Sky News to launch round-the-clock Voice channel

Campaigning for both sides in the Voice debate has heated up, including the official launch of the Yes 23 campaign in the lead-up to the vote later this year.

The ABC has issued additional editorial guidelines to ensure it meets impartiality standards.

“While impartiality does not require that every perspective receives equal time, substantive arguments need to be heard,” it said. While there is a requirement for all significant views in the community to be presented, this does not extend to opinions or analyses that are “clearly fringe views held by a small minority”, it added.

Content from the Sky News stream will be cut up and shared across the network’s social channels, including its YouTube channel, which has 3.41 million subscribers, and its Facebook page with 917,000 followers.

Sky News was banned for seven days in 2021 and given a “strike” after the Google-owned platform deemed content to have breached its COVID-19 misinformation policies. Editors and hosts at the network called the move an assault on free speech, censorship and an act of cancel culture against conservatives.

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Facebook’s parent company Meta on Monday announced increased measures to stamp out misinformation about the Voice.

“We’re expanding capacity for our third-party fact-checking program in the lead-up to the Voice to parliament referendum by providing a one-off funding boost to our fact-checkers,” said Mia Garlick, director of public policy for Meta Australia, New Zealand, Pacific Islands, Japan and Korea.

The platform said with many Australians using its digital services to engage in advocacy, express their views, or participate in democratic debate, it was committed to playing its part in safeguarding the integrity of the referendum.

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“Alongside our ongoing integrity measures we’ve implemented for previous elections, we’ll also roll out additional measures to promote safety and integrity across our platforms ahead of this year’s referendum.”

In April this year, Sky’s conservative current affairs program Outsiders was found to have breached accuracy guidelines in its coverage of climate change issues on a number of occasions, after an investigation by broadcasting regulator the Australian Communications and Media Authority.

Outsiders had breached its responsibilities to present news accurately and fairly, and to distinguish clearly between factual material and commentary, on four separate occasions between October and December 2021, the investigation found.