With half the nation in lockdown and facing the challenge of vaccinating an entire nation, Prime Minister Scott Morrison had a lot on his to-do list when he emerged from his two-week stint in quarantine this morning.
But one of the first things he did, as he walked out the door, was front up to the camera and dissect the current state of affairs.
ScoMo discussed the current vaccine rollout and referenced the upcoming National Cabinet meeting, which will reportedly set vaccine targets that could mean the end of lockdowns and travel restrictions.
The short clip was played on the ABC’s News Breakfast program.
As has become common among politicians, the Prime Minister’s social media team took a short clipping of the interview to share directly to Facebook.
However, the video contained a quite clearly blurred ABC News Breakfast logo, suggesting someone had repurposed the video to hide the ABC’s branding.
You can see the video and the blurred logo here.
The attempt to hide the ABC’s logo was quickly noticed, with 9News reported Charles Croucher pointing it out on Twitter.
The abc news breakfast logo has been blurred in this video on the Prime Minister’s facebook page.
Meaning someone being paid by tax payers has blurred a logo put on by someone being paid by tax payers. pic.twitter.com/5iyl2SvYH0
— Charles Croucher (@ccroucher9) July 2, 2021
News Breakfast co-host also weighed in, describing the snub as “funny (sort of..)”.
This is funny (sort of..)
We carried the PM’s comments at The Lodge live on our show this morning.
The PM’s people have clearly used our vision on his FB page, which is fine I guess.
But why blur the @BreakfastNews and ABC logo? 🤷 https://t.co/B4ursLXOQ5
— Michael Rowland (@mjrowland68) July 2, 2021
For comparison, the Scott Morrison Facebook page released a video just this week from the Prime Minister’s interview on Sunrise. There were no attempts to blur any of the logos in this video.
The decision to take out the ABC’s branding will not help ease current tensions between the government and the national broadcaster.
Treasury announced in May that the ABC and SBS are expected to receive six per cent less funding over the next four years, as part of the most recent Federal budget.
