Alan Sunderland, a former editorial director of the ABC and former news editor at SBS, has strongly criticised proposals by Australia’s antisemitism envoy, Jillian Segal, to address coverage of the Middle East. Writing in the Guardian, Sunderland argues that while antisemitism is a real issue and coverage has not been perfect, the proposed solutions are ill-conceived and dangerous to press freedom.
Two key proposals under fire
Segal’s first proposal is that the ABC and SBS should adopt a specific definition of antisemitism developed by an international body and incorporate it into their editorial standards. Sunderland notes that the Australian government has adopted this definition, but he argues that public broadcasters must develop their own editorial standards independently.
“For very good reasons related to editorial independence, public broadcasters are required to develop and make public their own editorial standards,” Sunderland writes. “They do not adopt the standards of external bodies and they most certainly do not take their lead on editorial matters from the Australian government.”
He recalls that during his 40-year career, there were many attempts to pressure broadcasters to adopt external definitions on issues like terrorism, genocide, or what it means to be un-Australian. Language, he warns, can be weaponised to “define away” real differences of opinion.
New oversight body risks media freedom
The second proposal, which Sunderland calls “even worse,” is to establish a new independent body to oversee whether public broadcasters are antisemitic. This would be despite the ABC and SBS already having internally independent ombudsmen and being subject to review by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA).
Sunderland raises several questions: Who would appoint this body? What powers would it have? How would its members be unbiased? He also asks why such a body would be created solely for antisemitism and not for other forms of discrimination enshrined in law.
“We would be carving out a real and significant area of potential media bias and treating it differently to all other areas of news coverage,” he writes. “That doesn’t sound to me like the kind of media landscape anyone committed to a free press would welcome.”
Accountability must be to all the public
Sunderland acknowledges that the proposals likely come from good intentions, but insists they are not the right approach. He calls for all Australian newsrooms to examine their own standards and for the public to hold them accountable for editorial decisions they actually make, not ones imposed by others.
“Good journalism will always be accountable to the public,” he concludes. “But it needs to be equally accountable, all the time, to all the public, and for the editorial decisions that it makes, not ones that are imposed on it by others.”
