Speaker 1: This is the Media Show with joanouting, Hello and welcome
Speaker 1: to the Media Show. I'm Color Bond filling in for
Speaker 1: Jack harton this week Big Show Ahead. As the ABC's
Speaker 1: reputation is in tatters after bombshell allegations it doctored footage
Speaker 1: to make it look like war crimes were committed in Afghanistan,
Speaker 1: and the outgoing nine CEO finally speaks after his shock resignation.
Speaker 1: Now we saw this week the second dice with death
Speaker 1: Donald Trump has had in just a few months. As
Speaker 1: I'm sure you know, the forty fifth President of the
Speaker 1: United States, who of course wants to be the forty
Speaker 1: seventh president, was playing around of golf at his course
Speaker 1: in West Palm Beach in Florida on Sunday afternoon when
Speaker 1: the Secret Service found a man harding in the bushes
Speaker 1: four hundred meters away from Trump with an AK forty
Speaker 1: seven style assault rifle. They fired multiple rounds at Ryan
Speaker 1: Ralph before he fled the scene, and he was eventually
Speaker 1: stopped and arrested about seventy two kilometers away. After being
Speaker 1: shot in year in Butler, Pennsylvania a little more than
Speaker 1: two months ago, he was another man who appeared to
Speaker 1: be ready to assassinate the Republican presidential candidate. And you'd
Speaker 1: think after last time that the media would be smart
Speaker 1: enough to tone down the anti Trump rhetoric. The bloke
Speaker 1: nearly got shot again, But no, the leftist media in
Speaker 1: the US in this case, the MSNBC was saying it
Speaker 1: was Trump who needed to tone down the rhetoric.
Speaker 2: But do you expect to hear anything from the Trump
Speaker 2: campaign about toning down the rhetoric, toning down the violence,
Speaker 2: or would that be atypical of the former president.
Speaker 3: Well, Alex remember back to the assassination attempt on President
Speaker 3: Trump's life, and how you know, there was talk of
Speaker 3: a new tone, and then the Republican Convention was, by
Speaker 3: Trumpian standards, muted, and it did seem like he was
Speaker 3: just trying to take it down a few nches. But
Speaker 3: then by the end of his convention speech, you know,
Speaker 3: we were kind of back to where we started.
Speaker 1: I mean, they're effectively victim blaming. He came within four
Speaker 1: hundred meters of a lunaty hidden in the bushes with
Speaker 1: an assault rifle, and it's apparently his job to calm
Speaker 1: things down. Here are a few more examples of the
Speaker 1: media shifting the blame to Trump for someone apparently wanting
Speaker 1: to shoot him.
Speaker 2: Donald Trump is blaming Democrats for inflaming political rhetoric, but
Speaker 2: the former president's own words seem to be increasing the
Speaker 2: threat of political violence in Springfield, Ohio. That's where a
Speaker 2: false and ugly accusation against Haitians, thousands of whom our
Speaker 2: legal permanent residents, is impacting everyday life as a.
Speaker 4: Parent assassination attempt comes amid increasingly fierce rhetoric on the
Speaker 4: campaign trail itself. Mister Trump is running made jd Vance
Speaker 4: continue to make baseless claims about Haitian immigrants in Ohio.
Speaker 5: You can't say that threat's bomb threats on Springfield, Ohio
Speaker 5: schools and hospitals have nothing to do with Trump and
Speaker 5: the Trump campaign. You can't say Trump has no responsibility
Speaker 5: for an attack on Paul Pelosi, no responsibility for Jan six,
Speaker 5: no responsibility for threats against election workers, no responsibility for
Speaker 5: threats against doctor Fauci and health administrators. I mean, the
Speaker 5: list goes on and on and on. So the calls
Speaker 5: to tone down are good, but they need to come
Speaker 5: from inside the house.
Speaker 1: I mean, for heaven's sake, and the post mortem continued
Speaker 1: in print, with the leftist media rubbishing the idea that
Speaker 1: inflammatory rhetoric against Trump might incite someone to want to
Speaker 1: kill him. NBC online quote, Trump dispenses with unity and
Speaker 1: blames Democrats after apparent second assassination attempt. The Washington Post quote, Trump,
Speaker 1: without evidence blames rhetoric of Biden Harris for possible assassination attempt.
Speaker 1: MSNBC online quote the problems with Trump blaming Dems for
Speaker 1: apparent assassination attempt. USA Today quote after possible assassination attempt,
Speaker 1: Trump decries sorry rhetoric, Spare me the sanctimony. USA Today
Speaker 1: again quote Trump fundraises, blames Biden and Harris without evidence
Speaker 1: in aftermath of second assassination attempt. Here in Australia, The
Speaker 1: Sydney Morning Herald quote without evidence, Trump blames Biden and
Speaker 1: Harris for apparent assassination attempt. Seeing INN online quote headline,
Speaker 1: Trump pivots from second to parent assassination attempt to more
Speaker 1: incendiury claims lead. Ex President Donald Trump responded to a
Speaker 1: second apparent assassination attempt that he blames on incendury political
Speaker 1: rhetoric by inflaming the situation even more. The Atlantic quote
Speaker 1: Donald Trump is using another possible attempt on his life
Speaker 1: to inflame tensions in America, which which is one more
Speaker 1: reason he should never be president again. The Los Angeles
Speaker 1: Times quote Trump assassination attempts are just the beginning. Imagine
Speaker 1: what is coming after the election. It then goes on
Speaker 1: to say in the article, if Vice President Kamala Harris
Speaker 1: wins the election in November, there is serious concern over
Speaker 1: violence waged by Trump supporters who may believe that the
Speaker 1: election was rigged or stolen. It continues. If Trump is elected,
Speaker 1: many expect a visceral reaction from segments of the far left,
Speaker 1: including some who may resort to violence. May is doing
Speaker 1: some heavy lifting there, but after a brief charting of
Speaker 1: the left, it goes on, Trump's election could also embolden
Speaker 1: any followers prone to violence, which could feel more terrorism
Speaker 1: against immigrants, people of color, women, LGBTQ plus people and others.
Speaker 1: How can the media possibly claim that there is no
Speaker 1: evidence that the rhetoric of Biden and Harris could encourage
Speaker 1: assassinate attempts against Trump. They have both repeatedly caught him
Speaker 1: a threat to democracy. Biden said he should be put
Speaker 1: in a bullseye I mean, if you think he is
Speaker 1: a threat to the very fabric of the governance of
Speaker 1: the United States, then why wouldn't you want to have
Speaker 1: the man killed? And Rachel Maddower had Hillary Clinton on
Speaker 1: MSNBC the next day to say that Trump was a
Speaker 1: demagogue and a threat to the world.
Speaker 6: You know, journalists should, you know, really try to achieve
Speaker 6: objectivity and by that he said, I mean they should
Speaker 6: cover the object. Well, the object in this case is
Speaker 6: Donald Trump, his demagoguery, his danger to our country and
Speaker 6: the world, and stick with it. You know, they were
Speaker 6: merciless about what they saw as President Biden's problems in
Speaker 6: the debate.
Speaker 1: They never learn, But I think the point is that
Speaker 1: they don't want to learn, because it's deliberate. They would
Speaker 1: rather see Trump dead than in office again, so why
Speaker 1: would they turn down the retric Joining me on the
Speaker 1: show this week is The Australian's media writers Sophie Ellsworth
Speaker 1: and writer and broadcaster Kel Richards. Kel. You know, it's
Speaker 1: just so egregious the examples from the American media. I
Speaker 1: could have gone on. That's only a handful of the
Speaker 1: examples that I managed to scrounge up this week, but
Speaker 1: that the leftist media in America wants the man dead,
Speaker 1: it would seem, and will do everything to shift the
Speaker 1: blame for people wanting to kill him.
Speaker 7: Ninety percent of the American media have decided on their
Speaker 7: candidate they want elected to the White House, and everything,
Speaker 7: every single journalistic value has been thrown out the window
Speaker 7: in order to pursue their campaign to get Krmala Harrison
Speaker 7: too the White House. The things we we're hearing more bizarre.
Speaker 7: On Wolf Blitzer's program on SO, a woman wanted to
Speaker 7: blame Trump for the attack on Nancy Pelosi's husban. Now,
Speaker 7: a that's without evidence. If you want to talk about
Speaker 7: things with that, There's no evidence for that at all.
Speaker 7: It was a madman who did that. There's never been
Speaker 7: any suggestion that had anything to do with Trump, except
Speaker 7: now suddenly we want to blame Trump for everything, including
Speaker 7: things in the past. And you quoted that line, which
Speaker 7: is the most important line. That was three or four
Speaker 7: of them newspaper lines you quoted without evidence, without evidence.
Speaker 7: I'll give you the evidence. The ipsuma verba of Joe
Speaker 7: Biden he is a threat to democracy, was quoted word
Speaker 7: for word by Ryan Ralf and his post online. So
Speaker 7: Ryan Ralph the alleged attempted assassin, quoted Joe Briden word
Speaker 7: for word, this is why he has to be assassinated.
Speaker 7: I mean, why can't they see the evidence in front
Speaker 7: of their eyes?
Speaker 1: Oh? Well, I think they can see the evidence, Kelbert.
Speaker 1: The point, Sophie is that they're just deliberately ignoring the
Speaker 1: evidence in front of them to achieve an ends. And surely,
Speaker 1: when you're reporting on something like this, you know, we
Speaker 1: are talking about twice in just over two months that
Speaker 1: someone has attempted to or appeared to attempt to kill
Speaker 1: the former president of the United States. Surely the media
Speaker 1: in the US and more broadly has a responsibility to
Speaker 1: tone things down a bit to try to prevent these
Speaker 1: things from happening. It almost seems like they're encouraging it.
Speaker 8: Well, Caleb, I think these journalists, suppose the journalists need
Speaker 8: to be careful and cautious in the language they use.
Speaker 8: Some of those clips that you have shown there to
Speaker 8: the viewers appear to be more along the opinion articles
Speaker 8: than straight news reports, and they need to work out
Speaker 8: are they giving a straight news report or are they
Speaker 8: trying to give a straight news report but really making
Speaker 8: an opinion article. And this is where I think the
Speaker 8: public loses trust in the media because it's badged up
Speaker 8: as news, but it's not really news. I can almost
Speaker 8: turn into propaganda.
Speaker 1: And it all contributes to the polarization of America. And
Speaker 1: it is the polarization of America that has led to
Speaker 1: things like this. I mean, if you are at a
Speaker 1: point where you genuinely think that a democratically chosen candidate,
Speaker 1: Trump was chosen democratically by the members of the Republican
Speaker 1: Party to be their candidate. If you think a democratically
Speaker 1: chosen candidate running in a democratic election is somehow a
Speaker 1: threat to democracy, then you may have a small problem.
Speaker 1: But it's those thoughts that lead to people wanting to
Speaker 1: kill him, and the media has done nothing to change that.
Speaker 1: Just while we're on the foiled assassination attempt of Trump,
Speaker 1: I was amused to tune into our equivalent of this
Speaker 1: program on the ABC this week, Media Watch, and see
Speaker 1: not a single mention of the assassination attempt or the
Speaker 1: media's reaction to it. I mean, it's only one of
Speaker 1: the biggest stories in the world this week. Now, I
Speaker 1: will concede that we go to war on Frey and
Speaker 1: Media Watch goes to air on Monday, so we have
Speaker 1: had a little more of a run up on this yarn.
Speaker 1: But it all started at about three point thirty am
Speaker 1: Sydney time on Monday, and the story was well and
Speaker 1: truly breaking while the time I woke up to the
Speaker 1: radio on Monday morning, and yes, I'm so plugged into
Speaker 1: the news that I leave the radio on all night.
Speaker 1: But Media Watch goes to air at about nine point
Speaker 1: thirty PM, so you'd have thought that they'd have enough
Speaker 1: time to cover the media's reaction to this massive story.
Speaker 1: They had the tenth anniversary of William Tyrell's disappearance being
Speaker 1: exploited for ratings, the inaccurate reporting of drug overdoses, and
Speaker 1: the resignation of nine boss Mike Sneezeby.
Speaker 9: We asked ten if it was guilty of exploiting the
Speaker 9: Tyrrell story for ratings that had ignored the question, with
Speaker 9: the State Ambulance Service confirming that one of the emergency
Speaker 9: callouts reported as a drug overdose was actually for a
Speaker 9: patient who had swallowed a coin, and finally another one
Speaker 9: bites the dust.
Speaker 10: O Weells Sneezeby after three billion dollar share slide.
Speaker 1: All worthy stories, but they reserve their coverage of the
Speaker 1: US for the opportunity to chard Trapp for talking about
Speaker 1: dogs and cats being eaten in Ohio, and completely ignored
Speaker 1: that someone was stationed with an assault rifle at his
Speaker 1: golf course that very day.
Speaker 9: So, in summary, Donald Trump's dramatic claim they're eating.
Speaker 4: The dogs, the people that came in, they're eating the.
Speaker 9: Cats appears to be a cocktail of hearsay, scuttlebutt, and
Speaker 9: Race's resentment over Haitian migrants, all aided and abtted by
Speaker 9: Trump's running mate jd Vance, who, when confronted on NBC
Speaker 9: over the debunk claims, simply double down.
Speaker 3: I hear you saying that they're baseless, but I'm not
Speaker 3: repeating them because I invented them.
Speaker 1: Out of thin air.
Speaker 3: I'm repeating them because my constituents are saying these things
Speaker 3: are happening.
Speaker 9: So it's left the town of Springfield dealing with the
Speaker 9: ugly fallout, which includes bomb threats, two hospitals put into lockdown,
Speaker 9: on local schools evacuated, the real world consequences of fake
Speaker 9: news amplified on the world stage.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's just extraordinary, Gell. You know, the top
Speaker 1: one of the top media programs in the country goes
Speaker 1: to air on the day that someone has attempted to
Speaker 1: kill the president, and there is not a single mention
Speaker 1: of the biggest story in the world.
Speaker 7: Putting it into context before this year, there was an
Speaker 7: attempted assassination on Ronald Reagan in nineteen eighty one. Then
Speaker 7: there was our forty.
Speaker 1: Three year gap, and then two and two months.
Speaker 7: Now, after a forty three year gap, you think they think, oh,
Speaker 7: this is a big story, but I've got to cover this.
Speaker 10: I suspect the.
Speaker 7: Problem is, and we have to be sympathetic. They clearly
Speaker 7: need more staff. They've only got about fifteen minutes, so
Speaker 7: they clearly need more people working on the program.
Speaker 1: Don't give them ideas, gel they're already spending enough of
Speaker 1: our money. We'll take a quick break when we're back
Speaker 1: the ABC again in more hot water allegations adopted footage
Speaker 1: of alleged war crimes don't go away. Now, this has
Speaker 1: to be one of the worst cases of fabricating a
Speaker 1: story that I have ever seen in my career. No
Speaker 1: doubt you heard this week about former commando Heston Russell
Speaker 1: and how the ABC falsified footage to make it look
Speaker 1: like war crimes had been committed in Afghanistan, and this
Speaker 1: was exposed by seven Spotlight last weekend. We start with
Speaker 1: Star ABC journalist Mark Willersey explaining the footage showed in
Speaker 1: his seven thirty report.
Speaker 9: We don't have the vision that comes immediately before this,
Speaker 9: but this Australian soldier is firing towards what appear to
Speaker 9: be unarmed.
Speaker 4: Civilians in residential compounds.
Speaker 1: And here's mister Russell explaining the footage after.
Speaker 6: The warning shot.
Speaker 9: This insurgent has run into a compound and the drone
Speaker 9: has witnessed him bend over and.
Speaker 1: Pick up something.
Speaker 9: He's picked up something that looks like a weapon.
Speaker 1: And you'll hear me telling my soldier shoot him, shoot him.
Speaker 9: We listen closely, you'll hear that.
Speaker 8: Then you'll see that's the footage of my guy shooting
Speaker 8: at him in the compound.
Speaker 1: There's any one problem though, The footage the ABC has
Speaker 1: shown has six gunshots at the beginning instead of one
Speaker 1: warning shot.
Speaker 10: The version of events told by the ABC's Mark Willison,
Speaker 10: which starts with six rounds of firing then a single
Speaker 10: warning shot becomes six.
Speaker 1: For me, it appears some of they've literally added extra gunshots.
Speaker 1: I mean that is fake news, plain and simple. It
Speaker 1: is a fabricated story, a docted piece of footage to
Speaker 1: make it look like Australian soldiers were unduly firing at
Speaker 1: unarmed Afghan civilians. The ABC has denied that mister Willisey
Speaker 1: or anyone else involved in the editorial side of things,
Speaker 1: was involved in or aware of the doctored footage. ABC
Speaker 1: News director Justin Stevens addressed this with our own Sophie
Speaker 1: Ellsworth on Tuesday at the Melbourne Press Club, where he
Speaker 1: took exception to the allegation the footage had been doctored.
Speaker 1: He said, you use the word doctor, which is an
Speaker 1: extremely high allegation to make of any journalist, that a
Speaker 1: journalist would falsify information for their own journalistic game. Well,
Speaker 1: when you replace one gun shot with six to make
Speaker 1: the situation look worse and in fur that war crimes
Speaker 1: have occurred, then yes, I would say the footage has
Speaker 1: been docted. He continued. I think we need to in
Speaker 1: the first instance, exhaustively get to the bottom of what's happened.
Speaker 1: As I said, we will be upfront and transparent at
Speaker 1: the appropriate time in coming days as to what happened
Speaker 1: Now the ABC's understanding of coming days may be different
Speaker 1: to mine, but we're now at the end of the
Speaker 1: week and I'm yet to see an explanation. When mister
Speaker 1: Stevens was asked if he'd make an apology to mister Russell,
Speaker 1: he said he was not going to preempt that. I'm
Speaker 1: not sure what there is to preempt. The footage was
Speaker 1: edited and the ABC has admitted it shouldn't have happened.
Speaker 1: An apology was due at that point. Mister Russell has
Speaker 1: written to ABC Chairman Kim Williams, but so far to
Speaker 1: no avail.
Speaker 5: The ABC needs to sit down, go through due process.
Speaker 5: Breached out to Kim Williams, the head, the new chair
Speaker 5: of the ABC, and asked to meet with him and
Speaker 5: go through this because it is a shocking scandal and
Speaker 5: they can't weasele their way out of it now.
Speaker 1: The least he is owed is a response. He already
Speaker 1: successfully sued the ABC for defamation after reports by mister
Speaker 1: Willisey on four Corners implied he was involved in war crimes.
Speaker 1: He was awarded four hundred thousand dollars in damages plus
Speaker 1: legal costs, and those reports stemmed from a US marine
Speaker 1: telling mister Willasey that he had heard, not seen, the
Speaker 1: execution of a prisoner in Afghanistan. The marine even told
Speaker 1: mister Willasey that his memory was hazy, and yet the
Speaker 1: fake story was published and mister Russell was defamed. You'd think,
Speaker 1: in the shadow of that that the ABC would just
Speaker 1: roll over, admit defeat and apologize profusely, but they seem
Speaker 1: intent on digging their heels in again. Mister Russell hasn't
Speaker 1: ruled out launching new legal action now on the matter
Speaker 1: of the doctored footage having nothing to do with mister
Speaker 1: Willersey or the editorial team and instead being an editing error.
Speaker 1: I will say this, The ABC, as I said before,
Speaker 1: denies that mister Willersey or the editorial team had any
Speaker 1: knowledge or involvement in the editing of the footage, and
Speaker 1: if that's the case, it is an egregious abrogation of
Speaker 1: journalistic responsibility. I've worked in the media for the better
Speaker 1: part of a decade. Most of that is a reporter.
Speaker 1: If you are publishing a Cracker exclusive, a story that
Speaker 1: alleges war crimes or misconduct by soldiers, you dot every
Speaker 1: eye and cross every te fifteen times before you let
Speaker 1: that story be printed or go to air. If you
Speaker 1: worked in TV, as mister Willisey does, you ought to
Speaker 1: watch the finished product over and over and over again
Speaker 1: to be one hundred percent satisfied that you are publishing
Speaker 1: a water tight yarn. You're not just suggesting some blog
Speaker 1: didn't pay his speeding fine. You are alleging war crimes. Now.
Speaker 1: Mister Willisey may well not have been involved in or
Speaker 1: aware of the fact the footage had been edited, but
Speaker 1: we should ask why didn't he know that footage was docted, Sophie.
Speaker 1: Of course, you've been covering this story all week. It
Speaker 1: is just extraordinary the way the ABC has for the
Speaker 1: most part, not taken much responsibility for this.
Speaker 8: Well, no answers to as to what has happened, Caleb,
Speaker 8: And it was quite curious that Justin Stevens, the ABC
Speaker 8: News director, decided to pull me up on my language
Speaker 8: when I described it as doctoring the audio. I don't
Speaker 8: know how else you could describe it. There's a difference
Speaker 8: there between six shots and one shot. And it's pretty
Speaker 8: clear somewhere in the food chain at the ABC when
Speaker 8: this broadcast went to air, there was a problem with it.
Speaker 8: So they have an enormous issue on their hands. Michelle Roland,
Speaker 8: the Communications Minister, wants answers on this, and I can't
Speaker 8: imagine many people up in the top tiers at the
Speaker 8: ABC would be too thrilled about this shocking published city
Speaker 8: that tarnishes their reputation.
Speaker 1: I just can't understand kel how something like this could
Speaker 1: happen one shot being turned into six without someone somewhere
Speaker 1: in the ABC making it happen. It just seems very strange.
Speaker 7: Well, for years I worked at the ABC in Television
Speaker 7: Current Affairs as a senior reporter. I've sat in editing suites.
Speaker 7: I have done this, I've made these stories editors. The
Speaker 7: people who did the technical stuff don't do it on
Speaker 7: their own. They sit beside a reporter or beside a
Speaker 7: producer who directs what they are doing. So, I, like you,
Speaker 7: I don't understand how a producer or a reporter sitting
Speaker 7: beside the editor saying on that helmet cam footage is
Speaker 7: only one shot, add five shots more. They can't be
Speaker 7: in there unless someone said add five shots more. The
Speaker 7: person who's the technician doing the technical editing doesn't do that.
Speaker 7: It's the reporter or the producer who sits there saying
Speaker 7: that's what you do.
Speaker 6: Now.
Speaker 7: I know I've been there, I've sat in the editing suites,
Speaker 7: I've done that. I cannot see. I cannot understand how
Speaker 7: that's a mistake or an error. There has to be
Speaker 7: some sort of conscious, intentional decision by someone at some
Speaker 7: point to say, yes, let's dub in five more shots exactly.
Speaker 1: And of course, as I said before, the ABC denis
Speaker 1: that mister Willisy or anyone involved in the editorial team
Speaker 1: had any knowledge. But we want to know who did,
Speaker 1: who made it happen, and if so, how did it happen. Well,
Speaker 1: I did say earlier that if the story changes and
Speaker 1: you've already recorded your show, well tough luck. You have
Speaker 1: to come back in and record. And so that's what
Speaker 1: I've done, even though I'm in a different city and
Speaker 1: clearly in a different suit. I hope our friends at
Speaker 1: Media Watch take notes.
Speaker 9: Now.
Speaker 1: Late this afternoon, after we had already recorded the Media show,
Speaker 1: the ABC's managing director David Anderson issued a written statement
Speaker 1: in which he admitted that the ABC was worn two
Speaker 1: years ago about the doctor footage we just discussed, but
Speaker 1: somehow that never made its way to the news department.
Speaker 1: Mister Anderson said that a letter had been sent to
Speaker 1: the ABC's lead department in November twenty twenty two, quote
Speaker 1: raising concerns about the audio editing, but it was never
Speaker 1: sent to the news bosses. He again said of the
Speaker 1: doctor footage that this era should not have occurred, but
Speaker 1: there has still been no apology to mister Russell for that.
Speaker 1: Mister Anderson said that he was quote now commissioning an
Speaker 1: independent review of the issues that have been raised with
Speaker 1: the online and broadcast story to fully understand what has
Speaker 1: occurred and make any necessary recommendations. This review must get
Speaker 1: to the bottom of how this happened, and it must
Speaker 1: address the questions we asked a few minutes ago, particularly
Speaker 1: how the changing of one shot to six shots was
Speaker 1: able to get past the reporter Mark Willersey. As the
Speaker 1: ABC has said, so there you have it, the full story.
Speaker 1: It took an extra effort, but that's how important journalism
Speaker 1: is to me. Let's hope the ABC considers accuracy and
Speaker 1: contemporaneousness important in the future. By thanks to my panelist
Speaker 1: Sophie Ellsworth and Killed Richards for their thoughts earlier. The
Speaker 1: Media Show will be back next Friday at the same time,