ABC News boss Justin Stevens has issued apologies to audiences, commandos and a former US drug enforcement official after receiving the interim findings from an investigation into the 2022 Line of Fire reports. 

In September, Channel Seven's Spotlight program raised complaints about the ABC adding extra gunshots into a video clip of Australian troops firing from a helicopter in Afghanistan's Helmand province in 2012.

Days later, ABC managing director David Anderson commissioned veteran journalist and former ABC editorial director Alan Sunderland to oversee an independent review of the 2022 stories, which included two broadcast on 7.30 and an online article. At the time, Mr Anderson said a preliminary inspection of the video had identified an "editing error in the audio".

The interim findings cleared the ABC of having "deliberately doctored, falsified, manipulated or distorted information, material or evidence in order to mislead audiences". 

"I have found no evidence to support the conclusion that any of this was done at the direction of the journalists involved or on the initiative of the video editor in order to doctor or deliberately distort the depiction of the events that occurred," the interim review states.

"On the contrary, what evidence there is suggests it was not a deliberate editorial decision to include additional gunshot audio in order to mislead or deceive."

The review found that in an online video, five additional gunshot sounds were inaccurately introduced into footage showing a commando firing from a helicopter. The review also found additional shots were inaccurately included in the story broadcast on 7.30 but at different points to the online video. 

"The video has been removed."

The ABC released the interim review as Mr Stevens appeared before Senate estimates hearings in Canberra. 

"It shouldn't have occurred," he told senators about the editing issue. 

Mr Sunderland's review also considered the use of comments from Bret Hamilton, a former US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) leader, who recently accused the ABC of misrepresenting his comments. 

"The review found Mr Hamilton's final comment in an interview that alleged war crimes should always be investigated was not in proper context and therefore did not accurately represent him as talking about allegations of war crimes in general rather than referring to any specific allegations," Mr Stevens said.

"The review found this was potentially misleading. It found Mr Hamilton's views were otherwise accurately represented. 

"ABC News sincerely regrets and apologises to Mr Hamilton as well as our audience members for this. That was not the meaning we intended to convey."

Review launched after audio editing issues arose

The stories were produced by the ABC's Investigations team, whose reporting had raised questions of the conduct of the 2nd Commando Regiment in Afghanistan, focusing on allegations of kill counts and the use of enemy casualty numbers as a measure of performance.

ABC Investigations said it had obtained hours of commando operations in Afghanistan from 2011 and 2012, and highlighted a video it said showed a soldier firing his assault rifle from a moving helicopter at what appeared to be unarmed civilians in residential compounds.

In one of the clips, the story alleged an Afghan man could be seen ducking and trying to find cover as the commando fired his weapon from the helicopter above.

The interim findings suggested the audio editing error arose as an "inadvertent consequence of attempts to create clean, accurate and effective sequences in the story". It also found there was no deliberate editorial decision to include additional gunshots to mislead or deceive. 

The review found "significant care" had been taken to ensure stories were checked and reviewed prior to publication and that errors weren't picked up because there was nothing "that led anyone to believe that there was an issue to review".

"The Line of Fire stories covered issues of the highest importance, dealing with the behaviour of Australian troops in a conflict overseas. They were of public importance at the time the stories were published and broadcast, and they remain of public importance now," the review states.

"Although no individuals were identified in the stories themselves, the issues raised — the possible killing of prisoners, possible actions that may have breached the rules of engagement and possibly inappropriate discussions of unidentified 'quotas' in the lead-up to missions — were significant and important."

When issues were raised about the story in September this year, the ABC had initially removed just the video from the ABC News website but later removed the full online story it had appeared in.

Mr Stevens said the ABC would publish a correction on its corrections and clarifications page regarding the editing errors.

He said an editor's note would also be added to clarify the context of Mr Hamilton's comments. 

News boss defends investigation

Mr Sunderland is a Walkley Award-winning journalist who spent 40 years working for SBS and the ABC. From 2013 to 2019 he was the ABC's editorial director, with overall responsibility for editorial standards, editorial complaints and journalism training.

He's made five recommendations, which include a review of editorial policies and guidance for investigations, review training for non-editorial staff working on investigations and the regular review of editing practices.

It also recommended equal scrutiny of all elements of multi-platform stories and that News should review its interviews guidance note.

Mr Stevens said he would consider further actions, beyond Mr Sunderland's recommendations, to prevent similar issues happening again.

"The ABC stands by the vital importance of its investigations into the alleged conduct of Australian soldiers," he said.

"The editing errors, while deeply regrettable, do not weaken the value of the ABC's reporting over many years on these crucial issues."

In announcing the review, Mr Anderson said he'd only recently learned ABC Legal had received a letter in November 2022, two months after the stories were broadcast, raising concerns about the audio editing but that neither the letter nor information in it were passed onto ABC News. 

Acting managing director Melanie Kleyn told Senate estimates that Mr Sunderland was still reviewing the circumstances around the letter ABC Legal received and why it wasn't passed onto the News division. 

She said the findings from those inquiries would be included in the final report.