The star reporter who broke the story about the ABC’s doctored war crimes footage has accused the public broadcaster of ‘vilifying’ the nation’s brave troops and arrogantly dismissing concerns about the manipulated clip.
Liam Bartlett, who leads the investigative team at Seven’s Spotlight program, last month revealed the sound of five additional gunshots had been added to a video of an Australian solider firing a warning shot to make it appear as though he was repeatedly shooting at unarmed villagers in Afghanistan.
The ABC has been forced to remove the offending vision from its news website and launch an independent inquiry 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 their report.
But Daily Mail Australia last week revealed Bartlett actually raised concerns about the ‘wrongly editing shooting sequences’ on June 4, only to have his queries dismissed by the ABC 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 torn shreds off his former employer in a brutal public takedown.
‘Let’s not beat around the bush,’ Bartlett said in a fiery missive in The West Australian at the weekend.
‘The ABC’s fake war crimes footage is almost a treasonous act.
Seven’s Liam Bartlett has roasted his former employers at the ABC after breaking the fake war crimes vision scandal on his network’s Spotlight investigative program
The ABC scandal centres on the apparent addition of five extra gunshots of an Australian soldier firing at an Afghan man during a 2012 operation
‘The doctoring of…audio to give the impression Australian soldiers were firing at unarmed civilians was not only against the national interest but vilified brave servicemen fighting on our behalf, in the worst possible way.
‘The targets turned out to be terrorist insurgents who had minutes before been firing at coalition troops and, to add insult to ignorance, the commandos at the centre of the action had used far fewer bullets than was depicted in the manipulated news stories.
‘All in all, a disgraceful act from the elite investigative journalism unit at the taxpayer-funded broadcaster.
‘The people responsible for publishing that fraud were either careless, incompetent or ideologically driven to present such an erroneous, immoral view of Aussie diggers at war.’
The ABC’s managing director, David Anderson, has been forced to admit the broadcaster’s legal department was separately warned about the doctored vision 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 conducted an independent investigation into the scandal.
Although the footage appeared in a report by the ABC’s star investigative reporter Mark Willacy, both Anderson and the broadcaster’s news boss, Justin Stevens, have publicly defended him and his investigations editor, Jo Puccini, against any suggestion they were complicit in the ‘error’.
Willacy, who has won a prestigious Gold Walkley for his war crime reporting, has also categorically denied he directed or authorised any change to the audio of the vision included in his story.
Daily Mail Australia does not suggest either Willacy or Puccini were involved in nor aware of the manipulation of the footage.
Bartlett revealed he had last week spoken with Sunderland about the saga and queried whether those public defenses would have any impact on his independent review.
The ABC’s news bosses said award-winning investigative journalist Mark Willacy was unaware of the error in the online news report before it was raised by Seven’s Spotlight
‘The man who appointed [Sunderland] to lead the review, ABC managing director 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 the path to redemption, Anderson said Alan Sunderland’s inquiry would allow the broadcaster to ‘fully understand what has occurred and make any necessary recommendations’.
‘Then, in the next breath, there was this exemption clause for their star journalist at the centre of the scandal; ‘ABC News has no evidence that reporter Mark Willacy directed anyone to change the audio on the video and to imply otherwise is false.’
‘That was seconded by ABC news chief Justin Stevens, who said, among other plaudits, ‘He’s a fantastic journalist…his journalism is beyond repute’.
‘So, that settles that. If we paraphrase the two bosses at the top of the ABC tree – let’s have an inquiry to get to the bottom of this disgrace but, by the way, the bloke who was the chief author is already innocent before we begin.
‘It’s an unusual way to start a supposedly open investigation.
‘When I pointed this out to Alan Sunderland, he was keen to reject the implication it was all a foregone conclusion; ‘I’m not fussed about any public statements, he insisted, I’m not taking anything at face value and I don’t accept that anyone is quarantined’.’
The public broadcaster also defended ABC investigations editor Jo Puccini following claims fake gunshots were added to footage of an Australian soldier firing at Afghans
Bartlett revealed he had requested interviews with Anderson, Willacy and Puccini for his report but was turned down ‘because apparently our standard of journalism wasn’t up to scratch with theirs’.
‘From the outset, the ABC has adopted the ludicrous position of it stemming from an ‘editing error’ but this is a lot more sinister than a simple error,’ he said in his opinion piece in The West Australian.
‘Anyone who has worked in television news for more than a week can tell you that ‘errors’ like this don’t just happen.
‘Stories as serious as this are constructed carefully and purposefully and are checked and screened.
‘It’s almost laughable. Except the Commandos of the 2nd Regiment’s November platoon are not laughing and nor should any of our proud veterans.
‘They want heads to roll and I don’t blame them one bit.’
Daily Mail Australia has approached the ABC for comment about the criticism.
The footage was used in an online article in September 2022 but has since been taken down
Former ABC chairman Maurice Newman has also criticised the public broadcaster in the wake of the scandal, saying it had become a ‘self-serving collective’ since he left in 2012.
‘(The ABC) has become the shameless megaphone of the Left and operates in defiance of its act, its charter, its editorial policies and the interests of a cohesive society,’ the former chairman told the Herald Sun last month.
Stevens addressed the offending footage while delivering a speech on media trust and transparency at the Melbourne Press Club last month, saying the error ‘shouldn’t have occurred’ but any suggestion it was knowingly ‘doctored’ was untrue.
He said the ABC was ‘prepared to listen to good faith criticism’ and respond accordingly, acknowledging that in the race to cover major stories ‘mistakes are certainly made’.
‘Mis-steps sometimes happen. And we must admit when we can do better,’ Stevens said in the speech.
‘Just last week it was brought to our attention by Channel Seven that a video clip in an online story from two years ago had an error.
‘A preliminary inspection suggests a section of audio was incorrectly edited.
‘We removed the video and are still looking into how this happened. Once we have the full facts we will determine the appropriate response.
‘Until we have clarity on how it occurred, I won’t be making further comments about it, so as to not pre-empt that.’
ABC News boss Justin Stevens said it appeared the clip had been ‘incorrectly edited’
Stevens then returned fire on the public broadcaster’s most outspoken and unrelenting critics and accused them of being ‘bullies’ intent on waging a malicious war on ABC journalists’ personal reputations.
‘We expect scrutiny on the ABC to be rigorous and thorough and I don’t shy from that when it’s warranted,’ he said.
‘But sometimes what’s called ‘scrutiny’ is really an agenda-driven attack motivated by ideological, personal or commercial interests, often directed at specific journalists with the goal of denting their reputations.
‘This trend across social media and from some media outlets – and let’s be honest and call it what it often is: bullying – is about more than just the ABC.
‘Spurious attacks on some journalists can potentially erode the reputation of all journalists. And that feeds the public’s crisis of trust.
‘This is why the scale of unfair attacks on ABC journalists, whether by social media trolls, commentators or our media competitors, should be called out.’
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