The broadcaster denies airing the address on delay but can’t explain a massive time jump.
There’s been a lot to unpack from the address by Pauline Hanson at the National Press Club on Wednesday.
From the protest to her announcement that One Nation will axe SBS and greatly reduce the ABC, it was certainly one of the liveliest speeches seen for some time.
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The ABC provides a pool feed to all media outlets, as is usual practice.
And that’s where things get interesting.
During the protest, Hanson’s microphone was cut for a short time, and that silence went out on the feed, including the live coverage on SKY NEWS.
The ABC is investigating whether it was a technical issue or part of the protest.
The more interesting issue is the missing 38 seconds from the ABC broadcast – an issue that was not part of the pool feed and not broadcast anywhere else.
On the ABC broadcast, a jump cut showed Hanson skip 38 seconds in her speech.
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You can see a comparison between what the ABC showed compared to SKY NEWS in the video player below. In the missing footage, Hanson even has time to remove and replace her glasses.
To those watching at home it was similar to when you are watching a show on delay, either on a streaming platform like ABC IVIEW/YouTube or a DVR and then hit the LIVE button to skip to the live broadcast.
I assumed the ABC must have been airing the Hanson speech on delay, but they deny that was the case, with a spokesperson saying:
The National Press Club address was broadcast live, unedited and not on delay. There was a brief interruption in the audio feed due to a technical issue. The address will also be available in full and unedited on ABC iView and the ABC NEWS YouTube channel. The ABC provided the source feed for all broadcasters of the National Press Club.
That doesn’t explain how the ABC feed time jumped 38 seconds while other broadcaster did not experience the same issue, despite using the same feed.
It’s worth noting I am not accusing the ABC of censorship because the missing section was not anything that needed censoring, but questions remain how the feed jumped 38 seconds and whether the ABC was taking precautions by delaying the feed.
Something doesn’t add up.
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