EDITORIAL: Doctored audio a sideshow in ABC war crime scandal

The overlaying of audio by the ABC of five gunshots onto footage of an Australian commando — making it appear the soldier was firing from a helicopter at unarmed Afghan civilians below — is a grave breach of journalistic standards.

But it’s nothing compared to the rest of the sloppy, cowboy reporting done by the ABC with the apparent goal of fitting up SAS soldiers for “war crimes”.

The ABC has since taken down the doctored footage from its website.

In a speech to the Melbourne Press Club on Tuesday, ABC news director Justin Stevens mentioned the “error”, shortly after waxing lyrical about the broadcaster’s “heavy responsibility to have all the checks and balances in place” and duty to “admit when we can do better”.

“We removed the video and are still looking into how this happened. Once we have the full facts we will determine the appropriate response,” Stevens said.

“Until we have clarity on how it occurred, I won’t be making further comments about it, so as to not pre-empt that.”

So much for that accountability pledge.

What ABC has said is that it appeared audio had been “incorrectly edited” and that the trio of Walkley winner Mark Willacy, reporter Josh Robertson and editor Jo Puccini, who all worked on the story, had nothing to do with it.

Prediction: ABC will put the blame onto an unnamed junior production staffer, and hope that’s the end of it.

But the entire doctored audio saga is just a sideshow from the real issue: the fact that no one at 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.

Except, of course, for the taxpayer.

After all, it’s the taxpayer who was stuck with the bill after Justice Michael Lee last year ordered the broadcaster to pay Mr Russell $400,000 for its unjustified attack on his reputation.

That attack went far further than overlaying a few extra shots on a piece of footage. As the Federal Court heard, the ABC’s appalling 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, had only “fuzzy” memories of the time and no evidence to back up his claims.

That’s in addition to the doctored audio saga, in which the ABC selected 15 seconds of a five-minute clip, misrepresenting the situation. Mr Russell says the full clip, which the broadcaster has had for 18 months, clearly shows the soldiers had been shot at by insurgents.

He wants ABC chair Kim Williams to get involved to correct the record once and for all, and to hold those responsible to account.

If that doesn’t work, he is considering further legal action.

“But it’s all taxpayer dollars, and I’m not comfortable with that. Courts are meant to be a last resort, not first,” Mr Russell said.

He simply wants the ABC to live up to Stevens’ pledge: “to be accountable, prepared to listen to good faith criticism and open to improvement”.