Network Changes Tune on Absurd Sydney Coverage

Hours after the Monday edition of ABC’s Good Morning America refused to ascribe motive to the attack in Sydney, Australia on a Hanukkah celebration or label it either anti-Semitism or radical Islamic terror, the network’s flagship evening newscast World News Tonight and Tuesday’s Good Morning America promptly engaged in a serious clean-up mode.

Hong Kong-based correspondent Britt Clennett arrived to take over the Sydney coverage and immediately hit the right notes:

“[N]ew details on the father and son who authorities say carried out that anti-Semitic massacre at a Hanukkah celebration in Australia’s iconic Bondi Beach….Tonight, law enforcement sources telling ABC News the two shooters are 50-year old Sajid Akram and his 24-year-old son Naveed. Sources say they pledged allegiance to ISIS, and shouted ‘Allahu Akbar’ while opening fire. Authorities say two ISIS flags, weapons, and IEDs were recovered,” she reported before focusing on the victims.

Clennett also surfaced on Tuesday’s Good Morning America to share Australians were “holding vigils for the 15 people killed in that anti-Semitic attack on Sydney’s Bondi Beach.”

She reiterated the claims about the Islamists having expressed support for ISIS with ISIS flags in their car and IEDs having been recovered, but backed down on the part about “Allahu Akbar.”

“The son was previously investigated for possible ties to a Sydney-based, ISIS-linked group but officials don’t believe the father and son were part of a wider cell,” she added.

Monday’s NBC Nightly News also shifted towards reality in comparison to Today. Anchor Tom Llamas announced a pivot to “that deadly anti-Semitic terror attack in Australia” and former longtime NBC correspondent Sara James — who lives in Australia as the head of Fulbright Australia — covered the “new video showing the horror” as “two terrorists unleashed an anti-Semitic rampage.”

“[I]t comes after a growing number of recent disturbing anti-Semitic attacks in Australia, including a Melbourne synagogue fire bombed, a Jewish deli set ablaze, Jewish homes vandalized, and cars burned. Jewish residents say the government has ignored warning signs,” she added.

Like Clennett, James returned on Tuesday’s Today. Co-host Savannah Guthrie gave the lead in about “the anti-Semitic attack” by two men “motived by ISIS.”

Importantly, James rebutted Clennett’s suggestion about the two not having any wider ties by noting Australian “[o]fficials today saying the pair had last month traveled to a region in the Philippines known for militant activity.”

The one thing that didn’t change in the coverage was CBS News continuing to show moral clarity. On Monday’s CBS Evening News, foreign correspondent Anna Coren told viewers “[m]any in the Jewish community have told us, while the attack came as a shock, it, sadly, wasn’t unexpected.”

She also spoke to Sheina Gutnick, the daughter of Reuven Morrison, who “fled persecution in the former Soviet Union 50 years earlier” only to die in Sunday’s attack while trying to fight off one of the gunman.

According to Coren (via per Gutnick), Morrison had “feared his adopted homeland was no longer safe” as “[a]nti-Semitic incidents have increased since the October 7 attacks and war in Gaza, synagogues firebombed and vandalized.”

When Coren asked “who has failed you and your family and your father,” Gutnick echoed comments from two survivors hours earlier:

The Australian government is to blame. They have had the warning signs for so long. The Jewish community has been begging and begging and begging for action. They have failed us, they have betrayed us, and they have so much innocent blood on their hands.

Coren closed by inadvertently proving the Jewish community’s point about a lack of concern from the Labor-run government as their reaction thus far has been “pledg[ing] to make sure it can’t happen again” through more gun control even though “Australia has some of the strictest gun laws in the world.”

Along with what was largely a re-air of Coren’s piece on Tuesday’s CBS Mornings, the co-hosts also brought in Noa Tishby, a bestselling author and former Israel Special Envoy for Combating anti-Semitism, to discuss the context in which the terror took place Down Under:

King then asked if she concurred with what two survivors had said on Monday’s show, which is the Labor government has “blood on [their] hands”:

Dokoupil followed up and correctly put this weekend in the context and was followed by co-host Nate Burleson wondering what each and every one of us — from governments to individuals — can do to combat anti-Semitism:

To see the relevant transcripts from December 15, click here (for ABC) and here (for CBS).