Pathetic

You should be ashamed, George

To:
christine.heard@sbs.com.au
mediawatch@your.abc.net.au
dateline@sbs.com.au

Dear Christine Heard, George Negus, SBS

I was disappointed to see Dateline stoop to the level of muck raking, commercial TV journalism tonight. George Negus set up the program by waving a piece of paper he alleged to be a 'secret dossier' on Mohamed Haneef that linked him with al Qaeda. The document turned out to be a tissue of unsubstantiated smears and innuendo, complete with spelling errors. I didn't get a good look but I couldn't even see an official letterhead. It was also completed after he was released from Australian custody, before landing in the lap of the Dateline correspondent, who couldn't tell us the rank of his conveniently anonymous source. Hilariously, the 'police dossier' couldn't even get Haneef's ID photo, using the grainy, cropped photo commonly used to represent him.

What really sickened me though was the fact that you broadcast an interview with Mr Haneef's wife. She trusted you enough to let you into her home. Did she know you were going to smear her husband again after talking to her? Caveats aside you must have known that you were making an implication against an innocent man who has already been smeared by the media and the government. Quite frankly I expected better from SBS than a lowbrow A Current Affair stunt. Your colleagues are capable of better. Did you have any suspicions as to the veracity of the document you used to air accusations linking Haneef to al Qaeda? If you did, why did you add the document to the story? Given the level of media scrutiny and the accusations directed at Haneef to date, did you feel you were acting responsibly making further accusations based on such flimsy evidence?

Yours in Disappointment,

Gam
Sarah