Two Year Wait For Television Breach Ruling Detrimental To Building Of Community Trust

Mr Sam Afra, Chairperson of the Ethnic Communities’ Council of Victoria (ECCV) said that it was “no coincidence” that a report finding low levels of community trust was released in the same week as three commercial television channels were ruled to have wrongly linked a Noble Park robbery in late 2007 to the local Sudanese-Australian community.

“The media – and the mainstream broadcast news media in particular – is an immensely powerful tool for building or breaking down trust within different sections of a society,” Mr Afra said.

“Should we be surprised then that people express heightened levels of mistrust in others when the news media is so cavalier with apportioning blame for criminal activity and their wrong-doing stays uncorrected for over two years.”

Mr Afra was especially frustrated by reports that all three stations, Channels 7, 9 and TEN, continued to deny that they had made an error during the investigation process.

“To fail the most basic of journalistic principles is bad enough, but for those involved to escape without requiring any public show of contrition such as an apology on their respective websites is a sorry indictment on the state of modern television journalism in this country,” Mr Afra said.

“Two years ago Channel 7 issued a statement regretting any damage done by broadcasting details of two AFL players' medical records.  I would like to think the damage done over the Noble Park incident would be treated at least as seriously.”

Mr Afra was also concerned by the length of time taken by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA)

“Two years is far too long for one of Victoria’s must vulnerable and under-privileged communities to wrongly carry the blame and suspicion for the poor work practices of a section of the media,” Mr Afra said.

Mr Afra called for an immediate review of the procedures employed by ACMA to investigate complaints.

“I also look forward to representatives of each of the offending broadcasters taking part in a special ECCV workshop to help improve portrayals of new migrants in the media.”

Mr Afra said the workshop would be occurring in the new year.

“Strengthening social harmony is not something that can just be left to governments or the community to achieve; we all have a responsibility and the media in all its forms has a very important part to play too,” Mr Afra explained.

The ACMA report is available at: www.acma.gov.au

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