Tasmania fumes over media misconduct

Arguably, the failure of the media to at all times exercise objectivity, rigour and balance in the reporting of Tasmanian forestry issues has been the major contributor to maintaining a destructive conflict which continues to divide the island state. The media’s reluctance to fully utilise expertise that could easily defuse many of the issues being raised by forest activists should be of enduring concern to the wider community.

The St Helens water issue has followed the typical trajectory of media coverage of forestry issues whereby sensational and derogatory claims raised by environmental activism are widely and enthusiastically reported, followed by a subsequent reluctance to give equivalent time or space to government or industry views which could refute these claims or give them some perspective.

At the time of writing, the ABC has reported the findings of the George River Water Quality Panel in short news items and on its afternoon radio program, PM. This compares poorly against the one-hour of national television used to breathlessly promote unsubstantiated claims that have now been discredited. Surely, such an imbalance is unacceptable.

To redress this, the ABC must do far more than just apologise for unprofessional conduct. A nationally-televised program, such as Four Corners, is needed to tell the whole story of how the claims arose, were hijacked to unnecessarily alarm the community, and have now been discredited by an independent scientific panel. Nothing less will suffice in undoing the damage that its Australian Story program has inflicted on Tasmania.