The Australian Communications and Media Authority launched an investigation into the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s 7:30 nightly news piece by Monique Schafter that aired on national television on November 12th, 2014. The ACMA started their investigation back on January 22nd, 2015 and they’ve confirmed that the investigation is still ongoing.

One of the media communications officers replied to an inquiry about the investigation into the ABC regarding the #GamerGate coverage. According to the media officer it was noted that the investigation is still ongoing…

“As I noted we don’t comment on investigation outcomes, including timing, until they’re published. I can let you know when that happens.”

Back on January 23rd, 2015 I inquired about what sort of implications the ABC might incur following the results of the investigation. According to the media officer it was stated that…

“We can confirm an investigation is underway into the 7:30 segment after several complaints were received. However we do not discuss the details of any investigation while they are being conducted, as I’m sure you would understand. “Once it is concluded the outcome will then be made public.”

It is true that outcomes of these investigations are oftentimes made public and easily accessible from the ACMA’s website.

You’ll note that they have concluded a number of investigations into the ABC.

One of the most recent investigations concluded at the end of June. It originally commenced following the airing of an ABC segment back on February 7th of this year and the ACMA rendered their verdict on June 26th. So it’s not like complaints go unaddressed for too long.

It’s interesting that the #GamerGate segment took place before the February 7th one, yet the investigation on the #GamerGate case has been ongoing since January of this year. The ACMA at least appears to be taking their time into the case and have not been quick to dismiss it out of turn.

The original complaints about the ABC 7:30 piece spawned from the fact that reporter Monique Schafter had requested relevant information about #GamerGate and opted to do a story about what was really happening surrounding the scandal. In an e-mail exchange shared by a reader, Schafter mentioned to them…

“Thanks [Redacted]. Not just looking at harassment – I’m interested in how the internet has lost its shit about this and attempting to break it down.”

After looking through the sources provided by the reader, the 7:30 piece ran a slanted piece about how #GamerGate was a harassment campaign against women. When asked if Schafter had any plans to do a follow-up or correct the story to get viewpoints from someone like Christina Hoff Sommers, an avid supporter of #GamerGate and someone, who at the time, recently appeared on an ABC piece, Shafter responded saying…

“At this stage there aren’t any plans to do another GamerGate story.” “We used this as a springboard to look at the representation of women in games and in the games community, and sought a variety of perspectives on this.” “I understand there are other elements to the GamerGate conversation, but 7.30 felt that the most important news angle for our program was focusing on the online attacks, particularly towards women, which form part of the gamergate controversy.”

Recently, the CBC came under investigation by the CRTC for the same kind of misleading content. In fact, the CBC Radio program director defended on-air statements by broadcasting host Stephen Quinn, who mentioned that #GamerGate was about anonymous players sending rape and murder threats to female game developers. Quinn, nor any reporter at the CBC have yet to provide evidence that actor Adam Baldwin started the hashtag to send rape and murder threats.

I reached out to the CBC program director to ask if they feel that Adam Baldwin starting the hashtag was for the express purpose of sending rape and murder threats, but the CBC has yet to respond. However, the broadcasting corporation’s defense about the hashtag being about rape and murder threats has been put on record for the CRTC.

Both the CBC and the ABC have breached multiple standards in their ethics policies in order to push the harassment narrative in relation to #GamerGate. Hopefully both the CRTC and the ACMA will hold both broadcasting stations accountable for spreading misinformation.

[Update: A minor correction was made stating the original date that the 7:30 piece aired]

(Main image courtesy of Ashion)