Media Watch’s jihadi sources

The ABC has launched an inquiry into accusations that Media Watch relied on research supplied to it by an Islamic website that peddled anti-Semitic and jihadi messages.

Media Watch has been accused of colluding with IslamicSydney, which has published bloggers calling on children to "arm themselves" with machineguns, and supporting the use of violence and weapons to "fight injustice".

The allegations against the self-proclaimed media watchdog were made by David Penberthy, editor of Sydney'sThe Daily Telegraph, in a letter to the ABC's managing director Mark Scott after Media Watch last month broadcast racist and inflammatory comments made by bloggers on the newspaper's website.

Penberthy wrote to Mr Scott after IslamicSydney's forum published comments by some of its members boasting about the information they gave to Media Watch. On June 12, Ahmedk -- believed to be Ahmed Kilani, the co-founder of the website -- writes: "For those who thought (of) collecting these racist comments (from the Telegraph's website), watch Media Watch next Monday."

The message was followed up on June 18 by the same blogger after the program ran on Media Watch that evening: "Alhamdoulillah (praise to God) we were able to help Media Watch researchers with the story. So there was the great benefit to collecting these quotes. Please keep them coming."

Racist and jihadist comments on Islamicydney's Muslim Village Forum website include one posted on May 15 by username Malik-Shakur: "I will bring my children up to believe that there is no better thing in life than to struggle in the path of God, whether its (sic) with their speech, their wallets or their hands in fighting ... and that there is no better honour than to die as a martyr."

On May 21, username Tas wrote: "Don't know about Palestinians as a nation, but our prophet has prophesised that eventually every single Jew will be eliminated from the face of this earth by the Muslims, after a major war between us and them (kafirs) ... and the Messenger of Allah says nothing but the truth. Just a matter of time I guess."

The ABC's director of television Kim Dalton yesterday admitted that some of Media Watch's tips came from "quite unsavoury" characters but refused to be drawn on some of the hate-filled and poisonous messages published by IslamicSydney.

"Judge the information that was provided. Don't try and discount the information on the basis of the source of the information," he said.

While Penberthy stood by his website's publication of offensive blogger messages, he said they did not represent the newspaper's editorial policy. Penberthy said such comments were balanced by other messages from Muslims that were anti-Australian and combative towards the paper and its staff.

"We've run comments that are critical of Muslims, critical of Lebanese Australians, but equally we've run comments from Lebanese Australians that are attacking our columnists, attacking our news reporters, attacking Australia: calling Australians rednecks, bigots, dills," he said.

Penberthy accused Media Watch of deliberately selecting a small sample of some of the most extreme comments on his website and holding them up as being representative of the entire site.

"The reality is they're not indicative of the massive and overwhelming majority of the comments that we do publish on the site. The voices in the middle are constructive, conciliatory voices," he said.

Some of the comments published on the Telegraph's website, which were broadcast by Media Watch on June 18, included anti-Muslim remarks such as "Dogs make Muslim men horny", "I wouldn't be letting Arabs in the country" and another accusing Lebanese Muslims of being uneducated and ending up "barefoot and pregnant at by the age of 20 and then collect welfare for the rest of their lives".

Penberthy said Media Watch should apply the same standards it used to attacking his paper to the website on which it relied for information gathering.

"It strikes me as a double standard because they will talk about the research methods of the mainstream media, they will talk about a lack of candour and honesty on the part of the media ... they will expose organisations that are acting as undisclosed sources to the media, people with agendas, all that sort of stuff," he said.

"The really hypocritical thing is that Media Watch would outsource its research to a third party (IslamicSydney), which is every bit as racist, and I would argue more racist and more dangerous than anything that we are running."

Media Watch's presenter Monica Attard yesterday said she was prohibited from commenting on Penberthy's complaints because the matter was under investigation.

Following his appointment as ABC's managing director last year, Mr Scott said the national broadcaster would search for a "further diversity" of voices and singled out Media Watch as a program that needed to be reviewed.

Mr Dalton said Penberthy would get a response to the complaint soon.