I have a story in the Crikey email today about the broadcasting regulator, the Australian Communications and Media Authority, slamming all three of our commercial free to air television stations for broadcasting innacurate news about Sudanese crime in the wake of then Immigration Minister Kevin Andrew’s inflammatory comments in October 2007.

The guts of it is that in October 2007, Channels Nine, Ten and Seven all put to air security footage of a gang roughing up a bottle shop in the Melbourne suburb of Noble Park, while suggesting that the perpetrators were Sudanese. They were not. On top of this, the reports were skewed to suggesting that Sudanese were particularly prone to violent crime. Read ACMA’s media release, with links to the actual reports, here. 

Now, it is an unusual thing for ACMA to make findings against all three stations at once. The reports are strong, while in the dry language of  law.

But there is another issue here. Thanks to the constraints of its legislation and the unwieldiness of administrative law, ACMA is not exactly a nimble institution. These broadcasts took place in early October 2007. The complaints were made later in October and December that year. In other words, it has taken a massive TWO YEARS between broadcast and redress. 

 In all that time, the Sudanese community has had to live with the impact of inaccurate and unfair reporting.

Surely there must be a better way?

ACMA Chairman Chris Chapman acknowledged to me this morning that the length of time it takes to resolve complaints is a problem. This case, he says, was one of the most complex he has had to deal with in his four years in the post, and representes the “low water mark” of slowness.

It involved three different broadcasts, and three different clauses of the relevant codes. As well, as can be seen from the ACMA reports, all three stations were vigorous in their self defence. Not one admitted error, and ACMA has to make sure that procedural fairness is observed, with all that means in terms of navigating the various layers of administrative review, giving the broadcasters time to respond and so on and so forth.

Chapman also says that ACMA has made gains in shortening the length of time it takes to arrive at findings. For the first time, the authority presently has no outstanding matters before it that are more than six months old. In the last reporting year, it dealt with 96 investigations into matters relating to broadcasting codes, compared with just 51 the previous year and 60 in 2006-07. It now takes an average of 4-8 months between complaint and finding, he says.

All the same, is an unwieldy legalistic process the best way of holding broadcasters to account in the public eye?

I understand that amid the recent imbroglios that engulfed the Australian Press Council, the journalists’ union and former Chair Ken McKinnon suggested that, in this time of media convergence, the Council might seek to broaden its remit to include broadcasting, with the idea of providing a faster  means of redress than ACMA can provide. The idea gained very little support.

I have telephoned the new Australian Press Council Chair, Julian Disney, to see if he wants to buy in to this issue. So far, I haven’t heard back. I will report any developments.

UPDATE: I should have pointed out in this story that the scandal over use of this footage was first uncovered by the ABC’s Media Watch, which is perhaps the most effective namer and shamer in the game.