The ACMA has today published an investigation report which found no breach of the ABC’s Code of Practice in an ABC TV news report broadcast on 16 April 2022 in relation to the 2022 federal election.
The ACMA investigation was in response to a complaint that the news report misrepresented a tweet posted in January 2022 by Katherine Deves, the Liberal Party candidate for the Warringah electorate, by only focusing on one part of the tweet.
The ACMA assessed the complaint against the accuracy standards of the ABC Code of Practice. The ACMA found that there was no breach of standard 2.2 of the ABC code, which requires the ABC to not present factual content in a way that would materially mislead the audience.
The ACMA investigation found:
- The context of the news report was an examination of setbacks encountered by both the then prime minister and the then opposition leader early in the election campaign.
- The news report included reference to issues surrounding then Prime Minister Morrison’s ‘captain’s pick’ of Katherine Deves as the Liberal Party candidate for the seat of Warringah.
- The reference to the tweet by Ms Deves and subsequent public apologies for her social media posts was included in the story as an example of a controversy that could negatively impact the Coalition’s re-election campaign.
- The ACMA concluded that how the tweet was presented did not materially mislead the audience given that the focus of the news report was the progress of the election campaign and not the content of the tweet itself or its representation.