THE three commercial TV networks broadcast inaccurate stories about Sudanese refugees, Australia’s media watchdog has found.

The Australia Communications and Media Authority said that broadcasts by Ten News at Five, National Nine News and Channel Seven News breached the Commercial Television Code of Practice requirement that factual material must be presented accurately in news programming.

The breaches occurred in broadcasts throughout Victoria on October 3 2007, about incidents concerning Sudanese refugees in Melbourne’s south-east.

The segments included closed circuit television footage of a person being arrested who was not Sudanese, ACMA said last night.

“In each case, the ACMA found that the licensee’s verbal commentary, the footage broadcast and the omission of clarifying information on such an important element of the news story meant that the CCTV footage of violence attributed to Sudanese gangs was not presented accurately as viewers would have inferred they were being shown visual evidence of Sudanese gang activity,” ACMA said in a statement.

“Ten and Nine were also found to have breached the requirement for news to be presented fairly and impartially.”

 

ACMA said in response to its finding the three networks had agreed to increase training for their news teams.

Although there had been three previous breaches concerning factual accuracy in news programs since 2005, the ACMA did not consider that there was evidence of systemic inaccuracy in news reporting on commercial TV.

“There has been a higher incidence of code breaches in relation to presenting factual material accurately and representing viewpoints fairly in current affairs programs,” the ACMA said.