ABC and SBS defend editorial models

Senior figures from the ABC, SBS and media regulator ACMA faced sustained questioning on July 9 and 10 as the Royal Commission turned to media, with both public broadcasters defending their refusal to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism.

ABC editorial director Gavin Fang said the IHRA definition “may be useful” but its examples were “contested” and adopting it risked compromising “not just our independence but the perception of independence”.

He acknowledged a “bad mistake” in the ABC’s delayed correction of a false 2025 report that thousands of Gazan babies would starve within 48 hours, conceding it would have been appropriate to correct it in the morning, rather than that afternoon on a different program.

Fang disputed suggestions of a pattern of late, unprominent corrections, and said complaints about the ABC’s Middle East coverage were roughly split between pro-

Israel and pro-Palestinian bias claims.

ABC Ombudsman Fiona Cameron similarly rejected any “systemic” pattern of erroneous anti-Israel reporting, but conceded “at times the ABC is slow to correct and clarify”.

Cameron said her office settled 19,000 content complaints between October 2023 and May 2026, of which 8000 were about Israel-Gaza coverage, with one campaign of nearly 2000 “near-identical” complaints alleging pro-Israel bias, skewing the overall bias split.

SBS director of news Amanda Wicks confirmed SBS treats the IHRA definition as reference material only, saying, “We neither accept it or reject it.”

Wicks conceded SBS’s 2023 editorial guidance critiqued only the IHRA definition, not two alternatives it also cites, and that no Jewish cultural awareness training had been introduced despite staff requests.

SBS Ombudsman Amy Stockwell said mandatory staff training included no antisemitism-specific content, and that complaints about code breaches had hit a six-year high, with 157 investigated in the second half of 2025 alone.

She detailed a 2023 podcast breach in which the IDF’s perspective on a Palestinian man’s killing was omitted from the initial report, prompting an apology and retraining.

SBS audio and language director David Hua said the broadcaster had twice boosted resourcing to its Hebrew-language service, after October 7 and again after the Bondi terror attack, expanding the executive producer role to full-time each time. He said all SBS language services were required to meet the same editorial standards independently.

ACMA chair Nerida O’Loughlin said Jewish complainants were often frustrated at being referred back to the broadcasters they were complaining about, calling it challenging “for us … and for complainants”.

O’Loughlin flagged a jurisdictional anomaly in which ACMA can regulate broadcast content but not identical material streamed online or delivered via podcast and messaging platforms.

She noted that ACMA has no antisemitism-specific staff training, though it will examine training being developed by the Australian Public Service Commission.