The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) has ruled against 2GB's The Ray Hadley Morning Show over a code of practice breach for failing to ensure that factual material was reasonably supportable as accurate in a report.
The reprimand relates to the airing of an inaccurate story from The Daily Telegraph about a hospitality program for school children visiting Parliament House.
The broadcast, aired in June last year, claimed that children visiting Canberra’s political HQ would no longer be offered fruit snacks and bottles of water due to budget cuts.
However, before 2GB broadcast the claim, the then Federal Treasurer, Wayne Swan, released a media statement contradicting that newspaper article. Although Hadley referred to Swan’s media statement in the course of the broadcast, he also described Swan as dishonest.
ACMA found that 2GB had not used reasonable efforts to ensure that the factual material broadcast was reasonably supportable as accurate.
It noted that "reference to a current mainstream media source will in many (if not most) situations be indicative of a broadcaster's reasonable efforts to ensure that factual material is reasonably supportable as accurate/”
2GB submitted that any inaccuracy was corrected in later broadcasts in which Hadley made clear that the hospitality program cuts would not go ahead.
However, the ACMA determined that these later broadcasts were not corrections as they did not clearly acknowledge that the original statement was incorrect.
