A simple case to outline: the ABC’s dodgy Trump reporting is indefensible
Monday night’s program means now that the national broadcaster’s managing director, Hugh Marks, and its self-appointed media scrutineer, Besser, have tied themselves to the network’s main television current affairs host, Ferguson, over her dodgy reporting.
All of them have now publicly defended what I argue is indefensible, a BBC-like fitting up of the US President. Yet if they are convinced by their own defence, we are left to wonder why Media Watch did not even dare to air the crucial 25 seconds of Trump’s speech that was cut out of a section used in the 2021 report.
It really is a simple case to outline. One of the main narrative themes of Ferguson’s report, “Downfall – the last days of President Trump”, was that on January 6, 2021, Trump’s speech outside the White House encouraged protesters to violently riot at the Capitol later that day.
In his long speech Trump only made two specific references to what he wanted protesters to do when they went to the Capitol. In one he said, “we’re going to walk down to the Capitol, and we’re going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women, and we’re probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them”, and in the other he said, “I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard”.
Damningly, neither of those statements made it into the ABC report. Rather than convey what Trump actually encouraged people to do, Ferguson’s report deliberately created the impression he urged something else. This is the antithesis of fair reporting.
What is even worse is that one of these direct references from Trump about what to do at the Capitol was cut out of the middle of a section included in the Four Corners report. Ferguson’s report edited out what Trump urged people to do, in order to convey a more aggressive impression.
So let me do here what I have done a number of times on Sky News, and what the ABC has still failed to do, and show you the exact words Trump used, and how the ABC edited them. The relevant section of the Four Corners report showed Trump saying this: “After this, we’re going to walk down, and I’ll be there with you because you’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength, and you have to be strong.”
But it turns out there was an edit after the words, “with you” and the speech actually jumped forward 25 seconds to Trump saying “because you will never take back our country with weakness” etc. The segment that was edited out was the crucial part that referred to what the protesters should do at the Capitol (I have put the removed words in bold to make the cut clear): “After this we’re going to walk down and I’ll be there with you, we’re going to walk down, we’re going to walk down. Anyone you want, but I think right here, we’re going to walk down to the Capitol, and we’re going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women, and we’re probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them. Because you’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength and you have to be strong.”
There you have it. All the relevant facts. Make up your own mind.
It is hard to argue that you are offering a fair representation of what Trump was urging protesters to do, when you deliberately edit out his only directives about how protesters should behave. If the ABC had nothing to hide, why did Media Watch not show the full clip versus the edit?
The only defence Media Watch offered on this point was some glib words of support it clearly sought from former commercial television news boss Peter Meakin and activist and leftist author Margaret Simons. Is that its version of an independent jury? Spare me.
Ludicrously, Media Watch also ventilated a rather puerile attempted defence from Ferguson herself, where she cited a column I wrote in these pages in 2021 attacking Trump for rejecting the election result, fuelling resentment, and thereby encouraging the ugly protests. I would have thought this strengthens my argument by demonstrating that I am no Trump barracker, my interest is in fair and accurate reporting.
As I said in my statement to Media Watch: “Sarah Ferguson seems to misunderstand the difference between fair reporting and personal opinion. I have long been critical of Donald Trump’s refusal to offer his loser’s consent after the 2020 election, but I believe deceptively editing his words in order to buttress that view is unethical.”
This is the sin Ferguson has committed and the ABC too often falls into; it has allowed its narrative to drive its twisting of the facts, rather than allowed the facts to drive the real narrative, otherwise known as the truth. Yet at the end of Media Watch, Besser gave us a little sermon.
He admitted some ABC transgressions over gender reassignment coverage, then ridiculously asserted its coverage of the Middle East has been balanced, and then gave his employer a thumbs-up on the dodgy Trump edits, attacking the critics instead. “This was a naked attempt to draw the ABC into a public broadcasting crisis 17,000 kilometres away, which smeared without foundation some of the ABC’s finest reporting,” he said, tying himself to Ferguson’s erroneous reporting, not just of January 6 but her discredited Russian collusion conspiracy theory too.
To try to force a proper investigation of the Trump edits, I lodged a complaint with the ABC last week, and the Ombudsman, Fiona Cameron, has responded, declining to investigate. It will not be the end of the matter.
The editing remains there for all to see on the ABC’s iview service, as does Ferguson’s three-part 2018 series trying to portray Trump as a puppet of Vladimir Putin. The difference now is that when these issues are properly investigated, the managing director, Marks, the Media Watch host, Besser, and the Ombudsman, Cameron, will all be roped in to the outcome.
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The effort by Media Watch host Linton Besser and 7.30 host Sarah Ferguson to defend the ABC over Four Corners’ deceptive Donald Trump editing is as ethically challenged and intellectually barren as the original sin.