Media Watchdog the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) has ruled that the ABC’s Media Watch program did not breach the rules on accuracy, corrections or providing the opportunity to respond to allegations over a dispute with News Corp’s The Australian.

In an investigation report, uploaded on its website in recent days, the ACMA finds that Media Watch, and its host Paul Barry, did not breach the ABC code of practice over a broadcast which cited News “insiders” who claimed national broadsheet The Australian loses $40m-$50m a year. The newspaper, in the wake of the Media Watch statements, subsequently clarified it had lost $30m in 2012-13 and $15m in 2013-14.

“I’m delighted”, Paul Barry told Mumbrella this morning. “We obviously abide by the umpire’s decision, always, and we are very pleased to see they have cleared us on two complaints.”

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News Corp subsidiary Nationwide News filed a complaint with the broadcast regulator in April claiming Media Watch had “selective edit(ed) a video interview with The Australian’s editor-in-chief Chris Mitchell” and also failed “to seek comment from the newspaper before broadcasting inaccurate claims about its ­finances.”

When contacted this morning, Mitchell told Mumbrella that the ACMA had not made himself or News Corp aware of its findings on the matter and that he believed the ABC was in the wrong.

“As the leaked Blue Book, published by Crikey, this year makes clear, Media Watch got this issue completely wrong,” Mitchell told Mumbrella.

“In the most dire of the Kim Williams years we lost a maximum $30m, our worst performance ever.

“Paul Barry went with ‘sources’ who were out by $20 million a year. At the moment we are $16 million better than last year.”

The ACMA report clears the public broadcaster on the matters of accuracy, corrections and also on the issue of being given the opportunity to respond.

The investigation report finds on the issue of accuracy: “In this case, the ACMA considers that the nub of the statement is appropriately characterised as factual. It cited a specific range of figures ($40-50 million) that are capable of independent verification and was not qualified in a way that would suggest it was mere speculation or an expression of opinion.”

The watchdog also looked at Media Watch’s use of News Corp “insiders” and found: “The ACMA notes that the statement identified the source of the range of figures as ‘insiders’. In the context of the broadcast, this attribution to ‘insiders’ was likely to convey to the audience that the figures had been provided by people with access to accurate information reinforcing for the ordinary, reasonable viewer that that statement was factual in character.

“The ACMA does not consider that the attribution to ‘insiders’ necessarily conveyed that the sources were current employees of The Australian or News Corp. As discussed above, the ACMA considers, in this case, that ‘insiders’ would be understood by ordinary, reasonable viewers as referring to anonymous persons who had access to accurate information (not available to outsiders) about The Australian’s financial performance. The ACMA notes that whether a source is an ‘insider’ or not may have a temporal element to it and broadcasters should take care to use the term advisedly.”

Questioned on this part of the finding Paul Barry told Mumbrella that he stood by his decision to use anonymous News Corp “insiders” and said he believed they were not far off the final figure in their reporting.

“Absolutely (we stand by use of insiders),” he said. “The final figure appears to be around $40-50m, they were a bit over the top but they were not far out.

“We talked to three people who we believed knew what the financial position was, we checked that against what had been published and we got pretty close to the mark.”

On the issue of failing to give right of reply The Australian complained that Media Watch had failed to put the claim of losses to its senior executives.

“This allegation was not put to any of the editor-in-chief, editor, finance manager or CEO of The Australian, the director – policy, corporate affairs and community relations, or head of corporate affairs of News Corp Australia prior to broadcast of the program,” the report shows News Corp argued.

However ACMA found that: “In the overall context of the broadcast – an examination of financial pressures on print media in Australia – the ACMA considers that the statement conveyed that, like other print publications, The Australian was losing significant amounts of money and that these losses were attributable to a range of factors including falling circulations, loss of advertising revenue and competition from new online sites.”

Mitchell said regardless of the ACMA finding he believes that Barry has an agenda against News Corp.

“Whatever ACMA claims, Media Watch mis-edited my interview with Sharri Markson in a deliberately corrupt way,” he said. “I told Paul Barry the truth, as the Blue Book shows.

“The simple point is Paul Barry would not correct a clear error, as any newspaper, and especially The Australian, would every day of the week. Barry is a cuts journo biographer and has a clear agenda against News Corp.”

In response to Mitchell’s statements Barry responded: “That is total and absolute bullshit.

“We did correct the record. As soon as they gave us the figures we did publish the figures and as soon as they told us the figures were wrong we published their statement.”

The Media Watch host also fired back at Mitchell’s claims of bias: “To allege that I am corrupt is libellous, wrong and completely mischievous.”

Barry also argued that were it not for the comments of the News Corp insiders the details of the losses of The Australian would never have emerged.

“Chris Mitchell said our figure was ridiculous,” said Barry. “The final figure was $30m and our figure was $40-$50m I wouldn’t have thought that was ridiculous.

“I had a lot of difficulty getting him to tell me what the figures were, he kept saying that the figures were wrong. It took many emails and eventually he did but then they only disclosed the figure for one year which was the latest year but didn’t give the figure for the previous year which was $30m. Which was of course the one that looked better for them.”

Nic Christensen