 6000-word complaint delivered by the Prime Minister’s Office to the ABC:

The Alberici “Analysis” piece should not be labelled “Analysis”. It should be labelled “Opinion”. This is a frequently repeated ABC mistake.

The ABC’s statement:

Any suggestion the ABC is responding to outside pressure over these stories is incorrect. They have been subject to the normal ABC editorial processes. The internal review of the stories was begun before any complaints were received by the ABC.

Journeyman economist and former federal Labor stuntman Craig Emerson goes the ABC hard for pulling the now controversial piece:

What is incorrect in the @albericie report? I’ve read it & there are no factual errors. It does contain opinion, but dozens of ABC journalists express opinions daily. Pulling down the story & still having it under review sure looks like censorship .

Emmo again, just in case we didn’t get the point:

I did my PhD on tax policy including on corporate income tax. I can’t find any factual errors in this @albericie report, removed by ABC management. They must explain their censorship. Must ABC opinions now conform with government policy?

Alberici in 2015, when accused of bias as host of ABC news program Lateline:

I do the best I can to be fair, impartial and to always ask what I think the average viewer would want asked.

Alberici reminds the Twittersphere that her economics reporting has never won her a Walkley, Australia’s pre-eminent journalism award:

In 2001 I was a @walkleys finalist for a story on tax minimisation #justsaying

In fact the winner for business journalism that year was The Australian’s Mark Westfield, for exposing the problems leading up to the HIH insurance group collapse. From the Walkley committee’s citation:

Mark Westfield was well ahead of the pack, reporting the company’s problems six months in advance of its collapse. Against an aggressive public relations campaign mounted by the company to neutralise his reports, Westfield provided sustained and groundbreaking coverage over an extended period. It’s rare for one journalist to so completely dominate a story as Westfield did with his unrelenting coverage of this unfolding disaster. His outstanding journalism repeatedly exposed information the company did not want revealed, and which in hindsight clearly foreshadowed the HIH collapse. It’s rare to find an example of informed and probing journalism that could have averted such a disaster – if only the authorities and the investment community had taken more notice.

Liberal MP Sarah Henderson joins in the Walkleys citation game:

In 1996 I was a @walkleys winner for an @ABCTV story on Port Arthur but that didn’t make me an expert criminologist; nor did it alleviate my responsibility to report fair, balanced & accurate stories to the highest standards. #justsaying #auspol.