ABC News (Australia)

ABC News, also known as ABC News and Current Affairs, is a public news service produced by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. The service covers both local and world affairs, broadcasting both nationally as ABC News, and across the Asia-Pacific under the ABC Australia title.

The division of the organisation ABC News, Analysis and Investigations is responsible for all news-gathering and coverage across the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's various television, radio, and online platforms. Some of the services included under the auspices of the division are its 24-hour news channel ABC News Australia TV Channel (formerly ABC News 24), the long-running radio news programs, AM, The World Today, and PM; ABC NewsRadio, a 24-hour continuous news radio channel; and radio news bulletins and programs on ABC Local Radio, ABC Radio National, ABC Classic FM, and Triple J.

ABC News Online has an extensive online presence which includes many written news reports and videos available via ABC Online, an ABC News mobile app (ABC Listen), podcasts, and in addition, all of the ABC News television programs available via the video-on-demand platform, ABC iview. As of 2021,^[update] the ABC News website includes ABC Sport, ABC Health, ABC Science, ABC Arts & Culture, ABC Fact Check, ABC Environment, and news in other languages.

Justin Stevens was appointed director of the division on 4 April 2022.

ABC News, from its inception in 1932, with ABC radio sourced its news from multiple sources, including cable news from London, its own bureaus in Europe, the Middle East, Greece and the Asia-Pacific, and in a fashion similar to commercial radio stations from local newspapers around Australia. ^{[citation needed]}

Censorship was rife during the war, particularly after the U.S. entered the conflict on 7 December 1941. After General Douglas MacArthur set up his headquarters in Australia, he wielded enormous power, including on matters of censorship. Inter alia, he declared that every Australian radio station would only broadcast three news bulletins per day and that these would be simultaneous on all stations (ABC and commercial) at 7.45 a.m., midday, and 7.00 p.m. Weather forecasts were banned because it was felt that these may assist the enemy.

The 7:45 a.m. bulletin was the only one that did not commence on the hour or the half-hour. It was placed at this timeslot as initially the ABC sourced its news from newspapers in a deal which required that news would not be broadcast earlier, to ensure newspapers sales were not effected. This bulletin continued at this time on ABC Local Radio stations until 19 September 2020, before being cancelled to save costs.

Notices were issued banning radio stations from broadcasting some major wartime events, but as the federal government did not have the same power over the printed press as it did over the radio, newspapers usually reported events that radio was not permitted to mention.