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ABC apologises over Q&A tweet

ABC calls PM's office and Malcolm Turnbull spoke with Mark Scott following what he called a 'groundhog day' gaffe.

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A spokesperson for the ABC has confirmed a call was made to Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s office this morning to apologise for Q & A broadcasting a tweet from the account ‘AbbottLovesAnal.’

“Q&A handles a very high volume of tweets during its live broadcasts,” an ABC spokesman said.

“Last night’s program contained a vibrant discussion on a range of topics and featured some lively Twitter exchanges.

“This particular tweet was not published on purpose and the ABC regrets any offence this may have caused.”

In a statement Malcolm Turnbull said, “In what felt like a groundhog day moment yet again in the early hours of Tuesday I spoke with Mark Scott about another unedifying incident at Q&A.

“The tweet should obviously never have been put on the screen and the fact that it was underlines the need for better supervision of the program.

“I am assured by Mr Scott the offensive tweet will not appear in the replays of the program. The ABC should apologise to the PM and its viewers.”

The account by ‘Gregg Schurch,’ which has also noted “long live freedom of speech. long live tony jones. long live qanda,” denies any links to Zaky Mallah, who attempted to suggest a friend was behind it.

“I’d just like to say I have no affiliation with the fool Zakky Mallah. He wishes he knew me. #qanda #analgate”

Last year TV Tonight visited Q & A to learn about its Twitter processing:

There are several gatekeepers across the show’s ever-popular feed, to ensure various stages of moderation. Two of them are reading everything simultaneously as the tweets start rolling in. They will forward a selection to a third producer who takes responsibility on which ones make it to air. I’m advised if you want to get your comment on air you need to be quick with a tweet once the topic is raised on the show. Again, there is no duplication of opinion: once one viewpoint makes it to air, all others that reflect a similar view are superfluous. Be quick or be fresh with an original take.

Shaun Brown and Ray Martin are yet to complete their independent review of the show for ABC.

  • Tagged with Q&A

15 Responses

  1. How can Tony Abbott have the nerve to complain about gaffes when he is just one big gaffe himself. Disgraceful behaviour again from a democratically elected government.

  2. Simple solution-get rid of the damned screen clutter of twits-adds nothing to the programme to see the meanderings of a couple of dozen ‘viewers’ without the attention to sit still and watch the actual participants. There would then be no possibility of the current malcontented government being able to sink the boot in to our ABC…

  3. I hope they submitted it to rigorous fact-checking before apologising. It wouldn’t look good for the Government if it turned out the ABC was forced to bend over and take an unsupportable position…

  4. Another brilliant solution by the PM. Moving Q&A to News & Current Affairs was a master stroke to ensure no more controversy. When the Government broke their promise to not cut funding to the ABC, did they really expect mistakes to decrease? You get what you fund, Tony. It is hard to believe the handle got past 2-3 scrutinisers.

  6. There will be hundreds of stupid tweets. Even if the ABC are 99.9% effective in weeding them out one will get through occasionally. In this case because they pay more attention to the tweets than the handles, which was exploited.

    Why show the tweets at all? If people want to watch them they can use their phone or tablet to do so. Why broadcast them to those who don’t like them and have to take editorial responsibility for them at all?

    1. I’m in partial agreement with you. Q&A is a show where I think the tweets -mostly- add to the overall topics in discussion (as opposed to reality shows that are just reinforcing the brand with compliments). But I would like to see tweets as an opt-in or opt-out service like Teletext. On that point, I can’t imagine what Q&A is like with Teletext, must be quite an eyesore.

      1. For those of us who need to use the closed captions – yes it is – but try watching the afternoon “news” on 7 or 9. Four lines of inane graffiti with 2 or 3 lines of Cc text above. Usually covers the complete lower half of the screen.

  7. There is nothing wrong with having a go at govt about their policy or behaviour, but silly childish attempts to embarrass the show doesn’t achieve a lot of any use to anyone. I also thought the witch/bitch comments aimed at PM Gillard were both appalling and unproductive…..

  8. I don’t watch Q&A very often these days, but I remember that they always used to be proud of the fact that we could have a show in Australia that questioned the government, even took aim at them, boldly and without consequence.

    Looks like those days are well and truly over.

    1. They are open to call into question any Government in this country, but must do it respectfully and without bias. Sky News questions Government figures daily, Peter Van Oslen and David Spears for example but again, they do based on fact not ideologically motivated opinion.

      1. Sky News not biased!??! You have got to be kidding! The network has a clear “right wing” bent. Sure, people like David Speers seem to be true political journalists, with no discernible bias – but Peter Van Oslen is totally right wing (with pretty poor presenting skills). Sky News is on a trend to pure opinion, as opposed to news. I dip into it occasionally to see what the nutters think – but like most Australians, I will continue to get my news from ABC news and radio.

          1. I don’t care if its biased. I was only replying to “wellinmyopinion”‘s claim that Peter Van Olsen was not biased. Tony Wilson – I’m assuming you are one the small group of people who think the ABC is biased (That every study ever made in the last 20 years has refuted).

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