Triple J Guest Announcer Miss Kaninna's Pro-Palestine Statement 'Breached Standards'

15 December 2023 | 10:25 am | Jessie Lynch

The episode in question was deleted from online platforms and all remaining guest-hosted programs on the Hip Hop Show will be axed.

Miss Kannina

Miss Kannina (Triple J)

Triple J has taken disciplinary action after it was determined that guest host Miss Kaninna’s comments on the Israel-Gaza conflict during her guest hosting spot on the Hip Hop Show were “not duly impartial”.

ICYMI: The Blak Britney singer appeared on an episode of the show that was pre-recorded and aired on November 24, where she made a statement about the Israel-Palestine conflict, calling the si a “genocide”.

She then played a 2011 track called Long Live Palestine by Lowkey, telling listeners it “very important track”

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“Yet somehow if you listen to that track every single thing that that brother is talking about you would think that he wrote it yesterday.”

“Because 12 years later the genocide, the oppression and the continued hate towards Palestine people on their lands is wild. When is something going to change? When are we going to wake up?

“As an Aboriginal sovereign woman, I stand in solidarity with my brothers and sisters of Palestine. From the river to the sea. Palestine will be free.”

The ABC would go on to receive 10 complaints over the broadcast, claiming that Miss Kaninna's comments were “offensive and lacked impartiality.”

Fiona Cameron, the Ombudsman for the ABC, has since determined that the broadcast violated the impartiality standards set by the national broadcaster. Cameron added that as Miss Kaninna was engaged on a short-term basis, “their command of the ABC’s editorial standards would be limited”.

The guest host’s comments were also her “personal opinions based on lived experience” and that she intended to show “solidarity”.

“However, the ABC standards require that all news and information is presented with due impartiality and takes into consideration the nature of the content, likely audience expectations and the contentiousness of the subject matter.”

“In this context, the comments were not duly impartial,” the ombudsman wrote.

“Despite the contentiousness of the content, the producer did not flag the content with station management,” Cameron wrote.

“If that step had been taken the material would not have gone to air in the form that it did”.

The Ombudsman noted that “an on-air acknowledgement of the breach of the ABC’s editorial standards in the following weeks’ episode of the Hip Hop Show would have been desirable.”

Following the investigation, the episode in question was deleted from online platforms and all remaining guest-hosted programs on the Hip Hop Show will be axed. Extra training of ABC staff on impartiality will also take place and a staff member has been disciplined over the incident.