EXCLUSIVE INVESTIGATION: It began in June 2025 as a once-faithful reader’s complaint to The Conversation — a “research-based” outlet with 47 million readers — about an article on Israel’s claimed right of self-defence in Gaza, by a Commonwealth-funded Professor of International Law. On publication day, they dismissed my complaint; the next morning, they quietly scrubbed “Here’s what the law says” from the title. As attempts at redress failed, FOI requests to the Australian National University yielded the author’s original submissions for two articles. The comparison revealed a pattern of editors abusing academic authority to provide legal cover for international crimes.
Submission FPM-TC written by Stefano Perfili, with Free Palestine Melbourne, in response to the UN Special Rapporteur OPT’s call for input on the role of media in the context of Israel’s policies and practices toward the Palestinian people, especially after 7 October 2023. Lodged 24 April 2026; may not reflect later developments. Read all FPM’s submissions here.
Introduction
This submission provides evidence of editorial misconduct at a leading non-mainstream media agency that illustrates the way Australian media outlets have provided rhetorical support to Israel’s actions and worked to shift the Overton window in Israel’s favour.
The Conversation Australia is a university-funded outlet that brands itself as “research-based” journalism committed to “academic rigour”. The Conversation’s audience page reports 7.3 million monthly page views in Australia and New Zealand alone, and 47 million globally including republication. Its content is republished in 90 countries in 23 languages under Creative Commons licence. It also publishes its own translated editions. In an Australian media environment that skews heavily conservative, The Conversation is a reputable, leading and generally left-leaning publication.
The Conversation published two articles by Professor Donald Rothwell, one of Australia’s leading academics on international law and the use of force: one on 10 January 2024, a day prior to the first oral hearings before the International Court of Justice in the South Africa v Israel proceedings; and another on 9 June 2025, almost two years into Israel’s assault on Gaza. Two Freedom of Information requests to the Australian National University yielded the author’s original submissions, which were then compared with the published versions to map evidence of an editorial policy at The Conversation.
Across both articles, every editorial intervention moved toward more absolute self-defence claims and fewer legal caveats — confining the debate to how Israel exercises force, not whether it has the legal right to use it at all. Some are actions by the editors; others originate in the author’s submission and survived the “rigorous fact-checking” promised in The Conversation’s Global Editorial Guidelines.
All attempts to seek redress failed, with each body performing accountability while shirking engagement.
9 June 2025 article: “Can Israel still claim self-defence to justify its Gaza war? Here’s what the law says” (ANU FOI 202500168)
The publication of this article twenty months into operations that had prompted three provisional measures orders from the ICJ against Israel, at a time when international consensus broadly concluded genocide was occurring, and when the international community was mobilising to break the blockade of Gaza, was indicative of an editorial policy that precipitated this investigation.
While it is not objectionable for The Conversation to publish diverse viewpoints on complex matters of international law, this article: (a) presumed a right of self-defence, narrowing the sphere of legitimate controversy to only a question of whether Israel’s conduct had gone too far; and (b) failed to mention concerns about genocide at all when exploring the issue of Israel’s conduct. Editorial decisions by The Conversation allowed these factual oversights to go unchecked and even emphasised some errors.
Editorial Erasure of Critical Legal Nuance
Rothwell’s original submission stated:
“Its right of self-defence will always remain including when it faces attacks from its neighbours or non-State actors such as the Houthis.”
The Conversation’s editors published:
“Its right to self-defence will always remain intact when it faces attacks from its neighbours or non-state actors, such as Hamas, Hezbollah or the Houthi rebels in Yemen.”
The editors inserted “intact”, and added Hamas and Hezbollah to the list of non-State actors; Rothwell’s original submission mentioned only the Houthis. The change is critical: the Houthis operate from territory not occupied by Israel, whereas Hamas operates from territory Israel occupies. Rothwell appears to acknowledge implicitly the legal complication of the ICJ’s 2004 Wall opinion ¶139, which bears directly on self-defence against threats from occupied territory. By adding “Hamas” and “Hezbollah”, the editors extended the claim beyond Rothwell’s original position — but added no caveat. The editors overrode the author’s apparent caution by making the claim categorical, and nothing in the published article alerts the reader that it is contested.
The article omits the Wall opinion entirely, despite discussing other ICJ rulings, the 1837 Caroline affair, and the 1976 Entebbe operation — and despite Rothwell himself citing ¶139 at length in his own 2005 academic analysis of self-defence and terrorism, writing: “Whether an armed attack is imputable to a foreign State becomes pivotal when seeking to exercise the right of self-defence”.
Occupation Finding Acknowledged, Legal Consequences Erased
Furthermore, the article cites the ICJ’s 2024 opinion confirming that Gaza is illegally occupied — then immediately neutralises important legal implications, stating the Court “expressly made clear it was not addressing the circumstances that had evolved since October 7.”
What the Court actually stated, on temporal scope, was that the General Assembly’s January 2023 request did “not include conduct by Israel in the Gaza Strip in response to the attack carried out against it by Hamas and other armed groups on 7 October 2023.” At ¶93, it considered Israel’s effective control over Gaza “even more so since 7 October 2023.”
The article implies that the Court’s scoping of its inquiry limits the temporal reach of its findings (when ¶93 demonstrates the opposite) — thereby stripping legal consequences from an opinion that exists to establish them. It omits important contemporaneous legal findings that call into direct question the entire premise on which it is written.
“Here’s What the Law Says” Quietly Removed from Title
This article was originally published with “Here’s what the law says” in its title — framing the editorially amplified content as settled law. The day it was published, in response to my complaint, Deputy Chief of Staff Michael Hopkin dismissed the concerns as “issues of interpretation or omission” rather than factual error, and described The Conversation’s purpose as “to report on the facts soberly and accurately.”
The following morning, The Conversation removed “Here’s what the law says” from the title without any disclosure to readers, in violation of their own editorial guidelines (Section 10: readers must be notified of changes except “corrections of spelling, grammar or very minor alterations”).
Most republished versions — domestic and international — were not updated, meaning audiences across multiple countries and languages continue to see the article presented as “what the law says”. The Conversation’s own Portuguese-language translation retains the equivalent authoritative framing.
10 January 2024 article: “South Africa is taking Israel to court for genocide in Palestine. What does it mean for the war in Gaza?” (ANU FOI 202500297)
This article was published on the eve of the first hearings in a historic legal case for Palestinian legal rights and Israeli accountability. It is largely unobjectionable until the final line, which contains an abrupt legal assertion that lacks context or explanation, and the substance of which is, at best, highly contestable as a matter of international law.
The Conversation’s editors published:
“No matter what the court orders, Israel will retain its right of self-defence against Hamas.”
Rothwell’s original submission concluded:
“Israel would, however, retain its right of self-defence against Hamas. Israel could continue to defend itself against Hamas and other state and non-state actors, but it would need to do so within the guardrails of international law.”
The editors inserted “No matter what the court orders”, changed “would” to “will”, and deleted the entire sentence acknowledging that self-defence must be exercised within the guardrails of international law. Where Rothwell wrote a conditional conclusion with legal caveats, the editors published a categorical one without them. The editors overrode the author’s apparent intention to qualify the self-defence claim.
The effect is that an article about how ICJ genocide proceedings could constrain Israel’s war on Gaza concludes by declaring Israel’s right of self-defence untouchable — even when a question of genocide arises.
Misleading Citation Expressly Contradicts Categorical Claim
Furthermore, the word “self-defence” is hyperlinked to a JURIST blog post, both in Rothwell’s original and retained by the editors. Written in December 2023 — after October 7 — the blog post states in its opening that it “analyses the Israeli claim of the ‘right to self-defense against Hamas’ and opposes Israel’s contention that this right to self-defense does not violate international law.” The source manifestly does not support the proposition it was cited for.
In a popular-audience online article, a hyperlink on a factual claim functions as implicit verification: most readers do not click through, and take the link as evidence the assertion is supported. That same verification is among the most basic acts of “rigorous fact-checking” that the outlet’s editorial guidelines demand of its editors. Not only was it not performed, but the editors made the assertion definitive while retaining a citation that directly contradicts it — exposing and compounding their failure.
Domestic Accountability Theatre
Over ten months (June 2025 to April 2026), these documented concerns were raised through every available domestic channel: direct complaint to The Conversation, formal escalation to Editor-in-Chief Misha Ketchell under its editorial guidelines, a public question to Ketchell at a live editorial meeting (see Appendix A), the Australian Press Council, AAP FactCheck, and the MEAA Journalist Code of Ethics (see Appendix B). No substantive correction was produced by any body.
Australian Press Council’s Convenient “Standards of Practice”
The Australian Press Council is an industry self-regulatory body funded by its member publishers, with News Corp funding 60% (well above the historical 50% ceiling). It has no statutory basis or binding enforcement powers; MEAA, the journalists’ union, withdrew in 2021, citing “mocked or ignored” adjudications.
After a complaint and two supplements (9–15 June 2025), APC rejected my complaint on 19 June because “The Conversation is not a member of the Australian Press Council and as such is not bound by the Council’s Standards of Practice.” This was factually wrong: The Conversation is a member through the Local & Independent News Association (LINA). After I emailed twice citing the APC’s own constitutional documents (25 June, 7 July), Director of Complaints Paul Nangle reversed on 9 July: “Thank you for your email and we acknowledge our error.” The complaint was then rejected on 17 July without substantive reasons: because I was “not personally identified or directly affected” by the published material, my complaint was classified as “secondary” — a process that excludes the complainant from ongoing involvement and provides no right of review.
Australia’s obligations under international human rights law (including freedom of expression and the right to information) are statutorily enforced for broadcasters through ACMA; for print and online publishers, the only forum is APC — an industry body they fund, govern, and control, and whose self-regulation was found “woefully inadequate” by the 2021 Senate Inquiry. The processing of this complaint revealed a mechanism that structurally insulates foreign conflict coverage from APC’s primary complaints process — even where that coverage may enable international crimes.
AAP FactCheck’s Selective “Inherent Difficulties”
After acknowledging receipt on 19 June 2025, AAP FactCheck editor Ben James rejected my submission on 27 June, stating that international law “presents inherent difficulties due to its susceptibility to diverse interpretations”, that “this often leads to varied perspectives depending on the expert consulted, which in turn makes such claims exceptionally challenging to fact-check”, and that “if international law experts are unable to reach a consensus, it becomes problematic for us to issue a definitive ruling.” When asked directly — twice — whether AAP had consulted any international law experts before determining that the claim was wholly unverifiable, James responded: “We do not routinely provide research information for checks we do not proceed with.”
AAP FactCheck — Australia’s only consistently IFCN-accredited fact-checker — lists The Conversation as a trusted source in its fact-checking guide for readers, and regularly consults Professor Rothwell himself as an expert source on international law claims. He is quoted in AAP fact-checks on Palestine recognition, ICC jurisdiction, the law of the sea, head of state immunity, and sovereignty. In addition to “Misleading”, AAP’s own verdict system includes “Mixture” — for claims containing “accurate information but also significant errors or problems” — and AAP has applied it to contested international law questions where experts disagreed.
In summary, AAP FactCheck — whose IFCN accreditation requires nonpartisanship and transparency of methodology — declined to evaluate a claim published by a source it names as trusted, authored by an expert it regularly consults to fact-check other international law claims (including on Palestine/Israel), citing expert disagreement it refused to confirm it had established (and which its own record shows is no barrier).
MEAA’s Hollow “Code of Ethics”
My March 2026 complaint under the MEAA Journalist Code of Ethics was rejected by Ethics Committee Chair Paddy Manning due to the MEAA Rules s.68(a) six-month time limit, despite the editorial changes being undiscoverable before FOI release — a factor journalists know well, but which Manning refused to consider. The former lecturer in media law and ethics advised he had forwarded my complaint to Ketchell and Hopkin “for information” — without my consent — yet the rules only permit disclosure of “the nature of the complaint” after a panel is convened. His disclosure exposed the forensic method used to detect silent editorial activity at The Conversation (see Appendices). Presented with evidence of editorial abuse of academic authority to distort international law, Australia’s journalist union applied its rules strictly to deny jurisdiction, then departed from them by sending my investigation to the respondents, burning a method of detecting future misconduct.
Conclusion: “Academic Rigour,” Journalistic Complicity
When partisan media assert Israel’s absolute right to self-defence in Gaza, the agenda is obvious. When a Professor of International Law asserts it as “what the law says” in a university-backed, “research-based” outlet with a global audience, it does not present as contested or “exceptionally challenging to fact-check” — it presents as the law.
The editors’ interventions made the self-defence claims absolute, erased legal guardrails, suppressed ICJ jurisprudence, and ignored a glaringly contradictory citation. When confronted, they deflected, secretly altered the title, then stonewalled. This misconduct was republished internationally by outlets relying on The Conversation’s authoritative framing and reputation.
It was then shielded from correction by every domestic accountability mechanism available: the outlet, press council, fact-checker and journalist union each validated the others’ refusal to engage. The press council structurally insulates coverage that may enable international crimes. The union, without basis or consent, forwarded this investigation, compromising it and any that may follow.
Across both articles, the editors fixed the terms of debate, against the weight of contrary authority. The area of permissible challenge was first erased, then redrawn at the periphery, allowing the foundational injustice to “remain intact” (cf. “tardy recognitions”, Collective Crime ¶28).
The same institutional authority that elevates The Conversation’s journalism to trusted expertise also compounds this misconduct. It primes readers to accept genocidal violence as defensible, lending academic credibility to a narrative that provides legal cover for international crimes.
Within a manufactured sphere of consensus, the “trusted source” legitimises Israel’s “right to self-defence” — beyond any condition, correction, or challenge — months into the Gaza genocide, for an audience of 47 million.
Appendix A: Timeline of “Engagement”
Summary of correspondence with The Conversation, HTML metadata evidence of engagement without response, and other pertinent events. Temporal correlations are noted; no causal claims are made.
As of April 2026, neither FOI release has appeared on ANU’s FOI disclosure log, contrary to the ten-working-day requirement of the FOI Act.
9 June 2025: Article published and complaint sent to editorial, CC’d to Editor Misha Ketchell, CEO Lisa Watts, Board Chair and University of Sydney Vice-Chancellor Professor Mark Scott, Professor Donald Rothwell, and the SR OPT. Deputy Chief of Staff Michael Hopkin replied that afternoon dismissing the concerns as “issues of interpretation or omission” and describing The Conversation’s purpose as “to report on the facts soberly and accurately.” Hopkin CC’d Rothwell on his reply.
10 June 2025, 8:39am AEST: The same article’s og:updated_time and title silently changed — the morning after my initial complaint and the Deputy Chief of Staff’s response.
10 June 2025, 2:25pm AEST: Same day as the silent title change, LINA released an episode of Meet the Newsrooms featuring Editor Misha Ketchell. Asked about difficult stories, Ketchell said: “covering Israel-Palestine has been very difficult. No matter what you do, you get criticism, complaints, people who feel that the version of events that… one particular person presents is not the way that they would present that version of events.” He continued: “you need to navigate it very carefully. The way that we do that is just by relying on experts, and making sure that our only purpose is to explain. So we’re not trying to advocate for any particular position. We’re just trying to provide audiences with the evidence that they need to understand issues better.” On corrections, he told the host: “when we have errors and we need to make corrections, one of the things that we do is we disseminate that information as widely as possible to our readers via social media channels, any channels we possibly can. And the more that people can see the process by which we make decisions about how to correct… the more trust they place in us.” On independent media: “it’s closest to the communities it serves. And that means it’s accountable. And that means it’s going to be rigorous and do a good job.” Since December 2024, the board of LINA (Local & Independent News Association) has included The Conversation’s Director of Engagement, Louise Cornegé; her LinkedIn role description includes “Overseeing republishing, ensuring our journalism reaches new audiences through partner platforms”.
7 July 2025: Detailed follow-up sent to Hopkin, CC’d to the same recipients. Six specific questions were posed, including: “What was the editorial rationale for this change?”; “How do you reconcile your undisclosed title change with your obligations around transparency/corrections?”; and “Do you stand by his exclusion of the controlling authority that directly contradicts his categorical claim on the article’s core question?” No response was received.
29 July 2025: Formal escalation to Editor Ketchell pursuant to Section 11.2 of The Conversation’s Global Editorial Guidelines, CC’d to CEO Watts and the SR OPT. I noted Hopkin had “deflected with false procedural arguments”, that the detailed follow-up had gone unanswered for over three weeks, and drew attention to the January 2024 article and its misleading JURIST citation for the first time. The escalation cited five specific sections of the guidelines that the editorial conduct appeared to violate, and requested referral to the Chair of the Editorial Board under Section 11.3. No response was received.
30 July 2025, 12:02pm AEST: 2024 article’s og:updated_time changed — the day after the formal escalation first drew attention to that article. No visible changes were made.
24 November 2025: Complaint raised publicly during The Conversation’s live editorial meeting (News Conference). I submitted a specific written question in the Zoom chat: “Would you consider it ‘very minor’ to remove ‘Here’s what the law says’ from the title of an article on Gaza self-defence rights, or is that significant enough to disclose to readers?” Co-host Louise Cornegé (Director of Engagement and LINA Board Member) engaged, asking whether the change was post-publication, and requesting the original complaint by email: “I’ll ensure we get back to you.” When the question was read aloud to Editor Ketchell, it was stripped of all specifics — no mention of the title change, the article, or Gaza. Ketchell (who had received all prior complaint emails) stated publicly: “once an article is there, it’s launched into the world, it has sort of an integrity, it’s a part of history, it’s an important document and we don’t change it. If we do change it in any way, any substantive way, say to correct an error, we make sure that there is a note on the article saying what was corrected and why and when.” He added: “anything that’s in any way substantive or actually affects the article the readers experience… we have to declare when we make a change to an article. So we’re really absolutely rigorous about being transparent about that.” The full correspondence chain was emailed to Cornegé as requested, CC’d to Ketchell, CEO Watts, and the SR OPT. No response was received.
20 January 2026, 10:57am AEDT: 2024 article’s og:updated_time changed again — the day before ANU’s second FOI decision released Rothwell’s original submission for it. This FOI request sought only drafts, not correspondence (unlike the first request, still pending OAIC review as of April 2026), so there was no procedural basis for The Conversation to have been consulted during FOI processing.
Appendix B: “Natural Justice” Under the MEAA Journalist Code of Ethics
I lodged a complaint under the MEAA Journalist Code of Ethics on 13 March 2026. On 8 April, Ethics Committee Chair Paddy Manning rejected it due to the MEAA Rules s.68(a) six-month time limit. This was despite the editorial changes being undiscoverable before FOI disclosure — a factor that journalists know well, but which Manning refused to consider.
Manning continued: “I have forwarded your complaint to Mr Ketchell and Hopkin for information. Further correspondence will not be entered into.” However, the rules only mention disclosure to members once a panel is convened, and then only of “the nature of the complaint”.
When asked on what basis my investigation was forwarded without consent, the former lecturer in media law and ethics revealed an unpublished practice where “Complaints are always sent to the members” — depriving all complainants of informed consent — “in accordance with the principles of natural justice and to afford them a right of reply” — protections owed to those facing adverse decisions, in this case the complainant, not the members (who had nothing to reply to). He added: “I’m not sure how else you expect a complaint can be reviewed by the ethics committee” — again invoking the live proceeding he had just refused to convene.
Manning’s disclosure exposed the forensic method (og:updated_time HTML metadata) used to detect silent editorial activity — including the day before ANU released the 2024 article’s original submission, despite the FOI request giving The Conversation no basis to be consulted (see Appendix A). Having been warned of that signal, the outlet may suppress it in future. By analogy, Australia’s FOI Act s.37(2)(b) treats that harm as serious enough to exempt investigators’ methods from FOI disclosure.
In summary, MEAA — which has otherwise defended journalists covering Palestine — applied its rules strictly to refuse the complaint, then departed from them in handling it. Presented with evidence of editorial abuse of academic authority to distort international law, Australia’s journalist union denied jurisdiction, sent the complainant’s investigation to the respondents, and burned a method of detecting future misconduct.