ABC’s Four Corners: Cutting Corners in pursuit of the big dud story

Four Corners executive producer Sally Neighbour.

In contemporary Western societies, there is nothing quite so self-righteous as the activist self-righteous journalist. This was on full display on August 16 when ABC television’s Four Corners celebrated its 60th birthday in an extended program titled Fearless and Forensic for 60 Years. Sally Neighbour is Four Corners’ executive producer and Sarah Ferguson is one of its star reporters. Both made an appearance at the end of the program.

Ferguson told viewers she lived in the US, “where we’ve just seen the catastrophic conseq­uences of what happens when a shared belief in truth and facts break down”. She added that Four Corners’ commitment to truth and facts “may actually be one of the most important defences for Australian society”.

So, there you have it. According to Ferguson, the continuation of the program is essential for the protection of society. Following Ferguson’s lead, Neighbour proclaimed: “In this atmosphere, public interest journalism has never been more important. And we know from the audience there is a thirst out there for trustworthy, reliable, honest, accurate information and investigation, and it can still have an incredible impact.”

Watching the intensity of Ferguson and Neighbour proclaim their importance – or, rather, self-importance – to society was a reminder of the religious preacher of old. Except the message was a secular one. And they alone understand the path to salvation.

At the invitation of Ian Carroll, I presented a Four Corners program on Bob Hawke in 1994. So I have an understanding of how it is put together. The ABC does not operate under the management structures that apply to commercial media outlets such as newspapers (in print and online), television, radio stations and the like. Rather, the taxpayer-funded public broadcaster is a staff collective in which various entities (such as Four Corners) run themselves with little involvement from senior management.

The most recent example of the ABC as a staff collective was revealed by Sophie Elsworth in The Australian on Monday. Former Liberal Party staffer Dhanya Mani accused Four Corners reporter Louise Milligan of publicly exposing her as a source for the Inside the Canberra Bubble program that aired in November last year. This was essentially targeted at Morrison government ministers Alan Tudge and Christian Porter.

On August 11, Mani lodged a formal complaint with the ABC’s audience and consumer affairs department in Canberra. It declined to take up the issue because Milligan’s comment had been posted on her personal account and the matter ended up with Neighbour at Four Corners. Neighbour emailed Mani that there had been “no misconduct by Ms Milligan”. Case closed.

What’s missing is any involvement with David Anderson, the ABC’s managing director and editor-in-chief. This is what happens in a staff-run collective. A complaint against Four Corners was resolved by Four Corners and not by the ABC’s editor-in-chief. In other words, senior management does not run the ABC.

For all its self-praise, Four Corners is a program out of control. Some examples illustrate the point. In 2018, Four Corners sent Ferguson on an expensive project to do a three-part series titled Trump/Russia. According to the ABC, this was “the story of the century”. But Ferguson failed to produce any evidence linking Russia to Donald Trump’s victory in the 2016 presidential election.

Sometime after Ferguson returned to Australia, the program’s star witness, former US intelligence chief James Clapper, said there was no evidence to support the claim. The biggest story of the century turned out to be a dud.

As a reporter on the ABC’s 7.30, Milligan led the media pile-on against Cardinal George Pell who was convicted in a retrial on five charges of historical sexual abuse. On March 4, 2019 – shortly after Pell’s conviction was announced – Milligan presented a Four Corners program on the case. Neighbour was the executive producer.

ABC Media Watch presenter Paul Barry is no constant critic of the public broadcaster. But on April 20 last year – shortly after the High Court quashed Pell’s conviction in a seven to zip unanimous decision – Barry criticised Milligan’s report for not canvassing any of Pell’s case from the trial. Needless to say, Barry’s criticism did not get a mention on Four Corners’ 60th birthday show.

Earlier this year, Neighbour sent Ferguson on another mission to the US – despite the fact the ABC has several reporters based there. In February, Ferguson presented a Four Corners program titled Capitol Riot: How January 6 and Donald Trump Changed America Forever.

This proved to be another hyperbolic, one-sided account of the impact of the Trump administration on US society. In recent days, it has been reported that the FBI has found there is no evidence that far-right allies of Trump involved in the riot had a coherent plan to overturn the result of last year’s US presidential election. This greatly diminishes Four Corners’ coverage of the event.

This year in official statements and during appearances before the Senate estimates committee, senior ABC managers have said the ABC publishes articles that do not meet the criminal (beyond reasonable doubt) or civil (on the balance of probabilities) standard of proof. It also has been established that the ABC readily carries mere allegations, devoid of evidence, with respect to the living and the dead.

Four Corners is the principal offender at the ABC in respect to such unprofessional journalism. Yet, on the occasion of the program’s 60th birthday, Neighbour and Ferguson declared they spoke only the truth and, as such, were essential to the survival of Australian society. How self-indulgent can two journalists get?