The ABC has apologized to its audience, military commandos and a former US drug enforcement official for errors in its ‘Line of Fire’ reports on alleged war crimes in Afghanistan.
Five additional gunshots were added to a clip in which a soldier fired a single warning shot from a helicopter as it flew above an Afghan compound with unarmed civilians walking underneath.
The interim findings of an ABC report released this week found that the “audio editing error” arose due to an “unintended consequence of attempts to create clean, accurate and effective sequences in the story.”
The video was broadcast by the ABC in 2022, but former special forces commando Heston Russell revealed the inaccuracies in the footage in an interview with Seven’s Spotlight program earlier this year.
The ABC removed the 56-second clip from an online article after it acknowledged the error in the video and launched an independent investigation.
“The ABC sincerely regrets and apologizes for the editing errors in the video clips, including to members of the 2nd Commando Regiment,” ABC news director Justin Stevens said in a statement this week.
“The ABC stands by the vital importance of its investigation into the alleged conduct of Australian soldiers.
“The editorial errors, while deeply regrettable, do not diminish the value of the ABC’s many years of reporting on these crucial issues.”
ABC News boss Justin Stevens (pictured) has apologized for errors in the broadcaster’s Line of Fire reports on alleged war crimes in Afghanistan
Original helmet camera video of the 2012 Afghanistan incident shows a single warning shot about to be fired from a military helicopter – but five additional shots are heard in the ABC version
The review also found that Bret Hamilton, former leader of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), had misrepresented him.
‘The review found that Mr Hamilton’s final comment in an interview that alleged war crimes should always be investigated was not in context and therefore did not accurately reflect that he was speaking about war crimes allegations in general rather than refer to specific allegations,” Mr Hamilton said. Stevens said.
‘The review showed that this was potentially misleading. It found that Mr Hamilton’s views were otherwise accurately stated.
“ABC News sincerely regrets and apologizes to Mr. Hamilton and our audiences for this. That was not the meaning we wanted to convey.”
The interim review will be carried out by former ABC and SBS veteran journalist and media director Alan Sunderland.
During Senate estimates on Tuesday, ABC acting chief executive Melanie Kleyn said the report found “no evidence of any intent to deceive by any ABC employee.”
Ms Kleyn said there was “no deliberate editorial decision to include additional gunshots to mislead or deceive” and refuted suggestions that the central focus of the entire story had been misleadingly changed.
“The review also found that the stories raised important issues that are in the public interest regarding the issue of altered audio,” she said.
In October 2023, former special forces commando Heston Russell (pictured) won his defamation case against the ABC after a Federal Court judge ruled it could not prove that articles the national broadcaster published were reported in the public interest.
The interim report said there was no deliberate attempt to distort ‘the ABC’s account of the events that occurred’.
Mr Stevens also denied that the images had been deliberately doctored and criticized the response of rival media companies.
“The great shame of all this is that for weeks several media outlets have been accusing journalists of the highest integrity of doctoring material, which is one of the most offensive and damaging accusations you can make against a journalist,” he said.
‘The meaning of doctoring is to deceptively change something deliberately. What Mr Sunderland’s review independently shows is that our team, journalists and executives at all levels have not manipulated any material.
“So mistakes were made, but it wasn’t intentional and there was no doctor’s office.”
The ABC was also questioned about why it did not act on a letter sent by Mr Russell’s lawyers on November 22, 2022, after the footage was initially broadcast.
Ms Kleyn said the broadcaster’s news department had “not been provided with a copy of that letter”, with Liberal Senator Sarah Henderson labeling her comments as “outrageous”.
“Mr Russell’s lawyers wrote to your lawyers and said you were wrong. You put these fake gunshots in the video, and what? Didn’t anyone do anything?’ she said.
‘Are you telling me that the lawyers just sat on their hands and did nothing? Did they tell anyone in the news?’
During this period, Mr Russell had already launched defamation proceedings against the ABC and was later awarded $390,000 in damages in October 2023.
Mr Stevens said the issues should have been reported to the ABC editorial staff, rather than the legal team, but Senator Henderson rejected his claims.
“There was every opportunity after that date between then and now to bring these issues to the attention of ABC News through a formal complaint, through the processes that we have in place, and to my knowledge that has not happened.” he said.
Ms Kleyn said Mr Sunderland was still assessing the circumstances surrounding the letter the ABC legal team received and why it was not passed on to the news department.
She said the final report would include a conclusion on the issue.