Extract from The Guardian
The week after it was reported that Lebanese journalist Amal Khalil was killed in Israeli strikes, the ABC’s global affairs editor wrote in her analysis that there “appears to be no normal guardrails” on Israel’s actions.
“The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) reported in February that Israel was responsible for two-thirds of all press killings in both 2025 and 2024, two consecutive record years for press deaths,” Tingle wrote last month.
What followed were dozens of emails to key individuals at the ABC rather than the usual filling out of a complaints form, a practice that is becoming increasingly common, Weekly Beast understands.
While these complaints are investigated, they do not receive individual replies.
Among the objections to the piece was that the context of the presence of Hezbollah was not adequately represented in the article. The ombudsman noted that Tingle did say: “Journalists, by the nature of their jobs covering war, are at additional risk, and some of their deaths could have been accidental.”
The ombudsman said Tingle included Israel’s explanation about Khalil’s death.
“The Ombudsman’s Office reviewed the article, the concerns raised in the complaint and considered the content against the impartiality and diversity of perspectives standards as they relate to analysis content,” the report said.
“In consideration of the format of an analysis article, the attributed claims and perspectives presented in the story, we are satisfied the article is duly impartial as the standards apply to analysis content.”
A week earlier, the ombudsman also dismissed 19 complaints about the ABC’s broadcast of Israel’s ambassador Hillel Newman’s National Press Club address.
One concern was that the ABC should not have platformed an Israeli government representative, that he made inaccurate claims about journalist and other civilian deaths and used offensive language to describe Palestinians.
ABC News told the ombudsman that senior editorial staff fact checked the speech and Tingle provided further context in an on-air segment after the broadcast.
The ombudsman found that the broadcast did not breach editorial standards.
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