ABC team ‘inaccurately’ doctored audio: independent review finds

Five additional gunshot sounds were “inaccurately” added to ABC footage of a commando firing from a helicopter, an independent review commissioned by the public broadcaster has found.

ABC’s senior executives fronted Senate Estimates on Tuesday, apologising for “editing errors” and committing to a review of its editorial policies after former editorial chief Alan Sunderland handed down his interim review into an online article and two 7.30 stories aired and published in 2022.

The review followed revelations by Seven’s Spotlight program that doctored audio had been inserted into an ABC story about a 2012 operation conducted by Afghanistan soldiers, including former November platoon commander Heston Russell.

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

The public broadcaster apologised to members of the 2nd Commando Regiment, and admitted in a statement that while no specific Australian soldiers were named in the reports or in the doctored helicopter cam footage, they were identified.

Acting managing director Melanie Klyn told Senators on Tuesday the Sunderland review had found “no evidence of any intent to mislead by any ABC employee”.

“The interim report has also rebutted the suggestion that the central focus of the entire story was misleadingly altered,” she said.

“In relation to the issue of altered audio, the review specifically states that there was ‘no evidence to support the conclusion that any of this was done at the direction of the journalists involved, or on the initiative of the video editor, in order to doctor or deliberately distort the depiction of the events that occurred’.”

The review found five additional gunshot sounds were added to a 56-second video clip in an online article, and additional gunshot sounds were also introduced into the 7.30 video — but noted that occurred at different points and as such “adds weight to the evidence it was not doctored”.

News director Justin Stevens added Mr Sunderland had found “no evidence that anybody at any stage made a conscious or deliberate decision to introduce additional gunshots”.

“’It appears to be an inadvertent consequence of attempts to create clean, accurate, and effective sequences in the story’,” he quoted.

The review also found the use of an interview by former US Drug Enforcement Administration leader Bret Hamilton where he said alleged war crimes should always be investigated had not been presented in proper context. The review found the selective use of his quotes “did not accurately represent him” and was “potentially misleading”.

According to an ABC statement, Mr Sunderland said: “What evidence there is suggests it was not a deliberate editorial decision to include additional gunshot audio in order to mislead or deceive.”

The statement said the review had found the errors were not picked up because “there was nothing about the two scenes of shots being fired from a helicopter... that led anyone to believe that there was an issue to review, or to consider that the sequences may have been edited in a way that introduced additional gunshot audio”.