The following media release concerns the ABC’s apology for inac­curacies and for the omission of material context that occurred during an interview on RN Breakfast  of Rev Dr Stephen Sizer, which was aired on Good Friday. To download this media release in PDF format, click here.

Interview of Rev Dr Stephen Sizer on RN Breakfast on Good Friday, 30 March 2018

28 May, 2018

The ABC has written to the Executive Council of Aus­trali­an Jewry (ECAJ) apo­lo­gising for inac­curacies and for the omission of material context that occurred during an interview of Rev Dr Stephen Sizer which was aired on RN Breakfast on Good Friday, and the eve of the Jewish festival of Pesach (Passover), on 30 March 2018.
In a letter to ABC Managing Director, Michelle Guthrie, on 5 April 2018, the ECAJ com­plained that the inter­view­er, David Rutledge, had under­played the gravity of accus­a­tions of antisemitism that had been made against Sizer and “projected a generally sup­port­ive attitude towards Sizer from the outset, which resulted in a soft interview that allowed Sizer’s self-serving, inac­cur­ate answers to pass unchal­lenged.”
The ECAJ complaint alleged that “David Rutledge allowed Sizer to get away with claiming that none of the speakers at one of the con­fer­ences he addressed in Tehran in 2014 were cri­ti­cised as antisemitic. In fact, as was reported at the time, the Iranian gov­ern­ment-run Press TV described the con­fer­ence as intending to “unveil the secrets behind the dominance of the Zionist lobby over the US and EU politics”, with one session devoted to examining “Mossad’s role in the 9/11 Coup d’Etat”, and another dis­cuss­ing “9/11 and the Holocaust as pro-Zionist ‘Public myths’ ”. In ques­tion­ing Sizer, David Rutledge gave only partial inform­a­tion about, and under-played the full extent of, Sizer’s own state­ments legit­im­ising out­land­ish con­spir­acy theories that blame Israel for the September 11 terror attacks in the US. The audience was not informed that the link which Sizer posted on his Facebook page in 2015 was to an article entitled “9/11 Israel did it”, and that Sizer had sub­sequently publicly apo­lo­gised for posting it. There was no mention of the fact that Sizer’s Church in the UK had been so embar­rassed by his public state­ments that it had extracted an under­tak­ing from him to stop com­ment­ing on the subject while he remained a vicar, an under­tak­ing which Sizer broke.”
In response, the ABC wrote, “The interview included inform­a­tion to indicate that Dr Sizer holds con­tro­ver­sial views; is a critic of Israel; at times has been accused of anti-Semitism and that his activ­it­ies could be used by expli­citly anti-Semitic groups. However, Dr Sizer’s mis­char­ac­ter­isa­tion of the Tehran con­fer­ence which was not chal­lenged or corrected in the interview, together with the lack of inform­a­tion on his repeated censure by his Church was not in keeping with the ABC’s editorial standard for accuracy: the interview did not present these issues with the necessary material context.”
“The program has appended an Editor’s Note to the website and provided relevant links to further inform­a­tion (http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/breakfast/good-friday‑8:05/9601212). The ABC apo­lo­gises for this lapse and would like to assure you that this finding has been discussed with the program area and RN man­age­ment, and a summary will be published on the ABC website”
The following note has now been included on the page of the ABC website that relates to the program that was aired on ABC RN on 30 March 2018:

“NOTE: Presenter David Rutledge acknow­ledged to the audience that Dr Sizer’s views are con­tro­ver­sial, that he has been accused of anti-Semitism and that he attended a con­fer­ence in Tehran in 2014, which has been cri­ti­cized for including speakers with anti-Semitic affil­i­ations. However, the ABC accepts that the interview did not provide suf­fi­cient context for listeners to adequately under­stand the extent of the con­tro­ver­sies. The ABC acknow­ledges that the Tehran con­fer­ence did include anti-Semitic elements, and inform­a­tion on the Anglican Church’s censure of Dr Sizer can be found here.”

Com­ment­ing on the ABC response, ECAJ co-CEO Peter Wertheim welcomed the ABC’s acknow­ledge­ment of inac­curacies and omission of material context, and its apology, but added, “Sadly, this will come too late to undo the false, indeed poisonous, impres­sions given to many ABC listeners to the program who heard the interview but will not be aware of the ABC’s admission of error and apology”.
“The ABC has also failed to appre­ci­ate the gravity of the wrong done when David Rutledge took it upon himself to tell Sizer, and the audience, “I accept you are not an antisemite”, instead of allowing the audience to draw its own con­clu­sions. The ABC has pointed to David Rutledge’s academic qual­i­fic­a­tions and said that the ABC’s editorial standards permitted him to provide his own analysis. However, David Rutledge provided no analysis at all, only his own unsup­por­ted assertion. There is a big dif­fer­ence.”
Wertheim also cri­ti­cised the ABC’s failure to address spe­cific­ally the ECAJ’s complaint that “the ABC audience is surely entitled to know what Christian Zionism is from the point of view of a know­ledge­able and artic­u­late exponent, not merely from the point of view of a harsh and dis­cred­ited critic”.
“We are now con­sid­er­ing pursuing these unre­solved aspects of our complaint with the Aus­trali­an Com­mu­nic­a­tions and Media Authority”, he concluded.

Contact:
Peter Wertheim AM | Co-CEO
ph: 02 8353 8500 | m: 0408 160 904
e: [email protected] | www.ecaj.org.au