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https://theconversation.com/its-the-abcs-job-to-be-accurate-and-fair-not-to-chase-the-dangerous-fallacy-of-balance-287489>
"One of the oldest tropes in journalism is that it should be balanced; that
journalists have a responsibility to present all sides of a given issue with
equal weight. This view also holds that appearing to be critical of one side
and sympathetic to another amounts to “bias”.
That notion of balance sounds ideal. After all, journalists should be neutral
observers who favour nobody, so if anybody feels as though their side is not
presented with equal measure, the journalist has somehow failed.
That failure was what Jillian Segal accused the
ABC of in her evidence to the
Royal Commission into Antisemitism and Social Cohesion last week. In her
evidence, the antisemitism envoy lamented that the
ABC’s reporting on Gaza
“created an impression of great negativity about Israel”.
“It’s the perception of the Jewish community feeling constantly that they are
being faced with reporting about the Middle East, about Gaza, and about Israel
in a way that paints Israel constantly in a negative light,” she said.
For the country’s supporters, that is understandable. As Segal went on to point
out, there has been a “disproportionate” number of stories critical of Israel.
And Liberal MP and prominent member of the Jewish community Julian Leeser told
ABC Radio National:
I think the public broadcasters actually have to be prepared to address
systemic bias against Israel in their reporting, and I think they need to
subject themselves to greater transparency mechanisms as outlined by the
envoy.
But the term “balance” implies finding equivalence between the two competing
positions. Sometimes journalists cover stories where achieving balance amounts
to a serious distortion of what is actually taking place."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
