Journalists at the ABC who cover any topic which comes under the remit of the royal commission into antisemitism received a sobering edict from news boss Justin Stevens on Friday: they cannot send or receive confidential Signal messages because no communications can be destroyed.

Journalists use disappearing messages in some circumstances to communicate with confidential sources in an effort to protect what they tell them.

The ABC is one of a number of commonwealth departments and agencies which must comply with a disposal freeze order from the National Archives of Australia.

“This includes disappearing messages on apps such as Signal,” Stevens said. “Going forward, if you receive or send messages on Signal or any similar apps on these topics, continuing to use a disappearing messages setting would be a breach of the notice.

“If you regularly delete emails for storage and security reasons we have to exclude emails on these topics from deletion until further notice.”

The order also applies to staff at SBS, the Australian Communications and Media Authority and the eSafety Commissioner.

The ABC had a similar notice in 2020 around the Afghanistan inquiry, Stevens said.

The topics ABC staff are not allowed to delete include: social cohesion in Australia; antisemitism and religious and ideologically motivated extremism and radicalisation; the capabilities and powers of law enforcement, border control, immigration and security agencies to respond to antisemitic conduct; the circumstances surrounding the Bondi terrorist attack.

The arrival of the president of Israel, Isaac Herzog, on Sunday is not only a major news story but a highly sensitive one. There are heightened emotions on both sides: those in favour of the visit and those opposed.

So it was more than a little unfortunate that ABC News took the statements of two of the leaders of two Jewish groups with diametrically opposing views on the visit and attributed them to each other, in not one but two radio news bulletins.

Quotes from a fractious debate, hosted by Fran Kelly on the Radio National Hour on Wednesday, were picked up for a radio news bulletin overnight. The story said Sarah Schwartz, the executive officer of the Jewish Council of Australia, welcomed the visit of Herzog. In........

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