The ABC has reacted to sustained criticism of its asylum seeker coverage with an edict to staff that they should not ''embellish'' or add ''any flourish'' to claims of mistreatment by Australian border protection forces.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Head of ABC news content Gaven Morris sent the directive to the organisation's top brass on Friday morning after a week of constant pressure on the national broadcaster, including an extraordinary attack by Prime Minister Tony Abbott, who suggested the ABC was being unpatriotic in its reports of asylum seekers' allegations against Australian defence and border protection personnel.
On Wednesday, Mr Abbott argued journalists should give the navy the ''benefit of the doubt'' when it came to claims of wrongdoing, and said: ''A lot of people feel at the moment that the ABC instinctively takes everyone's side but Australia's.''
In an email obtained by Fairfax Media, Mr Morris instructed senior staff, including director of news Kate Torney and ABC News 24 editor Tony Hill, to provide advice to their teams about reporting on ''incidents at sea''.
Mr Morris said staff should ensure that the reports ''stick to the basics''.
''As you know, we currently have a set of claims by asylum seekers our editorial teams are continuing to work hard to get an accurate account of and to verify,'' he wrote.
''During this process all our output should reflect the basic facts before us … we don't need to interpret them beyond what we know, nor should be [sic] editorialising or seeking to add adjectives or any flourish.
''We're not seeking to describe or embellish the allegations with descriptions like torture or mistreatment or violence and we're not reporting whether we have proved or disproved anything the media has previously reported - the allegations and responses stand for themselves.''
Mr Morris told Fairfax Media: ''The note was to senior editors on my team reinforcing the ABC's enduring editorial approach.
''Amid the continuing varying reports of what may or may not have happened at sea and the responses to it, it was intended as a reminder that ABC news should continue to do as we always do and report the facts before us.''
The ABC has also come under sustained pressure from News Corporation publications over its reporting on the allegations by asylum seekers that they were mistreated by Australian navy officers.
Immigration Minister Scott Morrison has described as ''a pretty poor effort'' the ABC's reports that asylum seekers suffered burns because of treatment by the navy, calling the claims ''unfounded, unsubstantiated, outrageous allegations against our navy and our Customs and Border Protection Service''.
Two weeks ago, Lieutenant-General Angus Campbell said ''inside-military and customs services assessment processes'' had been followed to investigate the claims, but admitted no asylum seekers had been spoken to as part of the internal investigation.
Mr Morris sent his directive less than 24 hours after the government announced it would conduct an ''efficiency study'' into the ABC's operations. That study, announced on Thursday by Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull, will focus on the day-to-day operational and financial running of the ABC and SBS.
Meanwhile, a ReachTEL poll conducted for Fairfax Media on Thursday showed the majority of Australians - almost 60 per cent - believed the ABC was politically neutral in its reporting.
That figure rose to 63.5 per cent among women, compared with 55.5 per cent among men.
Young Australians aged 18-34 were overwhelmingly inclined to believe the ABC was politically neutral (70.3 per cent), while that figure fell among older voters to 51 per cent.
Overall, 32.2 per cent believed the ABC was biased towards the ALP, while just 8.2 per cent said it was biased towards the Coalition.
