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ABC veteran Fran Kelly says more should be done to tackle online misinformation and renew trust in media, while making the “bold prediction” that reports of radio broadcasting’s decline are “greatly exaggerated”.
In the annual Andrew Olle Media Lecture, the radio presenter, journalist and political correspondent said that radio is the medium of the future.
The lecture is held in honour of one of the ABC’s most iconic and admired broadcasters, Andrew Olle, and will raise funds for The Brain Cancer Collective. It has been held annually since 1996 in tribute to Olle, who died from a brain tumour in 1995.
At a black-tie dinner at W Sydney on Friday evening, Kelly described how Olle taught her so much as she started her career on a three-month gig on Triple J’s daily current affairs program the Drum, and listened to Olle on 2BL every morning.
The annual lecture is held in honour of broadcaster and journalist Andrew Olle.
“To stand here tonight, in Andrew’s name, is an unbelievable honour,” she told the crowd.
“As journalists, verified, irrefutable facts are our stock in trade, our only credential is the truth. And as the waters of disinformation swirl, we must seek it, hold it and raise it above the waves.
“Literally, as we saw in the US this month with the reports that Hurricane Milton was a government scam, that meteorologists were somehow creating and steering these storms. Ridiculous, right? But a Republican congresswoman was one of those spreading the accusation on her social media.
“The cost of abandoning our brief of factual truth and dogged inquiry is too high. Yet, as we’ve seen, it’s not easy to do and is getting harder. Let’s not kid ourselves that what Trump’s managed to achieve with his populist truth re-imagining could never happen here.”
Fighting back against disinformation
Kelly recalled how it had been one year since the Voice referendum, and while it was in “no way a direct comparison” to Trump, “the vibe and the shift is of the same genus”.
She described it as a “case study of the widening fissures in our society and the distorting impact misinformation and disinformation can have on our democratic processes”, as well as a case study for how “ill-equipped” the media and institutions are to deal with it.
“Disinformation during the Voice was in a completely different league,” Kelly said. “It was used to spark hate and division. It was used to cause damage and hurt.”
“This is not to say that the outcome of the referendum would necessarily have been reversed if the online disinformation industry hadn’t been unleashed, but the impact on Indigenous Australians of a No vote would certainly have been less brutal, less hurtful, and on the community more broadly, less divisive.”
Disinformation on the referendum was found on platforms like TikTok and X, formerly Twitter, with false claims “that a Yes vote would mean an Aboriginal tax or an apartheid system of government … or that they’d come for our backyards and farms”, Kelly said.
The Australian Strategic Policy Institute said some disinformation was sponsored by social media accounts linked to the Chinese Communist Party. Some of it came from conspiracy theorists and far-right white supremacist groups. But other misinformation was repeated by No campaigners.
“What we learned was that the mainstream media, the tech giants and our institutions were ill-equipped or not prepared to recognise and deal with outright lies presented as truths in this important electoral process.”
Disinformation can be spread on online platforms. (Reuters: Dado Ruvic)
And with attacks on truth now common practice, the audience is “drifting off” and engaging with niche markets that only reflect their views.
“We want them back. Democracy, I believe, needs them back.”
To get those readers back, Kelly says, we need to think creatively on how to gain their trust and focus more on their perspective. A great masthead is no longer enough to evoke trust.
“If it [disinformation] has become a fight then we have to fight back against it and quality journalism is key to that fight.
“Misinformation breeds mistrust and misunderstanding; disinformation breeds distrust, distress and division. The age of both is well and truly here and both by their very nature are never used in the name of the good.
“The culture of journalism was shaped by its privilege of being the gatekeepers of information. We are no longer that, but it is still a privileged business, and a passionate one. Passion is the flip side of hate. Just as passion drives division so too can it drive social cohesion and healing.”
Radio a gem and worth polishing
And now to Kelly’s “bold prediction” of the night. To misquote Mark Twain, she says, reports of the death of radio are greatly exaggerated. An ABC audio survey found 95 per cent of the population consume audio each week and the most consumed audio type is radio, she assures the crowd.
“Now, I don’t want to sound like a dinosaur here. But just because public radio has been around for 100 years does not make it up for extinction but rather for continuing evolution.
“Radio is the parent that has spawned the other audio options — and we co-exist in that audio landscape as family. You might listen to a podcast on your walk for sure, but you won’t have it blaring out in the shearing shed. Radio can be consumed communally.
Fran Kelly called for better radio funding. (Reuters: Tyrone Siu)
“This genuine human interaction of live radio will become even more imperative as bots and AI generated half truths and nonsense take hold elsewhere. We are real. And we are there, right now. And so is that expert we’re talking to.
“And radio, my love, is a vital part of the antidote to the mistrust and disillusionment and unless we celebrate and preserve this, we risk ruining a great national treasure.
“We need to understand what we’ve got here and not be embarrassed by it by this legacy medium. It’s a gem and it’s worth polishing.”
Kelly’s pitch to any executives in the room? Fund radio better, sing praises, share the best content on socials and build brands. Build it and keeping building it and the audience will come back.
“Because in this world of narrowcasting where we exist in our chosen silos, hardly coming across anything outside our curated sphere of interest, radio is a weapon for truth, breadth and surprise. Without it, the silence would be deafening.”
To conclude her speech, Kelly says: “An ABC sound engineer told me recently she worked as an operator on Andrew’s Morning show all those years ago, and when I asked her what was he like, she said ‘gentle’. And then she added: ‘Thoughtful, intelligent, kind, he really cared about everyone he talked to on the show. And he really listened.’
“They’re the qualities that make for good journalism.
“And they’re the qualities that can bridge division and counter the culture of hate in which we now work.
“A shout out here to all you young reporters who face it in spades, who’ve never known anything different, and yet aren’t giving up on journalism because of it. We need you.”