Henderson nails ABC on bias reports
Sydney Institute executive director and media analyst Gerard Henderson today nailed the ABC on its policy of in-house complaint handling and editorial bias assessments. “Recently [director of editorial policies] Chadwick’s department has issued a number of final reports. They all find that the ABC is 100 per cent correct – or close to that,” Henderson wrote in his SMH column.
Dr Gerard HendersonHenderson pointed to an interesting statistic on complaints made to the national broadcaster – 96 per cent are rejected. He compared that figure with an equivalent total of 53 per cent for the Australian Press Council.
“Remember the 7.30 Report last August when reporter Michael Brissenden revealed the contents of an off-the-record conversation he and two journalistic colleagues had had over dinner with Costello? Brissenden got the date of the dinner wrong by several months and implied that he had a note of the conversation when the only record was a collective note which had been written by someone else. And Brissenden was allowed to report a story in which he was a key player.
“The 7.30 Report’s handling of this matter was criticised by the ABC Insiders presenter, Barrie Cassidy. Scott has been silent on the matter and Chadwick has, in effect, cleared The 7.30 Report,” Henderson wrote.
