Radar lock or editorial block? The ABC's China-Japan report has blind spot |
A story published by the ABC framed a military encounter as an act of aggression. But subsequent details told a more complicated story that Australia’s public broadcaster never revisited.
On December 11, the ABC published a short article titled US backs Japan in dispute with China over radar incident. It was a standard Reuters wire story – no byline, no follow-up, and no real analysis. It essentially just summarised Tokyo’s claim that a Chinese warship had locked its radar onto a Japanese fighter jet.
The headline was heavy. The framing was decisive. And the follow-up… never came.
Yet in the days that followed, new information surfaced – information that should have warranted, at minimum, an editorial update. And one might have expected Australia’s public broadcaster, of all institutions, to lead that charge. Instead, the ABC sat still.
Japan’s own media, including its official English-language outlet _The Japan Times_, didn’t accuse China of a “radar lock.” It used a more precise, less inflammatory term: radar illumination.
“The Liaoning aircraft carrier twice illuminated Air Self-Defense Force jets with radar,” it reported, quoting the Japanese defence chief as saying, “the Chinese side conducted intermittent radar illumination for approximately 30........