Media Watch

TV News and Current Affairs ABC and SBS News
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Monday 3 Febriary at 9:20pm

Returning to Mondays, Media Watch at 9:20pm looks at the powerful commentators who deny climate change is a factor in the bushfire crisis.

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I’m well aware of the alleged News Corp climate change denial and I guess that’s what this great programs first program of the new decade will look at and confirm/deny

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As predicted, the first show of the year absolutely hammered News Corp’s coverage of the summer fires.

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and Rightly so.

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Good to see Media Watch rightfully skewering Bolt/Henderson’s nonsensical comments from last week.

For once Ray Hadley actually spoke sense in this case unlike Bolt who just talked rubbish.

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Seems that ABC have pulled today’s episode of “Media Bites” from all their socials hours after it was published…

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Possibly to be replaced with a response to the breaking news on Dan Oakes.

Edit. The original is back again

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Response to Media Watch

The 16 November edition of Media Watch carried unsourced and unverified claims about the ABC’s Darwin newsroom, which ABC NEWS rejects.

ABC NEWS is very proud of our team in the Darwin newsroom and their work – as shown, for example, by their performance in this month’s NT Media Awards, where its reporters and teams won Journalist of the Year (Jano Gibson), Young Journalist of the Year (Sowaibah Hanifie), Best News Coverage, Best Current Affairs Feature, Excellence in Radio Broadcasting, Best Sports Journalism, the Pete Davies Memorial Campaigning Journalism Award and the award for Visual Storytelling.

Media Watch’s claims centred entirely around perceived conflicts of interest concerning journalist Kristy O’Brien, who is married to NT Chief Minister Michael Gunner.

As Media Watch was told, of course ABC News is aware of the potential for a real or perceived conflict of interest in this situation. The ABC has put additional oversight in place in ABC Darwin to ensure there are no conflicts, with the News Editor monitoring and managing the situation in accordance with editorial policies. This includes regular communications about it with Ms O’Brien as well as openly discussing the situation within the newsroom team to ensure any potential issues can be got out in the open and managed.

No complaints have been made by any staff member, or any specific issues raised.

Ms O’Brien’s marital status does not disqualify her from being able to work as a journalist. She is still entitled to have a career. Her work can be assessed on its merits and the ABC is satisfied it meets our editorial standards. As Media Watch pointed out, she is an experienced journalist who has won numerous awards for her reporting and filmmaking.

To address some of the other claims Media Watch promulgated:

It has been claimed Ms O’Brien was “campaigning” with the NT Chief Minister during the election campaign.

Ms O’Brien was on maternity leave from the ABC prior to and during the election campaign. She has assured us that she did not campaign for Mr Gunner or the ALP at any stage during the campaign.

It has been claimed a morning tea event at the Gateway shopping centre created a potential conflict of interest.

While she was on leave, Ms O’Brien was invited to speak about motherhood issues at a morning tea event at Gateway with mothers from the Robertson Barracks Family Group. While the ABC had no involvement in organising the event, Ms O’Brien advised her manager of the content of her speech in advance to ensure there was no inappropriate political content. Her talk was about juggling motherhood and career and contained no reference to her husband.

Media Watch implied the ABC did not report on the decision by the NT Government to abandon its scrutiny committee.

In fact, the ABC reported on the announcement across digital, radio and TV. And there are plenty of other examples of the newsroom’s scrutiny of the NT Government, including:

Media Watch mentioned three articles written by Ms O’Brien in past years which dealt with Government initiatives.

No specific editorial issues have been raised in relation to these stories, or any others.

The decision to do any story is based on the merits of the story. Editorial decisions are not taken alone by any reporter. All reporters are either assigned a story by a commissioning editor or pitch a story that then has to be approved. Stories are overseen by the editorial managers and ultimately the News Editor. Ms O’Brien is not in an editorial decision-making role.

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Season Final is 7 December.

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Confirmation Media Bites will also return next year:

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2020 Review on tonight’s season final.

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Returns Monday, February 1 at 9.15pm.

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Media Bites is back

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From the Media Watch story about Clive Palmer’s anti COVID-19 vaccine radio commercials.

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Lots of theories as to who the driver was :smile:

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Or Alan Jones in his Porsche :wink:

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Will there just be no episode, or will there be a guest host?

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Hasn’t been announced yet.

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