ABC’s Four Corners attack on Fox News to continue

The ABC’s Four Corners program is pushing ahead with the second episode of its ‘expose’ into Fox News.

ABC Four Corners Journalist Sarah Ferguson. Picture: John Appleyard

The ABC will on Monday night air the second part of its “expose” into Fox News despite last week’s episode coming under intense criticism for its lack of balance and unverified claims.

Four Corners’ two-part series led by journalist Sarah Ferguson will attempt to link the network to the January 6 Capitol Hill riots in the second episode.

This comes despite its first instalment being riddled with errors, which forced Fox News to issue a legal letter to the public broadcaster.

The ABC was criticised for its “inherent bias and lack of balance” for omitting key facts and also airing multiple interviews with staff who had left the network before last year’s US election and had no involvement during the then-president Donald Trump’s attempt to retain the presidency.

The first episode included six Fox News “insiders” but it failed to declare that five of them left the network more than three years ago.

A Fox News spokeswoman said: “The episode “clearly violates the basic tenets of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s published standards by exhibiting bias and a failure to maintain any level of impartiality in the presentation of news and information”.

“The use of five former deeply disgruntled employees, only one of whom was part of the company during our coverage of the 2020 U.S. presidential election and its aftermath, single-handedly discredits all credibility of the program.”

The spokeswoman also said for the ABC to implicate the events of January 6 to “Fox News in any way is false and malicious”.

Ferguson last week went on ABC’s Mornings radio program in Melbourne with host Virginia Trioli and said despite the ABC receiving the legal letter from Fox, “we’re not in fear of anything”.

“To attack Four Corners and the brave editorial standards of (executive producer) Sally Neighbour at this point just seems to be way off the mark,” she said.

The first episode began with an overblown and false claim that Fox News was effectively an arm of the Trump administration and was unable to back the claim with evidence.  

The FBI this month found insufficient evidence to support the claim the January 6 attack was the result of an organised plot to overthrow the presidential result, which saw Joe Biden win the presidential race.

The ABC has put eight posts on its Four Corners Facebook pages relating to the two-part series but has since turned off the comments on all posts after being inundated with criticism from viewers about the program.