Category Archives: Australian Broadcasting Corporation

WA police condemned for ‘shocking’ demand for ABC to hand over footage of climate protesters

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Civil society groups call on broadcaster not to comply with order they say is an ‘alarming overreach’ and ‘undermines press freedom’

Civil society groups have accused Western Australia police of undermining press freedom by demanding the ABC hand over Four Corners footage of climate protesters, and urged the broadcaster to protect its journalists’ sources.

In response to the police demand the ABC’s managing director, David Anderson, has said the broadcaster would never reveal its sources, but he did not rule out handing over the vision.

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Marise Payne to quit parliament – as it happened

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The Bureau of Meteorology is urging people in western Sydney, southern and central ranges and the Hunter region to tidy up loose items around their yards as damaging winds are extending over the areas today.

Gusty storms may hit Sydney and the Central Coast today, while there are possible severe storms heading to the Northern Rivers and Mid North Coast this afternoon, with a risk of damaging winds and large hail, the BoM says.

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Editorial in the Australian that targeted ABC’s Louise Milligan was inaccurate and unfair, press council finds

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The Murdoch broadsheet breached three standards in the article, which caused unnecessary distress and was not in the public interest, body says

An editorial in the Australian newspaper which targeted the ABC journalist Louise Milligan was inaccurate, unfair, lacked balance, caused unnecessary distress and was not in the public interest, the Australian Press Council has found.

The Murdoch broadsheet breached three of the general principles of the regulator when it accused Milligan, a former employee of the newspaper, of “bad, lazy, deceitful journalism” in the 2021 article Greatest enemy of truth is those who conspire to lie.

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ABC clears Four Corners TV crew of wrongdoing during protest at Woodside CEO’s home

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Broadcaster’s managing director says crew did not collude with Perth protesters but corrects earlier claim they had no knowledge of action

An internal ABC inquiry has concluded that a Four Corners TV crew did not collude with or encourage Woodside protesters nor did they trespass on the home of CEO Meg O’Neill.

The ABC managing director, David Anderson, said the Four Corners investigation – about climate protests in Australia – would proceed despite the crew being heavily criticised by the fossil fuel company, the Western Australian government and the West Australian newspaper.

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Heston Russell defamation case: 2GB pursued ‘culture war’ when criticising ABC stories, court told

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ABC executive Jo Puccini tells court rival radio station derided ‘all’ of public broadcaster’s alleged war crimes coverage

Radio broadcaster 2GB engaged in a culture war when repeatedly criticising the ABC’s war crimes reporting, the public broadcaster’s head of investigations has told the federal court.

The ABC executive Jo Puccini was the final witness in a six-day defamation trial brought by former commando Heston Russell, who is suing the ABC and investigative journalists Mark Willacy and Josh Robertson.

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Logie awards 2023: Crazy Fun Park beats Bluey, Sonia Kruger takes gold and Tony Armstrong’s back-to-back win

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Host Sam Pang cracks joke at celebrities including Sam Neill, Karl Stefanovic and Jonathan LaPaglia – and takes a shot at broadcaster Channel Seven

Little-known ABC show Crazy Fun Park beat out the enormously popular animation series Bluey for the outstanding children’s program and Channel Seven presenter Sonia Kruger took home the top prize at the Logie awards.

Crazy Fun Park’s win surprised even its creator, Nicholas Verso. He ascended the stage to accept the gong and immediately apologised for besting the competition. “I know everyone comes up and goes, ‘We didn’t think we were going to win’ but seriously, we were up against Bluey,” he said.

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Heston Russell: former commando tells court he altered invoice he gave to ABC journalist as proof he paid charity

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Admission made in defamation trial against national broadcaster over allegations about the execution of an Afghan prisoner

Heston Russell has admitted to altering an invoice before giving it to an ABC journalist who asked for proof the former commando had paid a veterans’ charity the money he said he had raised for it.

Russell is suing the ABC over two online news articles, a television news item and a radio broadcast that relate to the alleged actions in Afghanistan in 2012 of the November platoon, which Russell commanded.

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Labor to consider ways to protect ABC and SBS from future funding threats

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Michelle Rowland says review into security of national broadcasters will consider options to support their independence

A review into the security of ABC and SBS funding will examine ways to protect the public broadcasters from future threats of privatisation and arbitrary funding cuts, the communications minister Michelle Rowland has said.

Rowland told an ABC Friends dinner the communications department review would consider options to support the independence of the ABC and the SBS and it was open for public submissions.

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Bluey: The Videogame in the works, according to evidence dug up by online sleuths

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Listing on Australian government’s classification board website describes Bluey video game as a treasure hunt-style game

Is the world’s favourite cartoon dog about to get her own video game?

Online sleuths have discovered a Bluey game may be in the works, after a Twitter bot devoted to Australian video game classification decisions tweeted a new rating: Bluey: the Videogame received a G for General.

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Just some songs that you used to know: Triple J to broadcast all past hottest 100 entries

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From next Monday, listeners can relive songs from the past three decades including Denis Leary’s Asshole, the first winner

The ABC’s youth broadcaster Triple J has found a home for its archive of 30 years’ worth of its beloved annual music countdown – a whole new radio station.

The station, Triple j Hottest, will play on repeat the songs Australians voted into the hottest 100 since it began counting down the most popular songs of the previous 12 months in 1993.

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Chelmsford defamation case ends in settlement and apology for claims in Scientology book

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HarperCollins ‘sincerely apologises’ to doctor for claims about Sydney hospital in ABC journalist Steve Cannane’s book

A long-running defamation case sparked by the ABC journalist Steve Cannane’s 2016 book on Scientology has ended with a confidential settlement and an apology.

Fair Game: The Incredible Untold Story of Scientology in Australia included a range of claims about the use of a controversial psychiatric treatment – deep sleep therapy – at Sydney’s Chelmsford private hospital in the 1960s and 70s.

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ABC’s international budget should grow as China spends billions on information war, inquiry told

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Parliament hears media in Asia and the Pacific are being courted by Beijing in an ‘unprecedented campaign’

China is spending billions to win the information war in the region, a committee inquiry has heard, and greater funding for the ABC would allow it to be a stronger presence in the Asia-Pacific.

Claire Gorman, the ABC’s head of international services, told the inquiry into supporting democracy in the region that China is spending at least $3bn a year on international media, compared with $11m for the ABC.

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Senator removed from party room – as it happened

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Liberal senator David Van is speaking to Sydney radio 2GB about independent senator Lidia Thorpe’s allegations in the Senate yesterday.

Thorpe withdrew the remarks to comply with the Senate’s standing orders but said she would be making a statement on the issue today.

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ABC to move resources away from AM radio and TV to podcasts and on-demand by 2028

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The public broadcaster’s five-year-plan, released on Friday, stops short of the BBC’s plan to shut down its TV and radio broadcasts to be digital first

The ABC will undergo a “significant transition” towards digital transmission, reducing the resources invested in AM radio stations and programs, and broadcast TV channels, by 2028 and increase podcasts and on-demand programs instead.

The ABC says it will continue to broadcast on AM and FM bands because some listeners – particularly elderly people – rely on them but resources will be diverted towards digital delivery of all content.

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Bruce Lehrmann says ABC acted maliciously by showing Brittany Higgins speech, court documents show

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Former political staffer suing national broadcaster over a February 2022 joint address by Higgins and Grace Tame at the National Press Club

Bruce Lehrmann has accused the Australian Broadcasting Corporation of acting maliciously by broadcasting Brittany Higgins’ National Press Club address, saying in court documents it was “wilfully blind” to the risk of her defaming him or making prejudicial comments close to his trial.

Lehrmann is suing the ABC over a joint address by Higgins and Grace Tame to the National Press Club in February 2022, which was broadcast live and later uploaded in full to the ABC’s YouTube channel.

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News Corp denies it played a part in Stan Grant’s decision to leave Q+A amid racist attacks

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Murdoch’s Australian media chief calls on ABC to ‘correct the record’ after accusations that excessive coverage encouraged racist social media trolls

Rupert Murdoch’s top executive in Australia has defended News Corp’s reporting of the ABC’s coronation broadcast and denied it played a part in Stan Grant’s decision to stand down from hosting Q+A after becoming the target of racist attacks.

News Corp Australasia chief executive Michael Miller responded to an interview on Monday in which the ABC news director Justin Stevens accused News Corp of targeting the ABC because the public broadcaster threatened its business model.

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Stan Grant faced ‘unrelenting racism’, fellow ABC panellists say, as scale of conservative coverage revealed

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Data suggests Sky News and the Australian mentioned the ABC’s coverage of Charles III’s coronation more than 150 times in the past two weeks

The pro-monarchy Liberal party MP Julian Leeser has said fellow ABC coronation panellist Stan Grant faced “unrelenting racism online” in response to the broadcast, as data suggests Sky News and the Australian mentioned the coverage more than 150 times in the past two weeks.

On Friday, Grant announced he would walk away from hosting Q+A after this Monday’s episode following what he said was the media lying and distorting his words while criticising the ABC’s coverage of Charles III’s coronation.

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ABC argues Brittany Higgins broadcast did not identify Bruce Lehrmann and could not have defamed him

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ABC says press club address could not have been defamatory even if Lehrmann’s identity already widely known

The ABC has argued that it did not identify Bruce Lehrmann when it broadcast Brittany Higgins’ and Grace Tame’s National Press Club address and, even if it had, it could not have been defamatory

The ABC says in court documents that if it was “notorious throughout Australia” that Lehrmann was Higgins’ alleged rapist – as Lehrmann’s lawyers have claimed – then its broadcast of the address would not have caused or been likely to cause serious harm to Lehrmann’s reputation.

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Q+A host Stan Grant standing down from ABC show after racist abuse

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The ABC presenter says he has been a media target for racism and for now he’s ‘walking away’

The host of Q+A Stan Grant is standing down from the show after receiving “grotesque racist abuse” which escalated after he spoke on the ABC about the impact of colonialism ahead of the King’s coronation.

Grant said in a column published on the ABC website that after Monday’s episode he was “walking away”.

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No regrets: Fran Kelly says she understands as ABC fails to renew her talkshow for second season

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Exclusive: Host expresses gratitude to national broadcaster and reflects on delivering a ‘fun, warm and intelligent’ run

High-profile ABC host Fran Kelly says she has no regrets, despite her Friday night talkshow Frankly not being commissioned for a second season.

Kelly told Guardian Australia she was grateful the national broadcaster gave her the opportunity to try something different and she understood there were competing interests to juggle.

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