Seven West Media chair Kerry Stokes blasts the ABC for ‘egregious’ attacks through its false reporting
Kerry Stokes has taken the public broadcaster to task for its “egregious and unfair assault” on Seven West Media, and then refusing to investigate its failure to meets its own principles on accuracy and fairness.
The Seven West Media chair said on Thursday the ABC’s recent Four Corners program on Seven “veered well away” from the public broadcaster’s own charter by engaging in “an egregious and unfair assault on our business and the reputation of our good people”.
“Our formal complaint to the ABC — making a compelling case that Four Corners had clearly failed to meet the broadcaster’s own principles of impartiality, accuracy and fairness — was unsurprisingly ignored,” Mr Stokes said at Seven West’s annual general meeting in Sydney on Thursday.
Sign up to The Nightly's newsletters.
Get the first look at the digital newspaper, curated daily stories and breaking headlines delivered to your inbox.
By continuing you agree to our Terms and Privacy Policy.“Despite our request, the ABC’s Ombudsman has also refused to investigate the matter.
“The Four Corners program backfired as the ABC itself is now the subject of charges of hypocrisy and entrenched cultural problems including racism, misogyny and bullying. This attack failed to dent the spirit and pride of our incredibly talented, hard-working and professional teams.”
The chair’s comments come two days after the ABC was found to have “inaccurately” added additional gunshot sounds to footage of an Australian commando firing from a helicopter.
The doctored footage was made in now discredited media reporting which made allegations of war crimes.
ABC officials appeared at a Senate estimates hearing on Tuesday, where they said while the video editor involved had left the public broadcaster voluntarily, no one had been fired for the “editing errors”, at least to their knowledge. It prompted the Coalition to query why no one had been punished.
The Senate review was ordered in September, after Seven’s Spotlight program revealed audio had been inserted into ABC stories about a 2012 operation conducted by Afghanistan soldiers, including former November platoon commander Heston Russell.
Mr Russell successfully sued the ABC for defamation last year over the same stories. He told The Nightly in September he wanted the three journalists involved to “lose their jobs”.
More to come . .
