Controversial radio shock jock Alan Jones has been ordered to undergo ''factual accuracy'' training, and to use fact-checkers, in another damaging blow to his credibility.
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External trainers will conduct training sessions for Jones and other news and current affairs staff at 2GB.
But their task could be a challenging one, as many leading journalism academics have been involved in the online ''Destroy the Joint'' campaign against Jones.
That campaign led to many advertisers abandoning the show in the wake of Jones's offensive comments about Prime Minister Julia Gillard's late father.
The Australian Communications and Media Authority yesterday released a damning report on Jones's show, finding he had breached broadcast rules by falsely claiming Australians contributed just ''1 per cent of .001 per cent of carbon dioxide in the air''.
''The percentage of man-made carbon dioxide Australia produces is 1 per cent of 0.001 per cent of carbon dioxide in the air,'' Jones told his listeners on March 15 last year. ''Nature produces nearly all the carbon dioxide in the air.''
The radio station told the media regulator Jones had done his own research for the claims, but neither he nor the station could provide any evidence for them.
A climate change scientist from the University of Melbourne, Dr David Karoly, said Australians were in fact responsible for 0.45 per cent of total carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. ''Obviously, we would much rather prefer that the comments of people like Alan Jones and Andrew Bolt were, in fact, correct, so it is pleasing to get this ruling from ACMA,'' he said.
2GB told the media authority Jones's claims should have been taken as commentary, because his show was neither news nor current affairs, but ''overwhelmingly … the personal opinion and comment of Jones''.
But the media authority said any ''ordinary, reasonable listener'' would have taken his claims to be fact. ''The nature of the language, tenor and tone used was unequivocal and conclusive,'' it said.
The media authority said 2GB had ''some'' fact-checking and verification measures in place, but these had shortcomings in the case of Jones's show.
''The editorial pieces, the subject of the ACMA investigations, did not involve the wider production team,'' it said.
''There are occasions when a controversial issue of public importance will be the subject of editorial and opinion comment on programs hosted by Alan Jones without any presentation of other significant viewpoints on any other 2GB current affairs program.''
The station agreed to ''pre-broadcast fact-checking by the program's executive producer of any material provided by non-media sources or third parties which may require additional confirmation and attribution''.
Its news and current affairs programs will also be subject to random checks by the program director.
No one from 2GB was available to comment on the matter.
