Australie: ABC's Catalyst under review, reporter suspended after damning review on Wi-Fi program

Bron 1: www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/abcs-catalyst-under-review-reporter-suspended-after-damning-review-on-wifi-program-20160705-gpz8ty.html
5 juli 2016

The ABC will apologise to its viewers and review its science program Catalyst after an independent investigation found a controversial episode on the potential health risks of Wi-Fi that went to air earlier this year breached its editorial standards.
The damning finding - which will see reporter Maryanne Demasi suspended from on-air assignments until at least September - comes two years after a similar investigation slammed a Catalyst program questioning the use of cholesterol-reducing medications.

www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/n/0/u/w/p/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gpz8ty.png/1467718290688.jpg

As with the earlier program on cholesterol, the Wi-Fi episode will be removed from the internet.

Prominent scientists attacked the February program at the time as scare-mongering and unscientific for questioning the links between Wi-Fi and brain tumours.

Now an investigation by the ABC's Audience and Consumer Affairs Unit has found it breached the broadcaster's standards.

''While accepting the importance of investigating public health issues relating to safety of technology, A&CA concluded that the episode breached the ABC's editorial policies standards on accuracy and impartiality,'' ABC Director of Television Richard Finlayson said.

''The ABC accepts the findings and acknowledges that errors were made in the preparation and ultimate approval of the program.''

The review found ''a number of inaccuracies within the program that had favoured the unorthodox view that mobile phones and Wi-Fi caused health impacts including brain tumours''.

Mr Finlayson said the ABC would:

. Make an announcement about the findings on Tuesday night's Catalyst.
. Remove the episode, titled ''Wi-Fried?'', from the Catalyst website.
. Publish information about the findings on the Catalyst website and ABC Corrections page.

More broadly, the ABC will review the strategy and direction for the popular program. Until that review is completed in September, Dr Demasi, who also fronted the cholesterol program, will not be part of any on-air assignments.

Rodney Croft, a global authority on the health effects of radiation and professor of public health psychology at the University of Wollongong, said at the time that the program had given weight to ''a fringe position that is not supported by science''.

''I was particularly disappointed to see Wi-Fried aired yesterday in the guise of science journalism,'' he said.

''Given that radiofrequency emissions are one of the most heavily researched agents that science has ever assessed, and given that (contrary to Catalyst's claims) no substantiated health effects have emerged, we can be very confident that the emissions are indeed safe,'' Professor Croft said.

In 2013 ABC health specialist Norman Swan launched an extraordinary attack on Catalyst, saying two broadcasts on cholesterol and heart attacks might cause people to die if they went off their medications. In May 2014 the ABC removed both episodes from the Catalyst website after an investigation found one program had breached the broadcaster's editorial standards.

Ontslag of schorsing (suspended kan beide betekenissen hebben) als beloning voor het maken van een moedige en eerlijke reportage.

Zie ook:
Berichten%20Internationaal/9823/australi%C3%AB_documentaire_over_link_tussen_wifi_en_hersentumoren_op_australische_televisie .
en
Artikelen/9767/%7Baustralian_abc_tv_catalyst_rf_wifi_documentary%3B_wi-fried%7D
en
betweenrockandhardplace.wordpress.com/2016/07/05/science-censorship-in-australia-the-retraction-of-the-abc-tv-catalyst-wi-fried/ .

en i.h.b.
emfrefugee.blogspot.nl/2016/07/abc-censors-catalyst-wifi-report.html ,
met aan het eind een uitvoerige lijst met waardevolle referenties:

ABC Censors Catalyst Wifi Report, Suspends Reporter, and Embarrasses Itself
7 juli 2015
by Brendan D. Murphy, co-founder Global Freedom Movement

Why the censorship, ABC?

“Wi-Fried”: Why fried?

What is the ABC trying to hide by taking down the Catalyst wifi report (February 2016) by Dr Maryanne Demasi? Who are they covering for?1 (Well, okay, that should be fairly obvious.)

Perhaps “ABC” is really an acronym for Abominable Broadcasting Censorship?

In a nutshell, the “public” broadcasting platform has caved in to industry (it’s not the first time) and its designated “scientific” spokespersons.

Briefly, in February this year, reporter Maryanne Demasi put together this Catalyst wifi report, entitled “Wi-fried”, highlighting the potential “hidden” dangers of wi-fi. However, she has now been suspended until September while an “investigation” into the episode is carried out. Evidently “the investigation was initiated after the ABC received complaints from viewers about the episode.”

The “complaints from unidentifiable viewers/the public” strategy has been trotted out many times before as a means of autocratic corporate entities suppressing information that might threaten their profit margins (or risk expensive litigation) lest the public catch on. Who are these alleged “viewers”? They wouldn’t happen to be captains of industry by any chance? It couldn’t possibly be people in high places with influence and intimidatory powers who happened to make the “complaints” could it?

It’s a strategy that has been used before in regards to the health and medical fields, whereby members of vested interest groups who are embedded in the Establishment (or well connected to it) actually write anonymous letters to their own or their cronies’ agencies “complaining” of this or that company or individual in order to get them “investigated” and ultimately shut down. This is how embedded vested interests consolidate their power and revenue and eliminate the economic competition and/or suppress damaging information (damaging to their bottom line, that is). It’s precisely how the AMA and allied groups attacked and discredited natural/alternative therapies, particularly naturopathy, chiropractic, osteopathy, herbalism, acupuncture, and so forth, going back as far as the 1950s. The economic competition must be destroyed.

Litigating was also a favourite strategy, and perhaps there have been threats made behind closed doors to that effect vis à vis Demasi’s “Wi-Fried” Catalyst wifi report. Perhaps. Outright lies are, of course, standard fare, even obligatory. The truth must be buried and the competition annihilated, and B-grade sellout scientists who will spout suitably biased propaganda thinly veiled as “science” in order to quash alternative views/thinking are a dime a dozen.

The Orwellian-sounding Audience and Consumer Affairs Unit (A&CA) was tasked with “reviewing” Demasi’s wi-fi report after the “complaints” were made:

“The A&CA Report found several inaccuracies within the program that hadfavoured the unorthodox view that mobile phones and Wi-Fi caused health impacts including brain tumours,” the ABC’s statement said.1 (emphasis added)

That should tell you everything you need to know. If information in the mainstream “favours the unorthodox view” then forget about it. As a general rule, it will either never make it to air, or if it does, a kerfuffle will anonymously be created by vested interests, and lo and behold!, it will magically disappear from view, never to be seen again.
That’s why I’m encouraging some basic civil disobedience and suggesting that everyone upload this video all over the internet. The communications industry doesn’t want us to see the harm its technology is causing? Let’s put it everywhere then. (See the addendum at bottom for information regarding radio frequency and microwave harm.)

This is the second time Demasi has landed herself in hot water by attempting to carry out genuine journalism and objective reporting in the lamestream media. The first time she was slapped on the wrist for a 2013 2-part episode of Catalyst (“Heart of the Matter”) wherein she dared to suggest that, just maybe, cholesterol-lowering drugs are being over-prescribed. Really? Ya think? The show also questioned links between cholesterol and heart disease. (In fact, cholesterol-lowering drugs are proving to be one of the all-time medical cons.) The managerspeak from the ABC’s “review” of that episode is staggering:

“Although the program did not explicitly endorse the unorthodox view, the language used by the reporter tended to add weight to the contrarian argument

“In our view, the program could have done a better job of teasing out the mainstream perspective to leave audiences better informed.”2(emphasis added)

Additionally (and unsurprisingly), Demasi also compiled a report about anti-depressants which conveniently never saw the light of day: it was forbidden from being aired after “concerns were raised inside the ABC”, according to Media Watch.3

Heaven forbid that we articulate anything but the mainstream perspective! Goodness me, people will explode in the street! Cannibals will feast on our flesh and the four horsemen of the apocalypse will herald the Lord’s imminent fiery wrath! (Also, failing to adhere to the mainstream viewpoint kills babies, you know.)

ABC you are absolutely pathetic, and this kind of behaviour is exactly why awakening people are turning the TV off in droves.

Why is truthful reporting unacceptable in the lamestream media? Does industry have its talons in the “venerable” ABC? *shock! horror!* Surely not!1

Naughty, naughty, Dr. Demasi. That should teach you for trying to sneak one (make that three!) past the Thought Police.

Just be a good little shill/sellout and toe the line like the others, okay?


Addendum: Adverse Health Effects of EM radiation, Wifi, and Smart Meters

For the addendum see: emfrefugee.blogspot.nl/2016/07/abc-censors-catalyst-wifi-report.html

A new opinion article:
Bron 2: www.emfacts.com/2016/07/opinion-piece-a-response-to-the-demasi-abc-catalyst-situation/
28 juli 2016

en een vervolg:
Bron 3: www.change.org/p/ms-michelle-guthrie-managing-director-abc-tv-stop-media-censorship-by-abc-unfair-attack-on-catalyst-and-producer-dr-maryanne-demasi?tk=AtdK5EeMZr894o_MWW88tCdvi0Iv-ozjnZezqnsaQuE&utm_source=petition_update&utm_medium=email .


En de meest recente informatie:
ABC's Catalyst staff to be sacked and weekly TV show format scrapped
Bron 4: www.msn.com/en-au/news/australia/abcs-catalyst-staff-to-be-sacked-and-weekly-tv-show-format-scrapped/ar-AAjCWnN?li=AAgfYrC&ocid=mailsignout
30 okt. 2016

The ABC’s Catalyst program is to lose its weekly slot and its 11 staff – including the suspended presenter Maryanne Demasi – made redundant under a radical plan which has been approved by the ABC board.

Under the plan the in-house magazine-style program will be replaced by 17 one-hour science specials, mainly from the independent production sector.

But senior ABC program makers have warned that ditching the weekly half-hour program and disbanding the science unit would lead to a dumbing down of science programming and effectively kill off Australian science on television.

Demasi has been on leave since a review of her Wi-Fried? program – which linked Wi-Fi and mobile phones with health risks including brain cancer – was found to have breached the ABC’s impartiality guidelines.

The discredited program was the second Catalyst story by Demasi to be found in breach of the ABC’s editorial policies and to be removed from the website. In 2013 Demasi kept her job despite an editorial breach for a program about statins.

An internal management review, commissioned in the wake of the Demasi breaches, has now recommended that the entire weekly program be axed along with its presenters, producers and researchers.

Senior program makers and independent producers claim that middle management has “absolved itself” of any responsibility for the the lack of editorial control at Catalyst that led to the two programs being cleared for broadcast.

Of the plan to air hour-long documentaries under the Catalyst name, ABC program makers say science lends itself to short-form content that can bounce off the news. Under the longer format, they say, the Australian element would be severely watered down.

“By doing this you are saying the ABC TV stops covering science effectively,” one senior ABC program maker told Guardian Australia. “Seventeen in-depth stories a year wouldn’t cover Australia science. If you stop doing short-form journalistic science then you’re not covering science anymore.

“There are very, very few science stories that survive an hour of television. There are only a few topics like that. A lot of them to do them well require an overseas focus rather than an Australian focus.

The Catalyst staff include the experienced presenter Graham Phillips, who has been a reporter on the ABC science programs Catalyst, Quantum and Hot Chips, and Jonica Newby, who has twice won Australia’s premier science journalism prize, the Australian Museum Eureka prize for science journalism.

The plan to shake up the ABC’s science coverage, based on the BBC’s Horizon model, was approved by the board after a recommendation from television management including the director of television, Richard Finlayson, and the head of factual, Steve Bibb.

The report into Catalyst was written by the departing ABC executive Brendan Dahill before he left to be the chief executive of Keogh Films, which produces Struggle Street.

An independent producer told Guardian Australia the plan was unworkable on the relatively small budget the ABC was offering the private sector. She saidcommissioning 17 one-hour science specials had not been properly costed and would never work.

“They have specifically decided not to do any ‘investigative’ films and want lightweight stuff,” she said.

The independent report on Wi-Fried? concluded: “The cumulative effect of the inadequate signposting for the audience; the selection and lack of context in the scientific papers referenced in or underpinning the program; the prominence given to views challenging the scientific consensus; and the findings for accuracy all unduly favour the unorthodox perspective that wireless devices and Wi-Fi pose significant health risks.”

A spokesman for the ABC confirmed that Catalyst was under review. “The ABC can confirm Catalyst will be part of the ABC schedule in 2017 and acknowledges the importance of the program for the scientific community and audiences in general,” he said.

“The ABC consistently reviews programs at the end of each year to ensure it maintains its commitment to audience needs and expectations. After more than 15 years ABC Television is reviewing Catalyst’s format and production model. ABC management will respond to that review in due course.”

See also:
www.theguardian.com/media/2016/oct/31/catalyst-staff-to-be-sacked-and-weekly-tv-show-format-scrapped#comment-86541497 .



Lees verder in de categorie Berichten Internationaal | Terug naar homepage | Lees de introductie