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A Current Affair report breached privacy, accuracy and complaints handling rules

A Current AffairChannel Nine’s A Current Affair has been reprimanded by the media watchdog over a report on former Olympic gold medallist Neil Brooks which was found to have breached provisions on accuracy, privacy and complaints handling.

The 19-minute report by reporter Amanda Paterson, broadcast in March of last year, made numerous claims around Brooks and his wife Linda’s financial dealings in Australia and overseas.

In a report released to today the ACMA found that: “The program had insufficient evidence to support its claim during a 5 March, 2012 broadcast that police in Australia, the United States and France were investigating allegations of fraud against the former swimmer and his wife.”

Throughout its 32-page report the ACMA differentiates between various statements made in the program and finds that many statements around alleged fraudulent dealings were not a breach of the station accuracy obligations in the Commercial Television Code of Practice. ACMA said this was either because they were not “factual material” or because evidence provided by the licensee and complainant were inconclusive.

The investigation was complicated by the fact Brooks has served Channel Nine with a concerns notice under the defamation act and is expected to sue the broadcaster.

ACMA also found that A Current Affair had breached privacy provisions of the code when it showed the French address of Linda Brooks. Channel Nine had argued that the inclusion of the address was a central part of the story, however the media watchdog found that the t

he inclusion of her street address in the segment was unnecessary and there 

was no identifiable public interest reason for the inclusion.

Channel Nine has accepted the ACMA’s findings and said it will be acknowledging them on its website. It has not taken down the original story which at the time of posting was still on the A Current Affair website

The third breach of the code was in relation to complaints handling. ACMA found that Channel Nine did not adequately respond to the complaint of Brooks.

The code specifies that licensees are not required to respond to complaints where a matter raised has become the subject of legal proceedings. However in this instance the broadcaster was breached because court proceedings had not actually been commenced.

Because the technical nature of the complaints handling breach, the ACMA chose not to take action in relation against the station for infringing this part of the code. However, Channel Nine has conducted training on its complaints handling obligations following the finding.

Nic Christensen 

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