Fox News to file complaint over ABC ‘probe’
Fox News will file a formal complaint with both the ABC and Australia’s media watchdog over this week’s Four Corners episode.
Fox News will file a formal complaint with both the ABC and Australia’s media watchdog over this week’s Four Corners episode that attempted to blame Rupert Murdoch for Donald Trump’s refusal to accept electoral defeat.
The Murdoch-controlled network will write to the Australian Communications and Media Authority in coming days to register a formal complaint about the ABC’s breach of its own impartiality rules, citing several examples from Monday night’s program.
Fox News will also file a direct complaint with the ABC over the episode, which argued that Fox had become a “propaganda arm” of the Trump administration.
The ABC program was littered with glaring omissions of facts: it overlooked the prominent role that the network had in demanding that Mr Trump hand over to Joe Biden; it failed to mention the 400-plus tweets by Mr Trump in which the then-president heavily criticised Fox News in the lead-up to, and the aftermath of, the November election; and it did not disclose that five of the six Fox News “insiders” — on whose accounts the “expose” heavily relied — had left the cable news network more than three years ago.
The ABC’s promotion of part two of its investigation suggests that the second episode will try to link Fox News with the insurrection at the Capitol by Mr Trump’s supporters on January 6 – a claim that Fox News has described as “false and malicious”.
Fox News also issued a legal letter to ABC chair Ita Buttrose and managing director David Anderson on August 22, the day before the first episode screened, to warn the public broadcaster that it would consider all its legal options if the episode went to air.
Earlier this week, the ABC issued a statement about the episode. “The program meets our editorial guidelines.
“We stand by our journalism,” the statement said.
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