February is almost done and dusted, but the ABC is still caught in the cross hairs of a controversy that started the week before Christmas 2023. The removal off air of Antoinette Lattouf allegedly because of complaints from the Israeli lobby, and separately the national broadcaster’s coverage of the Hamas/Israel war continues to cause it pain.
Managing Director David Anderson claimed public interest immunity to avoid answering questions in Senate Estimates this week about why Lattouf had been taken off air. But what was revealed in the hearing was the number of complaints the ABC has received about its reporting of the conflict since October 7, when the terror group Hamas mounted an attack on Israel, killing some 1,300 people. Since the attack, Israel has been retaliating, with an estimated 28,000 Gazans killed.
Apparently, the ABC has received around 3,000 complaints, an extraordinarily large number, covering around 1,300 different issues. ABC Editorial Director Gavin Fang told Estimates, most complained about impartiality and bias; 58 percent alleged the ABC reporting had been pro-Israel or anti-Palestinian, whilst 42 percent ran the other way alleging anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian bias. Still to come, as they say in the news business, evidence that any of the 3,000 complaints received caused the decision to remove Lattouf from her contracted one week on air gig. Lattouf’s Fair Work hearing is slated to begin on March 8th, International Women’s Day.
In this newsletter, Ayesha is looking at one tool of war that we also saw in the early stages of the Russia/Ukraine war – the use of AI generated images of civilians, mostly children, presumably created to generate even more sympathy for the besieged victims of the Hamas/Israel conflict. Kieran looks at the government’s response to AI risks. Next, Shaun Davies looks at a copyright issue plaguing Tik Tok and Derek delves into a decision by a regional Mayor to stop a defamation action against ChatGPT’s maker, Open AI which, on a prompted search, claimed he'd served prison time for corruption. Read our newsletter in full here:
Monica Attard - Co-Director, Centre for Media Transition