Nine’s Photoshop nightmare, Basil’s hot mic, and the ABC’s war on facts

Graphic scenes 

It was a big day to be in North Sydney yesterday, with activity deluxe at Nine. In the afternoon, Victorian Animal Justice Party MP Georgie Purcell had dragged the publisher for an image of her used in the 9News Melbourne coverage of the Allan government’s decision to continue allowing duck hunting in the state, rejecting the recommendation of a parliamentary inquiry. 

Purcell noticed two details in the image — she was depicted wearing a crop top, exposing a bare midriff, and appeared to have been, in her words, “given a boob job”. 

She had been photoshopped, and inaccurately — Purcell has tattoos on her stomach, as she mentioned.

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Speaking to Media Briefs, Purcell said: “If it was Jacinta Allan in a crop top, I’m sure [Nine] would have picked up on it. It’s this ongoing perception and sexualisation of me, even if it was an innocent mistake, which I’m not sure I believe.”

Purcell said a number of graphic designers had contacted her office, claiming that in their experience “this is not something that happens”. 

Director of 9News Melbourne Hugh Nailon released a statement apologising to Purcell on Tuesday morning, blaming the edit on “automation by Photoshop” during resizing that “was not consistent with the original”. 

Adobe, the developers of Photoshop, released a statement questioning Nine’s claims that its automation and content-aware fill tools were responsible for the edit, stating that the use of generative-AI features would have required “human intervention and approval”.

Basil’s brush with a hot-mic

Former Seven football commentator and Perth Lord Mayor Basil Zempilas was caught with a hot mic this week as he announced his intention to seek Liberal preselection for the state seat of Churchlands at the 2025 election. 

The former footballer was clipped up in a viral moment appearing to refer to the Australian Open women’s final that night as a “reserves game”. Zempilas, however, insisted that the full context of the conversation exonerated him. 

The full clip, which Zempilas showed to social media, showed a conversation between him and Nine journalist Michael Genovese, who was set to host the news that night in competition with his wife, Seven’s Jerrie Demasi. 

“It’s like a derby,” Zempilas said in response to the match-up. 

“The tennis is on tonight, isn’t it?” 

“Yeah, the female final,” Genovese replied. 

“Oh, it’s a reserve game then.” 

The West Australian, owned by Seven West Media (for whom Zempilas still occasionally fills in as a sports presenter on 7News), published an article on Sunday — “online storm erupts after fake news” read the headline.

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6 News, which shared the viral clip of Zempilas, maintains it did not selectively edit the clip, stating it used a stream from a partner organisation in Western Australia that went live at an unfortunate time. 10 News Perth, which had a reporter at the conference and had their own camera, also posted a similarly clipped video of the remarks to social media. 

Fact-check fiasco 

Fact-checking at the ABC has struggled this week, perhaps lost in the mountain of activity between a new chair announcement, ongoing legal battles and growing discontent among diverse editorial staff. 

One article, reporting on Israeli troops raiding the Ibn Sina Hospital in the West Bank town of Jenin, initially referred to the “Hamas-run Palestinian Health Ministry” before social media users pointed out the error. Similar wording was also used on British outlet ITV. The error has since been rectified. 

Hamas has exercised de facto control of the Gaza Strip since 2007. This is separate from the Palestinian Authority, which governs the West Bank where the raid occurred and where the town of Jenin is located.

The ABC’s broadcast overnight also saw another mistake in identification, which would likely have been picked up by most cricket-loving viewers. Former cricketer Imran Khan was sentenced overnight to 10 years in prison for leaking state secrets, just days ahead of his political party being shut out of Pakistan’s upcoming general election. The ABC’s ticker read: “Fmr Indian PM Imran Khan gets 10 year jail sentence”. 

India notably is a different country to Pakistan, where Khan was in fact captain of the national cricket team for a decade before entering politics and becoming prime minister from 2018 to 2022. If Khan was Indian, they perhaps might have won more than one Test series away from home during the 1970s and ’80s. 

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