Don’t drink Coca-Cola says ABC’s TikTok channel
National broadcaster ABC has removed a post on its TikTok account promoting the boycott of Israeli goods.
Amal Wehbe is one of the young journalists recruited by ABC to populate its TikTok account. She gives screen time to a proud retailer who has boycotted Israeli companies or companies with ties to Israel. His fridge is bereft of Coca-Cola. Wehbe tellus “The BDS site says that Coca-Cola operates a factory in Atarot, an Israeli settlement considered to be illegal under international law.
Boycotting every single company in the world because the voices inside my teeth told me they are all Jewish
Thank you ABC News great journalism pic.twitter.com/PYyNMS6IYL
— Drew Pavlou 柏乐志 🇦🇺🇺🇦🇹🇼 (@DrewPavlou) December 20, 2023
Alex Ryvchin, co-CEO of The Executive Council of Australian Jewry, said: “Publishing promotional content for the anti-Israel BDS movement is reckless and grossly unprofessional, particularly at a time when Jewish businesses are facing vandalism and blacklisting. BDS is a modern inquisition that targets businesses if they don’t meet their standards of religious purity.
The segment made no attempt at balance nor did it challenge the views of those supporting these boycotts.
TikTok content has been shown to be grossly slanted against Israel and a primary purveyor of anti-Jewish vilification and disinformation. The fact that our public broadcaster is now contributing to this is shocking and shows a serious failure of editorial processes and enforcement of the ABC’s own policies. This will undermine confidence in the integrity of the ABC and its ability to deliver balanced, credible journalism rather than producing inflammatory social media clickbait.”
Mid-year Sky News journalist Sharri Markson reported: “Liberal Senator Hollie Hughes claims ABC journalist Andrew Probyn was ‘replaced for TikTok’.
“The ABC’s political newsroom in Canberra, reporting on federal politics, apparently doesn’t need a political director, but needs a whole lot of young kids coming in to do their TikTok,” Ms Hughes told Sky News host Sharri Markson.
“It shows the priorities of ABC and where they think their news is heading.”
ABC has removed the post.
This follows the sacking of Antoinette Lattouf who had hosted the ABC Sydney morning program for only three days. The ABC had received complaints about her posts on TikTok, as reported by The Australian.
The paper wrote that Lattouf had said on the social media outlet that “gas the Jews” footage from Sydney’s Opera House was unverified and accusations Israeli forces had committed rape”.
The ABC is going down the drain … does it really think hiring these kind of young people to spout their obvious lack of knowledge in this way is a good replacement for the likes of Andrew Probyn and mature political reportage?
It’s almost incomprehensible, really. It’s bad enough that they’ve been anti-Israel for a long time, but now they’re also anti the intellect.