The Big Lie another big fail for Aunty’s sloppy journalism

ABC chair Ita Buttrose.

It’s time. Ita Buttrose, are you listening? It’s time to crack heads; to bring to heel the zealots within the ABC’s ranks who believe they have no need to heed the public broadcaster’s charter and editorial guidelines that demand accuracy and balance.

Ita’s responsibility, as ABC chairwoman, is to uphold its legislative charter. This does not allow for partisan frolics such as Sarah Ferguson’s Four Corners special The Big Lie, the first part of which was broadcast on Monday night.

The program was a full-frontal hit job on Rupert Murdoch, News Corp and the US Fox News channel. It had a septic odour, as if it were cobbled together from a trash can with only the rancid bits selected for regurgitation.

The ABC’s charter calls for a balance of programming and its editorial guidelines demand balance and impartiality in its programs. Editorial policies make it plain that impartiality is one of the most fundamental elements, beginning with “our statutory obligation to ensure we both gather and present news and information impartially. This duty is central to our public service purpose to inform our audiences and fundamental to our reputation as a credible and trustworthy broadcaster.”

The guidelines go on to call for a diversity of perspectives without misrepresentation or unduly favour­ing one perspective over another and that “no significant strand of thought or belief within the community is knowingly excluded or disproportionately represented”.

On this basis, The Big Lie was a big fail. To be precise, another big fail. It follows controversies over many ABC programs, most on Four Corners, including a three-part attempt to tie former US president Donald Trump to Russian operatives, the persecution of Cardinal George Pell, the expose of tawdry behaviour within the so-called Canberra bubble, the pursuit of former attorney-general Christian Porter over unprovable sex claims and an attempt to link Scott Morrison to QAnon conspiracy theorists. This program, “deeply offensive” to the Prime Minister, was held back for a week because ABC managing director David Anderson decreed it was “not ready” for broadcast. We were never told what adjustments were made to the program before it went to air.

The media watchdog, the Australian Communications and Media Authority, twice pinged the ABC for impartiality breaches in 2019 – once for a Four Corners report and once involving the science program Catalyst.

The ABC’s track record indicates that an unforgivable sloppiness has infected its journalism. I would argue this extends to the nightly news bulletins, so often punctuated by juvenile grammar, a predilection for minor crime and car-crash stories and interm­inable and unnecessary live crosses. This laxity of standards has infected even senior program makers. Ferguson’s The Big Lie was a recitation of well-known events, selectively strung together to create a poisonous portrayal of Murdoch and Fox News. It contained nothing new and was built on the opinions of disgruntled former employees and so-called Murdoch experts such as Michael Wolff.

A decade ago, Murdoch made a decision he doubtless regrets – he allowed Wolff close access, including nearly 100 hours of taped conversations, for his book The Man Who Owns the News. Wolff produced a distorted account, relying not on his conversations but his opinions. Wolff has since produced three books on the Trump presidency in which he traces the associations between Trump, Murdoch and Fox News. Interestingly, he does not make the same claims as Ferguson when assessing the role of Fox during and after the 2020 election.

Last year I was approached by former Four Corners boss and Media Watch presenter Jonathan Holmes to discuss my possible participation in a proposed three-part Four Corners special on Murdoch. This was shortly after the BBC broadcast a three-parter on the Murdochs.

Holmes came to my home to discuss the proposal. He said the view was that the BBC program was too UK-oriented, and he was testing the waters for a program with a localised approach.

He assured me this would not be a hit job and asked what I would say about Rupert Murdoch. What were my views on Fox News? And Sky News in Australia? I volunteered that I thought Murdoch’s motivations in establishing the Fox News 24/7 news channel a quarter of a century ago were more to do with business than politics. In a contest between the bottom line and the occupant of the Lodge, No.10 or the White House, I would back the bottom line every time.

Murdoch alluded to that in a clip shown on The Big Lie, where he said “he had a hunch there was room for another point of view” in the US cable news market.

At that time the market leader, CNN, and its challenger, MSNBC, both leaned obviously to the left when reporting and interpreting politics. As Fox News chief executive Roger Ailes said at the time, Fox had “discovered a secret niche in broadcasting – half the American public”.

Fox aimed its product at the centre-right and was stunningly successful. Its profits ran into the billions annually. Yes, it is opinionated, especially at night when individual broadcasters peddle their views, but there is no surprise in that. Does anyone expect them to shout views contrary to what they believe, and know their audiences want? Would that not be a demand that they switch off?

Murdoch once gave a definition of a good newspaper: one that serves its market well. The same goes for TV shows.

Holmes called some weeks after his visit and said Four Corners would not go ahead with the program. Clearly, Ferguson had other ideas.

Mark Day is a media commentator and a former publisher of The Australian.