ABC needed to get its facts in order

ABC reporter Kirrin McKechnie made a serious gaffe last Thursday night on ABC1’s Lateline. She committed the error in an attempt to embarrass Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull and the ABC let the mistake stand without correction.

Introducing a package by Kirrin McKechnie on the Rudd Government’s ill-conceived Budget attack on employee share ownership schemes, Lateline presenter Leigh Sales reported that the Government had been “widely criticised” for the Budget measure, acknowledged that it had “hurt thousands of lower income workers” and admitted that “some schemes have been forced to shut down.”

Sales then breezily dismissed Labor’s ineptness as “a hiccup”. Can you imagine the ABC presenter cutting the Opposition as much slack for a mess that hurt low and middle income workers?

The rule at the ABC seems to be that whenever there is a negative story about the ALP, journalists must try hard to neutralise it by finding something negative to run about the Coalition.

True to that rule, in her package intro McKechnie did not go straight to the share ownership issue. Instead, she tried to mitigate the damage to Labor over its embarrassing policy bungle by drawing attention to a relatively minor glitch that occurred earlier in the day when Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull visited Perth’s Karrinyup Shopping Centre.

Lateline showed footage of centre management intercepting Mr Turnbull in the shopping mall and, embarrassingly for the Liberal leader, advising him that he needed approval to talk to shoppers.

“When you’re picking holes in someone else’s strategy, it pays to ensure your own affairs are in order,” McKechnie crowed.

But the Opposition Leader’s affairs had been in order. And McKechnie should have known it. The shopping centre had made the mistake, not Mr Turnbull, and the centre issued an apology that same afternoon:

Today Mr Michael Keenan and Mr Malcolm Turnbull visited Karrinyup Shopping Centre, having arranged the visit with management in advance.

Unfortunately there was a misunderstanding about the details of the visit. The centre management has apologised to Mr Keenan and Mr Turnbull for this misunderstanding.

The apology from the shopping centre was issued at about 6.30 pm EST. That is, in plenty of time for Lateline. McKechnie’s testy little dig at the Opposition Leader should never have gone to air.

Not only the shopping centre management should have apologised to Mr Turnbull, McKechnie owed Mr Turnbull one too. And the ABC should have corrected the mistake in the next edition of Lateline.

The shopping centre management, hopefully, have learnt a lesson. Their grandstanding effort in the mall came across as petty, even partisan.

Having censured the Opposition Leader, McKechnie’s package moved to upbeat images of Rudd, trumpeting the fact that he had “kept up his nation-building theme.” Positive stuff for the PM.

McKechnie finally got around to the issue of the employee share scheme, noting that the Prime Minister wasn’t keen to talk about it. Grabs from Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard and Treasurer Wayne Swan were balanced with comments from Malcolm Turnbull and independent Senator Nick Xenophon.

Well done, Kirrin McKechnie, for once again showing that when it comes to helping Kevin, it’s as easy as ABC.