ABC News 24 hammered over Japanese tsunami coverage
The ABC is facing growing criticism of its coverage of the Japanese tsunami disaster by its news network ABC News 24.
On Friday night, the network switched to the UK-based BBC News 24.
And at several key points during the rest of the weekend, ABC News 24 – which launched eight months ago – returned to its scheduled programming including reruns of an aboriginal reconciliation conference from last November, a roundup of the week’s news from Queensland and a three year old episode of Foreign Correspondent.
The coverage has drawn strong criticism, particularly from News Ltd commentators.
Columnist Tim Blair wrote in today’s Daily Telegraph: “Now, I can almost understand how the ABC’s hidebound culture would cause it to stick with scheduled re-runs during an historic crisis.
“More difficult to understand is why the ABC’s journalists didn’t defeat that culture on Saturday by swarming the studio and forcing it to cover actual news. Even ABC journalists are still journalists, after all, and journalists are compelled to pursue big stories.”
And Caroline Overington wrote in The Australian: “And how did the station do? It failed, and spectacularly. Viewers who tuned in over the weekend—and many did—found a skeleton staff pumping out repeats of old programs, including one on Belgian identity issues (we are not trying to be smart, that is true) and a debate on whether Dutch is superior, as a language, to Flemish.”
Australia’s only other mainstream 24 hour news channel is Sky News, which is owned by Seven, Nine and the news Corp-aligned BSkyB. The network switched between locally based coverage and Sky News UK.
However, criticism of ABC News 24 was not limited to News Ltd. Many on Twitter also expressed disappointment with the service.
The shortfalls in the ABC News 24’s coverage highlight the budgetary constraints the service operates under. The ABC launched the station by making savings out of existing budgets. Its lowest staffing is at the weekend when it fills its schedule with a large amount of archive current affairs content from the previous week and earlier.
The network’s problems were also exacerbated by the lack of an agreement to carry Japanese public broadcaster NHK World which had some of the most compelling coverage online. On Friday night, ABC boss Mark Scott tweeted a link to the NHK World live stream, saying: “We do not have international streaming rights”.
At the time of posting, the ABC had not yet prepared a response to the criticism.
Tim Burrowes founded Mumbrella in 2008. He worked on Mumbrella until 2021. At various points he was editor, content director and editor-at-large.
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I have a problem with some of this criticism. Yes, I believe on Friday night News24 did drop the ball a little in getting information out about what was happening.
However, on Saturday and Sunday there – quite frankly – was nothing new developing. All the live footage I watched over the weekend (from a variety of sources) didn’t have anything new to tell me, instead focussing on speculation about what was happening at the nuclear reactors. No facts – just speculation.
So, for me, News24 returning to their regular programming isn’t a loss. It’s nice to see a 24-hour news network not go down the road of showing disaster porn for the sake of it.
Good on them.
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As Caroline Overington is well aware the correct way to cover natural disasters is to mock the extent of the damage.
Overington on Cyclone Yasi:
“Also, reports of garage doors being battered. Some poles are down. Palm trees have of course lost fronds.”
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I tuned in on the weekend for a Japan quake update and got the Dutch / Flemish thing. Seemed a bit odd I must say!
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The Sky News coverage was awful whenever the anchor was speaking, which is to say, it was unremittingly awful. It highlighted that endless coverage of anything is an exercise in exposing the banality of your anchors.
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@ Matthew Hatton
If you think of explosions at nuclear reactors and rescuers reaching towns with 10,000 people missing as “nothing new” I’m wondering what you might deem important enough for us mere mortals to be allowed to follow? Do enlighten us sir.
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I wanted to watch coverage of the Japan over the weekend, ABC News 24 did not provide – ended up watching restreams of NHK World over the net.
Australian news fail.
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@HAL9000 – The explosions, evactuations, etc had been reported on several hours earlier. While every other news broadcaster was busy endlessly replaying that grainy 30 seconds of footage and pretending that their anchors were nuclear scientists, News24 decided to go and do something different instead of just feeding the machine.
What benefit is it to us if we’re not actually getting new information? What benefit is it to the ABC to follow the herd and just repeat themselves for hours on end?
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ABC News 24 is a joke.
Try http://www.abc.net.au/news/abcnews24/ from an iPhone.
You just get a message “iOS APP COMING SOON”
Really helpful stuff. They should change the name to “old news, accessible only to some Australians”.
Accessibility FAIL.
Web Standards FAIL
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abc 24 have again proved how awful they are. those responsible for this abject failure should resign. even without a crisis, getting news out of that station is difficult with teh number of rubbish re-runs they broadcast. i have given up on the station – every time i tune in i’m getting re-runs of everything but the news.
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If the ABC doesn’t have permission to carry the feeds from other networks, you could list web addresses where people can get live, up-to-date information.
Though many thanks for actually carrying the feeds on Friday when no other channels had deemed the earthquake & tsunami not worthy enough to break into their afternoon programming.
My settop box does not do the HD channels, though I was watching ABC News 24 via the web.
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However ABC 24 (for me online) were the best of the bunch.
The last tragedy on this scale The Boxing Day Tsunami had repeated coverage until the real news came through. I think it is needed. Not that we need reminding it is happening but because the rest of humanity empathising with the victims creates a positive morphic resonnance in the world/space.
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Matthew Harton – You don’t consider an explosion at a nuclear plant, radiation exposure, and the risk of a meltdown news?
It sure takes a lot to impress you!
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Sorry, Matthew Hatton, but what you are saying is not correct in any way,shape or form. The disaster unfolded on Friday afternoon:Saturday and Sunday revealed rather a lot of gripping footage of the tsunami in various locations, as well as footage of the explosion at the nuclear facility and updated the casualty lists of dead, injured and missing.
You can`t seriously suggest that this was not newsworthy,can you? Would you have been happy with such coverage in the immediate aftermath of September 11th?
I don`t think you`re reading in the same library as the average TV viewer, much less enjoying the same page.
ABC 24 needs to lift it`s game immediately or change its name and soon.
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I agree with Matthew Hatton. I get tired of watching the same news repeat over and over again on these 24 hour news networks. If there was nothing new to report then fine to switch off rolling coverage. I would watch ABC News 24 over Sky News anyday.
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Chris @ 12:06pm
I watch ABC News 24 on my old iPhone 3G all the time through the free ABC News iPhone App. It works over 3G data with Telstra and over wifi.
Admittedly 3G was no good during last Friday’s events but I put that down to increased web traffic and possibly poor mobile coverage in my regional area.
To say the ABC News 24 stream cannot be viewed on an iPhone is, however, dead wrong. The reason your link won’t work is that it’s a Flash stream and iPhones cannot view Flash video. That’s entirely Apple’s fault.
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Tim Blair and Caroline Overington are hacks who work for News Ltd and any criticism of the ABC is merely parroting of the “talking points” email they get from His Masters Voice.
As for Chris and his iPod issues – well I don’t have such a problem. Perhaps the “bug” is between the seat and the keyboard.
Most users of Apple devices are so lame and clueless that you can’t take many of their reported issues seriously – particularly as they can’t be bothered to RTFM,
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Karl Stefanovic, he’s our man, if anyone can report it, Karl sure can!
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I loved how Overington dished out the brickbats for ABC 24’s crappy journalism and then ran yet another birth notice in the same Media column. What is The Oz, a serious newspaper or a community newsletter?
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Newspaper journalists complaining about a lack of immediacy is funny… I picked a copy of The Australian this morning and there was no ‘new’ news in it at all. As Craig Ferguson says, “A newspaper is like a blog that only publishes stories about things that happened yesterday…”
ABC24 aired updates, developments and new footage as they came to hand – Its audience didn’t miss a thing. If you want to watch the same disaster porn footage over and over again – TiVo it.
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“Disaster porn”?
Geeze, that`s a bit broad, isn`t it?
Am I a purveyor of such indecency by watching it once,twice or more than three times?Bit like the old one, more than three shakes is a tug,eh?
Are we dirty-old disaster porn addicts if we watch it on ABC24, or only on SKY/Commercial TV?
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KT, Adam Paul, Doug,Chris: strewth, are you all rusted-on ABC luvvies or what?
That you defend the indefensible seems proof of such undeserved obedience to Aunty.
You are all missing the point : a 24hour news service reports news and current events 24-7, to the exclusion of all else.
To even attempt to pay credit to the ABC for taking the weekend off, as it were, during the 48 hours after the biggest earthquake to hit Japan in modern history, is simply mindboggling.
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News Corp whining about the ABC is not news – If News Corp had their way we would need to pay for news updates on this historic event. The name of this article should be “ABC News criticised by News Corp” that would be more accurate.
I was happy with ABC News 24 coverage and I tuned in sporadically throughout the weekend and was really happy with the depth of coverage. If some people tuned in at times that other programming was on that seems Also happy with the ABC iphone ap to keep me up to date with any updates regarding the developing nuclear event.
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After a quick check in with Sky News, who were doing an average job, I watched the Friday night coverage on BBC World News – via Foxtel until the TV was required for other stuff – then online, live streaming to the iPad.
I can’t imagine that any news service anywhere around the world could have done a better job – well done the Beeb. If thats what the ABC News 24 switched to, then well done to them too – for putting their viewers first.
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I am surprised by the lack of backlash against A Current Affair & Tracy Grimshaw on Friday night telling us North Queenslanders & NT that we have to evacuate as the tsunami was due to reach us in 6 to 8 hours (I am in Cairns) and asking anyone with friends/relatives in our area to ring & tell them to get out now. Ever since Yasi I can’t get onto Bigpond Wireless internet in the evening – perhaps they haven’t fixed all the towers yet so can’t cope with peak hour – so i rang a friend in Sydney who looked it up and that warning had been cancelled almost an hour prior. Due to daylight savings, that edition of ACA had been screened an hour prior in NSW, and was old news. Thanks for panicking us for no reason!! 9/Win should have run a disclaimer across the bottom of the screen announcing that it was old news and the warning was cancelled. We’ve been through enough trauma lately thanks Tracey/ACA. Irresponsible & sensationalistic journalism at its finest.
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Matthew Hatton seems to miss the point of 24 hour news channels – the audience is not expected to sit there all day, watching hour upon hour of coverage. They are expected to drift in and out and this is the point. The audience for a 24 hour news channel should reasonably expect to be able to switch on the station at any time of the day and get the latest coverage of the biggest news item(s) of the day without waiting too long – whether or not those items were already covered an hour earlier. When a story is as big as this it warrants round-the-clock coverage (for once – when the big news of the day is Charlie Sheen, sure, throw to the Belgian thing)
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Not a lovvie Scotty, it’s just that I understand that news is not necessarily replaying the same footage repeatedly for the first 72 hours after an event. ‘More news’ is not old news on loop.
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So, do Newscorp criticise Sky News for repeating news coverage throughout the day? What about News Radio – that bad? Fox News – repeat much? And I do believe that particular channel still hosted their regular programming. OK, so not Australian, but neither is Newscorp.
It is sorta the beauty of rolling coverage … you are going to get repeats in the news!
And although not as lighting fast as our mate Karl got there, they did have a reporter on the ground by Saturday.
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Disappointing for ABC. Must say I didn’t tune in to them. Had the web on BBC and the TV on the same, great up to the min coverage.
If you’re not getting what you want on the channel you’re looking at, press the button on the remote and change it! The drop in audience will get their heads moving.
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No surprises here: of course Murdoch will attack ANYTHING News24 does: and rolling news is exactly what Murdoch wants to get his greedy conservative monopolistic hands on. I really reckon News 24 is shaping up very well. Of course there’s issues (it could for example DROP SPORT altogether), but you know you’re doing well when the Murdoch cronies weigh in so unanimously. Well done!
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The Issue with News24 is that they forget that we ALL pay our 11 cents a day (or whatever the stupid number is) for the existance of the ABC so yes, they need to listen to ALL tax paying Australians feedback, not just the left wing favourable stuff.
The fact that their 24 hour News Channel cant even help me out with ongoing coverage on the biggest story happening in the world as it’s unfolding instead of airing ” a three year old episode of Foreign Correspondent”???? I’m sorry, but none of the people defending News24 have addressed how this is justified, unfolding news vs 3 year old news.
KT, Adam Paul, Doug,Chris, Matthew Hatton, can you all please pay a little extra in your tax so that I no longer have to involunetarily contribute to a TV station that does not provide what I and the MAJORITY of Australians (look at the ratings) want?
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KT, Adam Paul, Doug,Chris, Matthew Hatton…….are you on crack?
As Bucks alluded to,and I mentioned earlier, if the public broadcaster is challenging commercial channels for audiences with EVERY AUSTRALIAN`S MONEY, it`s impingent on them to do so par excellence or not at all.
24 hour coverage is self-descriptive.What`s being offered clearly isn`t.
And Paul, it is spelled “luvvies”.
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Sorry Scotty, I didn’t realise the correct spelling of a made up word was so important to you.
Bucks (sorry – I didn’t catch your real name) you seem a little confused – you don’t want to pay for a national news service but you turn to it the minute you want to find something out. Odd. Perhaps you’d prefer a Fox News feed instead?
For your sake Bucks’ I’ll repeat what I and other people have been saying here – ABC24 did indeed provide complete ongoing coverage of the disaster as it happened, completely live. By the time you got around to turning your TV on, the complete details of the tragedy had well and truly been reported, ad nauseum for many, many hours. Nothing was missed – new developments were reported as they came to hand, just as they continue to be.
I think what you’re looking for is a news review/replay service, not news coverage. (Try their website or iView!) If you need to see news ‘as it happens’ then you need to tune in when it does, not 72 hours after the fact.
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Paul, as a made-up word,it`s been used in Britain and over here to identify ardent admirers of theatre or the Arts for over 30 years,so,yes,spelling is important.
And you must be on crack “ABC24 did indeed provide complete ongoing coverage of the disaster as it happened, completely live. By the time you got around to turning your TV on, the complete details of the tragedy had well and truly been reported, ad nauseum for many, many hours.”
Tragic.
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Scott – You’re obviously on top of correct spelling, grammar and punctuation usage so I’ll leave it to the expert.
But perhaps you can answer this question for me – at what time did you turn the TV on expecting to see ‘live’ coverage of the disaster on ABC24 and instead saw regular programming? Friday night? Saturday? Saturday night? Perhaps Sunday? Should they, and other news outlets, still have rolling coverage today, 5 days after the event? At what point do they switch back? What part of the story have ABC24 failed to report on?
Everything in that statement you’ve singled out is true – I suggest you check your own drug usage before commenting next time.
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Sorry Adam Paull with a double “L”, (how much does it cost to change ones name at Births Deaths and Registries now days to something that you thought was trendy?) , didn’t realise it was suddenly necessary to have to add your full name with a web link, but then I’m not an exhibitionist, (look at me I’m artistic, blah, blah; blah)
Once again, once someone like you, is shown to be wrong with GAPING holes in your arguement, you revert to snide and unnecessary comments, like asking Scott ” I suggest you check your own drug usage before commenting next time”. Seriously? Grow up. What’s next, “lah, lah, you smell”.
I considered not replying to your post, becuse the best way to respond to people like you is like how all exhibitionists should be treated, ignored. But your response was so unintelligent, that for the sake of Darwin and his theory on natural selection which you’ve somehow dodged to still be alive, I’ll address your point.
You state, and I quote: “Nothing was missed – new developments were reported as they came to hand, just as they continue to be.” How do you know nothing was missed? Are you telling me that NOTHING NEW HAPPENED, during the screening of a 3 year old “Foreign Correspondent”? Well the second turbine at Fukushima Nuclear power plant actually blew up at that time, I know because I flicked the channel to the BBC World news, (what the ABC should be) on Foxtel, which I voluntarily pay for,and they were showing BREAKING NEWS on it.
You point out in Scott’s post “Should they, and other news outlets, still have rolling coverage today, 5 days after the event? At what point do they switch back? What part of the story have ABC24 failed to report on?” No 5 days is not neccessary, just when news breaks, which it did and they failed to report it whilke “reruns of an aboriginal reconciliation conference from last November” were on.
So Adam Paull with a double “L”, you seem a little confused, and sorry that I had to repeat it for your sake, but try reading the above a little slower and maybe Scott will be kind enough to send you some of the drugs that you claim he is on, but I hope he doesn’t.
So feel free to reply to me directly, it wont matter as I now will chose to ignore you like the little kid who cries too much, and perhaps you can try to be a little more mature next time rather than personal and snide when people disagree with your incorrect opinions, and it wont illicit a reply like this.
(You probably wont ever even see this, might not get passed by moderator, but I hope it does, as that’s the beauty of Australia, we have free speech and entitled to our own opinions, even Adam Paull with a double “L”)
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Actually, Bucks, it was me that suggested Mr Paull was on drugs (crack, to be specific, and I reckon he might not be now but the damage is done).
To answer your rediculous question, yes, I`d expect rolling coverge of the largest major disaster,man-made or natural,since September 11/the Boxing Day tsunami to be continuos until at least the third day (Sunday).
You sound like a one-eyed footy supporter: your side has never given away a free kick/penalty and never received it`s due! Come on, you can`t keep fooling yourself like this!
The fact that Japan is facing a modern Chernobyl-size catastrophe,on top of the news and footage of the exact size and destruction of the quake and resultant tsunami,is STILL eminently newsworthy.
To deem that full coverage of the first 6 hours of this calamity was adequate is pure self-delusion.
Wake up,mate (and stop taking ice!)
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I do not subscribe to Fox News.
I have free to air digital TV.
I was kept informed by the ABC when the Tsunami struck, albeit via feeds from other channels at times.
I could pay for Fox, however I choose not to. I do flick to ABC News 24 and find that I get what I want.
I also jump online and updates about anything happening anywhere..?
I don’t know what all the fuss is about?
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