ABC not biased?????

[Rorschach]

More on the most recent "fair" reporting...

In its statement, the Republic of Nauru's "media and public information" unit claimed the children who appeared in the program were "coached" and the interview process "stage-managed". Despite this, "viewers could clearly see that the refugees featured were well dressed, well-groomed and healthy", the statement said.

No children were in detention on Nauru, the government said. This is technically true because the processing facility is designated as an "open centre" and asylum seekers are free to move around the 21 square kilometre island. The government said children generally lived with their families in safe accommodation close to shops, and that Nauru was less violent than Australia.

The program also used footage of a now-defunct hospital and failed to mention the "new $27 million state-of-the-art medical facility to which refugees have unrestricted and free access" or the newly-constructed school, the Nauruan government said.

"Last night's Four Corners program on the ABC was yet another example of the ABC's biased political propaganda and lies, and was an insult to the people of Nauru," the statement said. "This report was an embarrassment to journalism. From start to finish it was denigrating, racist, false and pure political activism."

Under questioning at a Senate estimates hearing on Monday night, Department of Immigration and Border Protection secretary Michael Pezzullo also denied Amnesty International's allegations.

"I refute categorically, both on behalf of my own department, and by way of explaining government policy in this regard, that it's not the Australian government's position, more the position of this department, that we flout any laws, international or otherwise," he said.

"As to the notion, inference or implication that we use torture as some sort of instrument of state policy, I personally find it to be offensive but, in any event, what I find to be offensive is not relevant. It's objectively in our view not true."

[IQS.RLOW]

Source your """ quotes.

[Rorschach]

Amnesty basks in Four Corners’ ‘hyperbolic garbage’ on Nauru
The Australian
October 21, 2016
Paul Maley
National Security Editor


Of all the injustices Australia has supposedly inflicted on refugees, surely the worst is the refugee lobby itself.

On Tuesday, Amnesty International produced a report into offshore processing on Nauru. It was the latest in a string of jeremiads fired off by the refugee lobby or their fellow travellers in the media.

Amnesty’s report rattled off the usual string of charges, by now wearingly familiar to anyone who has the followed the issue: Nauru was a factory for mental illness and abuse. Depression, panic and anxiety were endemic. Self-harm had become the national sport.

Amnesty’s contribution ran to 64 pages but the titlepage told the story, “Island of Despair. Australia’s “Processing’’ of Refugees on Nauru’’. (Note the scare quotes around the word “processing” as though no “processing” has gone on at all - surprising news to the 900-odd asylum seekers who have had their refugee claims, you know, processed.)

Actually, time-poor readers didn’t need to read the title at all. A picture of a forlorn-looking man crouching in a field of rubble was enough to give you the flavour of the thing, as well as banish any suspicion the report’s authors might be about to deal with their subject in a serious and fair-minded way.

Under normal circumstances the Amnesty report would have gone unnoticed. After all, complaints about the evils of offshore processing come more often than the refugees themselves these days. But for the ABC’s Four Corners program, normally and exemplar of rigorous journalism, gave it rock star treatment, interviewing a small number of refugees and former employees, all of whom made similar allegations about life on Nauru.

The result was a three-day slanging match between the ABC and the governments of Australia and Nauru, both of which screamed bias. The ABC said the Immigration Minister’s offer to do a live interview didn’t fit the show’s essay-style format. The Minister complained written material provided to the producers was never aired. The ABC issued a high-minded statement defending itself. But the bottom line was this: for 45 minutes the national broadcaster gave uncritical coverage to one side of the story, while depriving viewers of the other.

Meanwhile, Amnesty was basking in the free publicity for its report, which, among other things, made the following astonishing claim: “The combination of refugees’ severe mental anguish, the intentional nature of the system, and the fact that the goal of offshore processing is to intimidate or coerce other refugees and asylum-seekers to achieve a specific outcome, means that Australia’s offshore processing regime fits the definition of torture under international law.’’

That’s right, torture. As far as one of the world’s peak human rights bodies is concerned there is no lawful difference between offshore processing and Saddam’s basements.

If a Royal Commissioner handed down something like this it would be dismissed for what it was - hyperbolic garbage written to be quotable, not credible. But for the refugee lobby, this is the currency of debate. Where others see smoke, they see Hiroshima.
The seedbed for the present wave of hysteria is the so-called “Nauru Files’’, a cache of 2123 incident reports logged by Save the Children workers on Nauru and leaked to the Guardian Australia. The Guardian claims the files reveal “the devastating trauma and abuse inflicted on children held by Australia in offshore ­detention’’. But an audit of the files by the Immigration Department shows that just 23 of the reports referred to critical incidents and 19 resulted in police investigations, only eight of which relate to children. That’s bad. But “devastating trauma and abuse’’? I don’t think so.

And that’s the problem. Refugee advocates are incapable of seeing the world as it is, rather than they way they think it needs to be to shift public opinion. Foul things happen on Nauru. But a cursory look at recent events shows that asylum seekers and their boosters are not above fabricating or hyping their claims.

The role of the media is to distinguish between genuine cases of abuse and those that have been invented or exaggerated for publicity or legal advantage. It is no wonder then that the refugee lobby has been such a woeful advocate for its cause. Offshore processing was introduced 15 years ago. Back then it was controversial. These days it’s settled bipartisan policy.

Not only has the refugee lobby failed to shift a single opinion to its side, it has actually gone backwards. But that’s what happens when you blow your credibility. People stop listening.