Doco filmmaker starts petition
Director Inka Stafrace has created an onilne petition to get her documentary Hope in a Slingshot on the air.
Earlier this year, Ronin Films director Andrew Pike said the ABC had withdrawn a formal offer to acquire the documentary – about the Israel-Palestinian conflict – because it conflicted with the public broadcaster’s policy of impartiality.
When questioned about the decision, ABC TV director Kim Dalton emailed Encore the following statement, not once referring to Hope in a Slingshot:
ABC Television exercises complete editorial control over all its content decisions for programs acquired, commissioned or produced for broadcast or publication on its channels and platforms. During the process of content production , commissioning and/or acquisition, programs may be rejected based on the requirements of the ABC channel or platform, funding limitations, or the ABC’s Editorial Policies. All ABC content is required to demonstrate a high level of integrity, standards and values, and decisions about content must reflect the ABC’s independence from political, sectional, and commercial interests.
ABC Editorial Policies have specific standards that apply to documentary programs: Topical & Factual content (s.7) or Opinion content (s. 6) depending on the type of program. These standards have been in place since March 2007 and have been made available to filmmakers through ABC TV’s Independent Production site and through dedicated sessions run with SPAA and ADG. Relevant standards for documentary programming include:
• Accuracy in terms of content and context;
• Misrepresentation of viewpoints;
• Impartiality of content broadcast or published across a network or platform; and
• Privacy.
Content standards relating to issues such as taste, offence, violence, language, discrimination etc apply to all content categories. ABC TV has not resiled from broadcasting contentious or controversial content as a result of meeting these Editorial Policies.
In terms of the process by which ABC TV makes editorial decisions, the commissioning and acquisition of content is internally reviewed by TV’s Content Executive and Commissioning Group, both chaired by the Director of Television. Internally, ABC processes are scrutinised by the Group Audit unit and investigations of audience complaints are made by Audience & Consumer Affairs and the Complaints Review Executive both of which reside outside Television. Externally the ABC is the subject of the highest level of scrutiny of any media organisation in Australia including Parliamentary questions, the Senate Estimates process and questions on notice, external complaint investigative reviews by ACMA, and media scrutiny including the ABC’s own Media Watch.
After going public, media interest helped Pike get an immediate response.
“I had a phone call from the ABC and they said they would reconsider a suggestion that we made about a film that might be suitable as a balance for the film,” said Pike in May. But according to Stafrace, such film has not been found.
The director is now asking the public to participate, via the following petition:
Dear folk,
Please sign this petition if you believe that the Australian public have a right to see Hope in a Slingshot.
It is a documentary that initially passed all quality standards at the ABC, was accepted for broadcast and is considered to be a “signal contribution to peaceful representation of this (the Palestinian-Israeli) conflict” by Jake Lynch, Director of the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies in University of Sydney.
Senator Scott Ludlam challenged Mark Scott, the Director of the ABC, in the Senate Estimates last May about the abrupt withdrawal of the offer to have it broadcast and the ABC, then, agreed to reconsider it if they found a documentary to counter balance it.
Oddly enough they have never found one despite there being plenty to choose from, not least To See if I am Smiling or A Case for Israel.
Hope in a Slingshot was an unfunded film made specifically to address the gaping hole in information available in Australia’s main stream media about this conflict – and that is the military occupation and what that means to the Palestinian people living in The West Bank and Gaza.
This is not only about Hope in a Slingshot, but it is also about standing up to the ABC’s failing standards in fair and balanced reporting on many issues, not just the Middle East.
The petition can be found here.
It’s a tough situation for the ABC.
On any given night, a single news and current affairs story on the middle east can light up the switchboard with half the callers outraged at the blatant pro-Israel bias and the other half infuriated at the pro-Palestinian bias.
On the SAME story.
I haven’t seen Hope in a Slingshot, but for the filmmaker’s sake I hope they find an audience for it. Even if it’s not on the public broadcaster.
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Since I would have described the bulk of the western media content we have seen on the issue as tantamount to propoganda, in terms of its omission ot any balancing view, then I fail to understand why a standard previously notable only by its absence is suddently of such overwhelming importance.
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