EDITORIAL: ABC’s doctored audio defence doesn’t stack up

An independent review has confirmed that the ABC did indeed add extra gunshots to combat footage it aired in 2022, giving the impression that a helicopter of Australian commandos were raining bullets down on unarmed Afghan civilians below.

But it was all just an innocent mistake, probably made by a harried video editor working under difficult circumstances in a COVID-affected workplace in that person’s quest to assemble a “high quality and compelling” piece of television.

Oh, and that video editor doesn’t work at the ABC anymore anyway. So let’s all move on.

That’s the very generous conclusion reached by the review’s author Alan Sunderland, who until 2019 was the ABC’s editorial director, with ultimate responsibility for editorial standards, editorial complaints and journalism training.

Sunderland found there was no evidence that anyone at the ABC “deliberately doctored, falsified, manipulated or distorted information, material or evidence in order to mislead audiences”.

If the gunshots had been added with the deliberate purpose of misleading audience, it would have amounted to one of the most “egregious and serious breaches imaginable of fundamental journalistic ethics”.

So it was fortunate that everyone involved in the story, which bored the byline of star reporter Mark Willacy, swore to Sunderland they had no idea how those mysterious extra gunshots made their way into the stories.

The only explanation that Sunderland can find his way to is that it was all a simple whoopsie. “Clean” audio of six gunshots was probably added to the vision because the actual audio (of only one warning shot) was in some way deficient.

To atone, ABC news director Justin Stevens issued a statement in which he said the broadcaster “sincerely regrets and apologises for the editing errors including to members of the 2nd Commando Regiment” and would implement Sunderland’s five resulting recommendations.

That sincere apology is diminished somewhat by the final lines of Stevens’ 1100-word statement, in which he says that the “deeply regrettable errors” do not “weaken the value of ABC’s reporting over many years on these crucial issues”.

But the ABC’s errors in reporting on allegations of misconduct by Australian soldiers overseas go much deeper than this doctored audio saga.

No one at the ABC appears to have faced any repercussions for the broadcaster’s outrageous defamation of commando Heston Russell, who was in command of the platoon featured in the footage.

As the Federal Court heard, the reporting left the impression Mr Russell had left a trail of “fire and bodies” in Afghanistan but relied only on the recollections of a single “witness” — who admitted he didn’t actually see anything and had no evidence to back up his claims.

That booboo cost the Australian taxpayer $400,000.

Sorry isn’t enough.