Former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has blasted the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) for failing to rein in Sky News over alleged COVID-19 misinformation.
Sky News was hit with a seven-day ban from YouTube in August after reviews of old videos from the broadcaster were found to violate the tech platform’s COVID-19 policies.
Rudd, speaking at the Senate inquiry into media diversity, accused Sky News of spreading disinformation about the pandemic.
“They [Sky News] have claimed that vaccinated people are much more likely to die from COVID than the unvaccinated - that’s false,” Rudd says.
Rudd, who labelled Lachlan Murdoch’s failure to appear at the hearing as “utterly spineless”, went on to criticise the media watchdog ACMA for failing to act on Sky News.
“It took YouTube and Google to finally blow the whistle, not just once but twice,” Rudd says. “Once last December and again in July before at least 23 YouTube videos had to be pulled down.
“So the question I believe for this committee when it goes to the management of media diversity is what was the Australian Communications and Media Authority doing to earn their salary to allow this to occur? They have a direct responsibility here under the law because this material is being rebroadcast on free-to-air television.
“I have corresponded with them [ACMA] as to why they haven’t acted. They said that it’s within their powers to initiate their own investigations into such matters which are deeply in the public interest but they chose not to. They pointed me to the fact that it’s a matter for the parliament to change the laws … to enable it to do the job for the Australian people that YouTube instead has had to do.”
Representatives from Google appeared at the hearing, as well as Sky News CEO Paul Whittaker.
Whittaker says YouTube’s assertion that the broadcaster has denied the existence of COVID-19 is “frankly ridiculous”.
“From March 2020, our Sky News COVID-19 channel on Foxtel was devoted to 24/7 coronavirus coverage,” he says.
“It has featured live and in-full press conferences and in depth government health announcements. It was also available for free to millions of Australians via the Sky News and the News Corp website.
“Our audiences have benefited from the views of epidemiologists, researchers, GPs, scientists, pharmacists, leaders of doctor and medical organisations, doctors, and politicians.
"There can be no doubt our viewers would be well informed on these issues precisely because we have committed to covering all angles of this evolving national and global public health policy debate.”
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