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The ABC has been rapped over the knuckles for inaccuracy and lack of impartiality in news reports about the aerial culling of feral horses in Kosciuszko National Park, but concerns over the reporter’s personal use of social media to campaign for brumbies remain unresolved.
The ABC Ombudsman upheld complaints, including one from the NSW Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water and one from the Invasive Species Council, that the public broadcaster had breached its editorial standards in its reporting on the issue in three news bulletins on April 8.
Feral horses near Long Plain in Kosciuszko National Park in October last year.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
The reports by journalist Jamelle Wells included unsubstantiated claims from Nationals MP Wes Fang that the government’s estimate of between 12,797 and 21,760 wild horses in the park was wrong, and it was only “at or below 3000”.
The news reports also claimed horses were being shot up to 18 times, injured horses could take days to die and there had been orphaned foals discovered in the park.
The aerial shooting of feral horses, also known as brumbies, in Kosciuszko National Park is a contentious political issue, opposed by the Nationals, Animal Justice Party, brumby advocates and some media commentators, including 2GB host Ray Hadley.
From November 24, 2021 to May 31 this year, the NSW government has removed more 8,840 wild horses from the park to protect the region’s sensitive alpine environment, more than in the previous 21 years cumulatively. The government has also suspended its rehoming program pending an external investigation into claims some were being diverted to an allegedly illegal knackery in Wagga Wagga.
“The reporting … breached the corporation’s editorial standards for impartiality.”
ABC Ombudsman
The ombudsman criticised ABC Radio for “failing to make reasonable efforts, in the circumstances, to ensure the material facts were accurately presented in context, by failing to include the range of relevant, publicly available information on the issue or to seek a counter perspective to that of Mr Fang”.
“By excluding other relevant publicly available expert information on this contentious issue that would have countered the claims made in the broadcasts, the reporting had the effect of unduly favouring one perspective over another and breached the corporation’s editorial standards for impartiality.”