Fran Kelly delivers a brutal wake up call to her fellow ABC stars
Veteran broadcaster Fran Kelly has issued a stern warning to her ABC colleagues and others in the media to stick to the facts.
Kelly, who presented Radio National’s flagship Breakfast show from 2005 to 2021, did not hold back while delivering the annual Andrew Olle Media Lecture in Sydney on Friday.
“Facts can be manipulated, distorted and denied,” she said. ‘Call it whatever you want. It used to be propaganda.
‘Now it’s disinformation, disinformation. Or false facts… An Orwellian contradiction in terms that increasingly reshapes our reality.’
Her speech came just weeks after ABC news head Justin Stevens admitted that altered gunshot audio used in a news report about an Australian Special Forces operation in Afghanistan ‘should not have happened’.
An audio expert revealed how video footage published by the ABC was altered to add five additional gunshots, making it appear as if an Australian soldier shot at an unarmed Afghan man.
Stevens said the audio was “misedited” and has since been removed from all of ABC’s online platforms.
Although Kelly didn’t mention any names in her talk, some in the audience were undoubtedly made very uncomfortable by what she said.
Veteran broadcaster Fran Kelly (pictured) has issued a stern warning to her ABC colleagues and others in the media to stick to the facts
“What could once be categorically proven is now the subject of bitter, protracted debate on a scale that was simply impossible to achieve before we all went online,” she said.
‘There are countless arguments that facts no longer matter… only perception. Only emotion.’
However, Kelly said she was not specifically referring to ABC’s discredited reporting on the Australian Special Forces in Afghanistan story.
“It was clear in my speech that I was not talking about a particular story or issue, but about the decline in trust in mainstream media in general,” she told Daily Mail Australia on Monday afternoon.
Kelly also warned her media colleagues about what is most important when practicing their profession.
“Since journalists, verified, irrefutable facts are our stock in trade, our only reference is the truth,” she said.
“And as the waters of disinformation swirl, we must search for it, hold on, and rise above the waves.”
She also said media reports should contain “less commentary, more reporting.” Less telling, more investigative.’
Former 7.30 presenter Leigh Sales (pictured) delivered a similar message during last year’s Andrew Olle Lecture
Kelly added that “we must continue to present the facts – not facts with ridiculous qualifications like true or false, real or fake – but facts.
‘Verifiable facts. Facts verified by us.’
Her ABC colleague, former 7.30 presenter Leigh Sales, delivered a similar message at the same event in 2023.
“Too often, too many journalists across all media organizations abandon the values that people like Andrew Olle hold, for a variety of reasons,” she said.
“One is that some reporters prefer to be activists and crusaders rather than fact-finders or real reporters.
“They revel in their heroic status among the social media tribes or their subscribers. I’m not sure they can even recognize their own biases.
“The job is not to tell the audience what to think; it gives them as complete a set of facts as possible so they can decide for themselves what to think.”