Dateline (Australian TV program)

Dateline
Genre	Current affairs
Presented by	No Presenter
Country of origin	Australia
Original language(s)	English
No. of seasons	30
Production
Running time	30 minutes
Release
Original network	SBS
Picture format	576i (SDTV) 720p (HDTV)
Audio format	Stereo
Original release	19 October 1984 – present
Chronology
Related shows	Insight
External links
Website

Dateline is an Australian television public affairs program broadcast on SBS One. Since its debut at 8:00 pm on Friday 19 October 1984, it has focused largely on international events, often in developing or warring nations. Since 2000, Dateline reporters have travelled by themselves without a camera crew or sound engineers. It remains the longest-running international current affairs program in Australia.

Dateline has been involved in many major events around the world, including releasing a story on 20 February 2002, on suspected treason perpetrated by Morgan Tsvangirai in Zimbabwe. He was later acquitted by the High Court of Zimbabwe, but brought a lawsuit against Dateline for alleged defamation.

Since its conception, the media program has covered areas of international current affairs, such as environmental policies, technological innovations' political impacts (such as electric cars in the US), and general political events such as the Iraq War and violence in East Timor (2006).

The long-running current affairs program has also accumulated many awards over its lifetime, including Walkley Awards, Logie Awards, and UN Media Peace Awards, which is awarded by the United Nations Association, an organization not affiliated with the United Nations Organization. This has been a result of high-quality reporting from journalists such as Mark Davis, David O'Shea and previously, Matthew Carney, who is now with ABC.

In 2003, the program had a focus on the Pacific island nations, which the incoming SBS Head of Television Shaun Brown then broadened to be more globally inclusive. He also made the program less focused on armed conflict.

In August, 2007, during the Mohammed Haneef saga over alleged links with the plotters of the Glasgow airport attack, Dateline correspondent David O'Shea reported that the Indian doctor was investigated by Indian authorities. A dossier compiled by Indian police, alleged Haneef had suspected ties to Al-Qaeda, though there appeared to be no evidence to back up the dossier, compiled after Haneef was arrested in Australia.

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Wikipedia