The star reporter who broke the story about ABC’s doctored war crimes footage has accused the public broadcaster of “defaming” the nation’s brave troops and arrogantly dismissing concerns about the doctored clip.
Liam Bartlett, who heads the investigative team for Seven’s Spotlight programme, revealed last month that the sound of five additional gunshots had been added to a video of an Australian soldier firing a warning shot to make it appear he was repeatedly shooting at villagers. unarmed in Afghanistan.
The ABC has been forced to remove the offending view from its news website and launch an independent investigation into how it came to be included in an online report by its elite investigations unit.
The taxpayer-funded broadcaster claimed it removed the footage on September 13 after Spotlight first alerted them to the “error” in the days leading up to its report.
But Daily Mail Australia revealed last week that Bartlett actually raised concerns about “improper editing of filming footage” on June 4, only for the ABC to dismiss his questions because it did not approve of Seven’s “standard of journalism.” .
Bartlett, who once fronted the ABC’s 7.30 Report in his home state of Western Australia, has now trashed his former employer in a brutal public contempt.
“Let’s not beat around the bush,” Bartlett said in a fiery missive in The West Australian at the weekend.
‘ABC’s fake war crimes footage is almost an act of betrayal.
Seven’s Liam Bartlett has criticized his former employers at the ABC after revealing the fake war crimes viewing scandal on his network’s investigative show Spotlight.
The ABC scandal centers on the apparent addition of five additional shots from an Australian soldier shooting an Afghan during an operation in 2012.
‘The modification of the… audio to give the impression that Australian soldiers were shooting at unarmed civilians was not only against the national interest but vilified the brave military personnel fighting on our behalf, in the worst possible way.
‘The targets turned out to be terrorist insurgents who minutes earlier had been firing on coalition troops and, to make matters worse, the commandos at the center of the action had used far fewer bullets than described in the manipulated news reports.
‘All in all, a disgraceful act by the taxpayer-funded broadcaster’s elite investigative journalism unit.
“The people responsible for publishing that fraud were either careless, incompetent or ideologically driven to present such an erroneous and immoral view of Australian diggers in the war.”
ABC chief executive David Anderson has been forced to admit that the broadcaster’s legal department was separately warned about the manipulated view almost two years ago but “regrettably” failed to act on the information.
He has since appointed the ABC’s highly respected former head of news and current affairs, Alan Sunderland, to conduct an independent audit investigation into the scandal.
Although the images appeared in a report by ABC’s star investigative journalist Mark Willacy, both Anderson and the broadcaster’s head of news, Justin Stevens, have publicly defended him and his investigations editor, Jo Puccini, against any suggestions that they were complicit in the “error.” .
Willacy, who won a prestigious Gold Walkley for his war crimes reporting, has also categorically denied directing or authorizing any changes to the vision audio included in his story.
Daily Mail Australia does not suggest that Willacy or Puccini were involved in or aware of the manipulation of the footage.
Bartlett revealed that he had spoken to Sunderland about the saga last week and asked whether such public defenses would have any impact on his independent review.
ABC news bosses said award-winning investigative journalist Mark Willacy was unaware of the error in the online news report before Seven’s Spotlight mentioned it.
“The man who appointed (Sunderland) to lead the review, ABC chief executive David Anderson, has an interesting way of finding the truth,” the one-time 60 Minutes star reporter said in his column in The West Australian.
‘In announcing the ABC’s attempt to find a path to redemption, Anderson said Alan Sunderland’s investigation would allow the broadcaster to ‘fully understand what has happened and make the necessary recommendations.’
‘Then, in the next breath, there was this release clause for their star journalist at the center of the scandal; “ABC News has no evidence that journalist Mark Willacy ordered anyone to change the audio of the video and make any false impressions to the contrary.”
‘That was supported by ABC news chief Justin Stevens, who said, among other praise: ‘He’s a fantastic journalist… his journalism has no reputation.’
‘So, that settles everything. If we paraphrase the two bosses at the top of the ABC tree, let’s do an investigation to get to the bottom of this disgrace but by the way, the guy who was the main perpetrator is already innocent before we start.
‘It’s an unusual way to start a supposedly open investigation.
‘When I pointed this out to Alan Sunderland, he wanted to reject the implication that it was all a foregone conclusion; “I’m not worried about public statements, he insisted, I don’t take anything literally and I don’t accept anyone being quarantined.”
The public broadcaster also defended ABC investigations editor Jo Puccini following allegations that fake gunshots had been added to footage of an Australian soldier shooting Afghans.
Bartlett revealed that he had requested interviews with Anderson, Willacy and Puccini for his report, but was rejected “because apparently our level of journalism was not up to par with theirs.”
“From the beginning, the ABC has taken the ridiculous position that it is due to an ‘editing error’, but this is far more sinister than a simple error,” he said in his op-ed in The West Australian.
‘Anyone who has worked in television news for more than a week can tell you that ‘mistakes’ like this don’t just happen.
‘Stories as serious as this are carefully and purposefully constructed and reviewed and analyzed.
‘It’s almost ridiculous. Except the 2nd Regiment’s November Platoon commandos aren’t laughing and neither should any of our proud veterans.
“They want heads to roll and I don’t blame them in the least.”
Daily Mail Australia approached ABC for comment on the criticism.
The footage was used in an online article in September 2022, but has since been removed.
Former ABC chairman Maurice Newman also criticized the public broadcaster following the scandal, saying it had become a “selfish collective” since he left in 2012.
“(The ABC) has become the left’s unabashed megaphone and operates in defiance of its laws, its statutes, its editorial policies and the interests of a cohesive society,” the former president told the Herald Sun last month.
Stevens addressed the offensive images while giving a speech on media trust and transparency at the Melbourne Press Club last month, saying the mistake “should not have happened” but any suggestion it was knowingly “manipulated” was fake.
He said the ABC was “prepared to listen to good faith criticism” and respond accordingly, acknowledging that in the race to cover important stories “mistakes are certainly made.”
‘Sometimes missteps happen. And we must admit when we can do better,” Stevens said in the speech.
‘Just last week, Channel Seven informed us that a video clip from an online story from two years ago had an error.
‘A preliminary inspection suggests that a section of the audio was edited incorrectly.
‘We have removed the video and are still investigating how this happened. Once we have all the facts, we will determine the appropriate response.
“Until we have clarity on how it happened, I will not comment further on it, so as not to get ahead of myself.”
ABC News chief Justin Stevens said it appeared the clip had been “inappropriately edited.”
Stevens then returned fire on the public broadcaster’s most outspoken and unforgiving critics, accusing them of being “thugs” trying to wage malicious war on the personal reputations of ABC journalists.
“We expect the ABC’s scrutiny to be rigorous and thorough and I am not ashamed of that when it is warranted,” he said.
‘But sometimes what is called ‘scrutiny’ is actually an attack driven by an agenda motivated by ideological, personal or commercial interests, often directed at specific journalists with the aim of damaging their reputation.
‘This trend on social media and in some media (and let’s be honest and call it what it usually is: bullying) is more than just the ABC.
‘Spurious attacks on some journalists can potentially erode the reputation of all journalists. And that fuels the crisis of public confidence.
“That is why the scale of unfair attacks on ABC journalists, whether by social media trolls, commentators or our media competitors, must be called out.”
