‘The Four Corners program backfired’: Seven’s Kerry Stokes slams ABC for ‘hypocrisy and entrenched cultural problems’
Kerry Stokes launched an attack on the ABC during Seven West Media’s annual general meeting on Thursday morning, accusing the national broadcaster of hypocrisy and unfair reporting.
Stokes took aim at the ABC’s Four Corners report, ‘Don’t Speak’, which aired in August and took aim at Channel Seven’s workplace culture , in which complaints of workplace bullying, sexual harassment, and whistleblowers not being listened to, were laid bare.
Stokes called the report “an egregious and unfair assault on our business and the reputation of our good people” and noted the hypocrisy of the network’s own recent controversies, including the insertion of gunfire into helmet-cam footage from Australian troops.
“Our formal complaint to the ABC — making a compelling case that Four Corners had clearly failed to meet the broadcaster’s own principles of impartiality, accuracy and fairness — was unsurprisingly ignored,” the Seven West Media chair said during the AGM.
“Despite our request, the ABC’s Ombudsman has also refused to investigate the matter.
“The Four Corners program backfired as the ABC itself is now the subject of charges of hypocrisy and entrenched cultural problems including racism, misogyny and bullying.
“This attack failed to dent the spirit and pride of our incredibly talented, hard-working and professional teams.”
The ABC issued the following response to Mumbrella: “It is incorrect that Seven’s complaint has been ignored. The ABC stands by the reporting in the program.”
Stokes’ comments come in the same week an independent review into a series of ABC 7.30 reports that added gunshot sounds to helmet-cam footage cleared the broadcast of any deliberate wrongdoing, while also acknowledging a number of misleading edits.
The review was commissioned by outgoing ABC managing director David Anderson, and was conducted by Alan Sunderland, who issued an interim report on Tuesday morning.
The report found that five additional sounds of gunshots were “inadvertently but inaccurately” inserted into footage of a commando firing from a helicopter. Sunderland agreed with the ABC’s earlier claims of an “editing error” rather than any deliberate attempt to misled.
“To be clear, I find no evidence that anybody, at any stage, made a conscious or deliberate decision to introduce additional gunshots,” Sunderland found.
“It appears to be an inadvertent consequence of attempts to create clean, accurate and effective sequences in the story.”
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Crying foul because you got called tf out..
Well thank goodness that Seven have never made an error. What saviours of Australia media!
What a tone-deaf response – staff would not be feeling great if they can’t even acknowledge they have a problem (sure they do, as those featured in the story appear to be very genuine with their concerns about the culture within Seven.
Interesting take from the Chairman. Criticising ‘entrenched cultural problems’ while backing figures like Ben Roberts-Smith and Bruce Lehrmann gives new meaning to ‘irony.’ If media organisations should be accountable for their values, maybe it’s time to buckle up, Kerry.