★★★★★ 0/5

Mike Carlton: Australian Story “sugar-coated” Ray Hadley profile

Mike Carlton has accused Australian Story of selectively editing its profile on Sydney radio host Ray Hadley.

7
Leave a comment

2013-05-22_0130Fairfax columnist Mike Carlton has accused Australian Story of running a ‘sugar-coated’ segment about Sydney radio host Ray Hadley and leaving out criticisms he gave in an interview to the ABC.

On Tuesday, Carlton tweeted: “Bizarre that last night’s Australian Story on Ray Hadley should be a 30 minute commercial for a rival broadcaster. The show was a disgrace.

“I was selectively edited to make it look just that. I’m angry at this travesty, lodging a formal protest with the ABC … It was unethical and irresponsible. A disgraceful pierce (sic) of television.”

Carlton told the Sydney Morning Herald‘s Andrew Hornery he had already informed Australian Story’s executive producers he would lodge an official complaint and had requested his original, uncut interview be maintained.

An Australian Story spokeswoman said Carlton’s comments, were weighed up very carefully but referred to the ABC’s editorial policies.

“We evaluate accuracy, fairness, balance and right of reply issues in deciding what to include and what to exclude. As well as editorial issues, there may be legal issues such as defamation risk,” she said.

7 Responses

  1. Mike is weird. I watched the show and came away with a lower opinion of Ray.
    We all know Mike and Ray loathe each other but the purpose of Australian Story is not and should never be a hatchet job on the subject or used to settle petty vendettas.
    With so many polarised opinions on Ray, I think the show’s producers did an amazing job of remaining balanced and objective. That said, I don’t think Ray came off smelling of roses which is in my view fair enough but I do feel I know more about him which is the point of the show.

  2. Possibly a more appropriate title for this particular story would have been the “The Sugar Ray Hadley Australian Story” I have always watched Australian Story and if the facts/version portrayed during the sometimes continued segments, are not already known to me, I follow up with my own research to confirm any doubts/perceptions I had previously formed about the story subject

    Simply because on several occasions and factually known to me, there has been so called “Sugar Coating” or a “Conscience Clearing” exercise, unfortunately sometimes for reasons unexplained, and sometimes possibly because as the item states to avoid “defamation risk” by simple “Omition”, or sometimes be it deliberate or accidental that the wrong impression can be formed by viewers, and I cite one particular story, involving a shooting/killing of a tormented/agitated person armed with a .22 calibre rifle, who was surrounded by heavily armed, and specialist trained law enforcement officers, where the sound effects of his fired .22 calibre round, used in the story were definitely exaggerated to sounds of a much more ‘High Powered firearm???”, leads me to wonder why?

    Till many of these so called defenders of free speech, given the deserved title of “Shock Jocks” give us their personal guarantee that they report “All They Are Told” and not only what they seemingly selectively chose to report/attack, their cries of “Freedom Of Speech” rings very hollow with me.

  4. Mike Carlton was taken off 2UE by Fairfax due to low ratings and given a column in the Sydney Morning Herald to avoid having to pay out his contract. Ray Hadley is the highest rating radio announcer in Australia. Enough said.

  5. @Gaz – I’ve actually found Aus Story to be a bit variable in quality. Occasionally they’ve done profiles that have smoothed over any cracks and left out the bad stuff, effectively turning them into puff pieces devoid of any real value as historical documents.

  6. I didn’t see this particular episode of Australian Story, but have always found Australian Story to be very ethical and balanced. It is not possible in a 30 minute show to include everything that has been filmed. I read in a book about Aus Story that only a very small fraction of what is filmed actually goes to air.

Leave a Reply