By 
By News24 staff Reporter Sarah Binder Reporter Sarah LipscombHow to stop a fake news epidemic.
How to take the news back.
What is ‘fake’ and what is ‘news’?
What is ‘accuracy’ and who is responsible for it?
What is the problem with ‘fake News’?
How can the media keep it in check?
Read moreThe ABC’s political editor, Michael Ferguson, has defended his organisation’s decision to run stories in the lead-up to the state election, and argued that “we should not be using it as a weapon”.
“We’ve had some really interesting stories in advance of the election, like the one we ran in the days leading up to it,” he said.
“We’ll have a discussion on it with the team that’s going to be in the position of running those stories in relation to the election on Friday.”
“The fact is that there are two major parties.
The Coalition’s going into its second term.
That means there’s going a lot of things happening in Canberra and we should be making sure we’re not using this as a tool to distract from that.”
The ABC has published a number of stories in anticipation of the state elections in February.
Read moreBut Mr Ferguson said the ABC’s coverage had been “misleading” in a number the articles.
“There’s been a lot written about the ‘federal election’ and the fact that we’ve got a number [of political editorials] in advance that are going to have a lot to say about the state of things,” he told the ABC.
“That’s a legitimate issue.
It’s not a fake election.”
He said he was aware that “a lot of people were concerned” about the accuracy of some of the ABC stories, and that they “could be misinterpreted”.
He said the “fairness” of the reporting was important, and the ABC had made “every effort” to “meet the fairness standards”.
“The truth is the ABC has been clear in its coverage, that we’re going to run fair, objective, balanced, impartial reporting in the next two months,” he added.
“That’s not going to change.”
But the ABC News 24 team, led by political editor Michael Ferguson and political reporter Sarah Lippscomb, did not respond to a request for comment.