I submitted the previous post too quickly. I read it soon after and realised there were a few typos. I apologise for that. If you don’t like typos and missing words. I suggest you ditch the email and read the updated online post here.

Also, just after I published that post I had a discussion with my son about the attacks and how it’s all being reported. He’s in Year 9 and will start doing Media Studies in the second half of the year. He’s also quite interested in politics. So this was a really interesting conversation.

We had a bit of a discussion and then I showed him some of the news on the ABC News website and we discussed them. Here are a few things we picked up in brief.

This headline is misleading and headlines are important because a lot of people don’t read the article, they just read the headline.

It says Israel has launched pre-emptive strikes. Pre-emptive implies that Iran was about to attack. This is factually incorrect. It would’ve been easier, more direct and accurate to simply drop pre-emptive from the headline and leaving it as: Israel launches strikes against Iran.

Then there was this, which I shared in the previous post.

This headline fixes one thing but it creates other problems. They add that Israel is calling the attacks pre-emptive, which now appears in quotation marks. It’s an improvement, we’re given context. It’s Israel calling the attacks pre—emptive, not the ABC. Thankfully they also do the same with ‘major operation’ quoting Trump.

The problem is that the ABC is simply quoting two misleading statements and putting them in the headline. The US and Israel have unilaterally attacked Iran, it’s an unprovoked attack, it’s war. It’s not pre-emptive by any measure. Which, again, it’s illegal anyway.

Major operation is, also, a wonderfully vague way of defining what’s happening that doesn’t really say anything, doesn’t describe what’s going on accurately and detracts from the gravity and importance of the attack which is in direct breach of international law and the US constitution.

Why is the ABC quoting those who have started this unilateral attack in the headline? Using their words, helping them frame the information, the narrative and the conversation?

This next screenshot is also quite illuminating.

In contrast to the previous screenshot there is no direct quoting here. The headline already frames everything that is written afterwards: “Iranian state TV reports…” The implication is clear, Iranian TV is state owned and they’re reporting this, but can we believe them?

Notice that the “Red Crescent says” is followed by “according to Iran’s state-controlled TV,” which is then followed by: “The ABC has not independently verified these figures.” This is a clear editorial choice to cast aspersions, to put into doubt the reported deaths.

In the following line, again, they write: “The Red Crescent spokesperson reportedly said…” The reportedly is unnecessary in that sentence and makes the sentence clunky but it serves a purpose, to cast doubt, again.

These are deliberate editorial choices made by, ironically, though I assume that irony will be totally lost on them, the ABC which is, of course, state-funded TV.

The ABC should be better than this.

And I’ll finish this post with one last headline.

It’s interesting to see the contrast in this headline. While Iranian TV reports, or the Red Crescent has said according to, Trump simply says, even though there’s no clear evidence and Iran has not confirmed the information. The language here is more direct and definite, instead of qualifying it.

It’s true, Iran’s leader is most likely dead but why give Trump the headline in his words and with passive language, why not report for example: Trump confirms the US has killed Iran’s leader.

It’s very telling that the ABC chooses to say “Iran’s leader is dead.”

How did he die? Was he bitten by a snake? Did he have a heart attack?

The truth is, if he’s actually dead, that he was killed by the US or Israeli strikes. But the passive voice is used when our allies kill and the active voice when it’s our enemies, which is why just under the main headline the ABC chooses to write: “Tehran fires 'wave after wave of missiles' at Israel.”

You see, Iran’s leader is dead. We don’t know how, he’s just dead but Iran fires wave after wave.

All these editorial choices build up a narrative and it’s clear that the ABC is neither fair, nor balanced. There’s a clear bias in how all this is being reported. It’s little things but they all build up.

It was so good to have this conversation with my son and to go through these headlines. He actually identified and picked up a lot of these misleading words and statements himself.

Over and out. I promise the next post will be about comics and literacy.