Sarah Ferguson (journalist)

Ferguson attended New Hall, a Catholic-run private girls school in Boreham, Essex. She later studied English literature at King's College, London. In her early teens, she began a correspondence with the poet Philip Larkin.^[3] In a teenage essay she said when she grew up, she wanted to be "a commando and a librarian in the British House of Commons".^[4]

Ferguson's career began in newspapers in the United Kingdom, writing arts reviews for The Independent. Later she moved to Paris and worked as a researcher and production assistant on arts programs for French and British broadcasters. In 1992, Australian journalist and the ABC's London correspondent, Tony Jones, hired Ferguson to help him on a story about French politics. Ferguson and Jones married a year later.^[5]

In 2017, the honorary degree of Doctor of Letters was conferred on Ferguson by the University of Sydney for excellence in journalism.^[6]

In 2000, Ferguson worked as a reporter for Dateline and Insight. In 2004 she joined the Sunday program on Channel Nine and in 2008 joined Four Corners, the ABC's long form current affairs program. Her first story was an investigation into political fundraising. She was nominated for a record four Walkley Awards in 2007.

In 2011, Ferguson reported on the live cattle export trade in Australian cattle to Indonesia. The episode, "A Bloody Business", won the Gold Walkley Award and led to suspension of the trade.^[7][8][9] Ferguson won the Logie for Most Outstanding Public Affairs Report in 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013. She also won the George Muster Award and the Queensland Premier's Literary Awards for her reporting on people smuggling and the toxic culture within the rugby league.

In 2014, Ferguson hosted 7.30 and her interviews with the Australian treasurer Joe Hockey were nominated for a Walkley for journalistic excellence. They would later be described as "aggressive" and "the tone of the questioning could have been interpreted by some viewers to be a potential breach of the ABC's impartiality guidelines".^[10][11][12]

In 2014, Ferguson caused controversy at the Walkley Awards when she publicly railed against job cuts at the ABC.^[13][14][15] Ferguson presented two major series for the ABC in 2015. She wrote and presented The Killing Season, a documentary series on the Rudd / Gillard years, analysing the events of the Labor governments of 2007 to 2013. Ferguson interviewed Australian Labor Party decision-makers and strategists who had engaged in internal conflict that brought down a government which had successfully countered the post-2008 global financial crisis. The series won the AACTA award for documentary in 2015.

In November 2015, Ferguson replaced Kerry O'Brien as host of Four Corners.

In 2017, as Ferguson was getting off a plane, she was told that her mother Marjorie had died suddenly in England. Later she became aware that hospital negligence had led to her mother's death. She wrote about the experience in her book On Mother.^[16]

In May 2017, Ferguson presented "The Siege", a two-part special investigating the siege at the Lindt Cafe in Martin Place, Sydney. Ferguson interviewed the families of Tori Johnson and Katrina Dawson and the surviving hostages and examined how authorities had failed to comprehend the risk posed by hostage-taker Man Haron Monis.^[17][18]

In June 2018, Ferguson presented and produced "Trump/Russia", a Four Corners three-part series on President Donald Trump and his connections to Russia. The series was filmed over several months in the United States, the United Kingdom and Russia.^[19] In November 2018, Ferguson reported and presented "Bitter End" about conflict within the ABC which led to the resignations of its managing director Michelle Guthrie and chair Justin Milne within one week.^[20]

On 5 July 2022, Ferguson replaced Leigh Sales as presenter of 7:30 on ABC.^[21]

Ferguson has collaborated with producer Nial Fulton on two documentary series for ABC. In 2016 she presented Hitting Home on domestic violence in Australia. The series won Best Documentary at the 2016 AACTA Awards^[22] and the Walkley Documentary Award.^[23]

In 2018, Ferguson started working on Revelation, a three-part documentary series for the ABC about the Catholic Church sexual abuse cases in Australia.^[24]

Revelation aired on ABC on 17 March, 31 March and 2 April 2020.^[25] Ferguson interviewed convicted Catholic priest Father Vincent Ryan and Bernard McGrath, a former religious brother from the Order of St John of God. Her interview with Ryan was the first time anywhere in the world a still serving Catholic priest publicly discussed their sexual abuse of children.

In "Goliath", the third episode of Revelation, Ferguson interviewed two men, identified as Bernie and Peter Clarke, who accused Australian cardinal George Pell of sexually abusing them as boys when he was a priest in the Diocese of Ballarat and investigated their accusations. The alleged sexual abuse occurred when Pell spent time at the Catholic orphanage where the men resided in the 1970s.^[26]

Following Pell's acquittal and subsequent release from Barwon Prison, the producers temporarily removed the third episode of the series to include these developments before restoring the episode to the ABC iView platform.^[27] The ABC also released a statement which stood by the program's content, stating "The ABC has – and will continue to – report accurately and without fear or favour on stories that are in the public interest, including this one."^[27] On 13 April 2020, police began an investigation of the sex abuse allegations discussed in Revelation.^[28]

Following Revelation, Ferguson stepped down as presenter of Four Corners and accepted the role of China bureau chief for the ABC.^[3] After a year of political turmoil in the region, with journalists forced to leave China, her visa did not eventuate.^[29]

In 2020, the ABC announced Ferguson would take up a short term role as a "special reporter" in Washington in early 2021.^[30]

In August 2021, Ferguson's two-part report "Fox and the Big Lie" screened on Four Corners.^[31][32] It investigated how the Rupert Murdoch-owned American cable network Fox News allegedly became a propaganda vehicle for Donald Trump and helped destabilise America. Ferguson interviewed major Fox identities, including Gretchen Carlson and former Fox political editor Chris Stirewalt. Prior to broadcast, Fox News sent a legal threat to the ABC, stating that the broadcaster had "violated" its own standards by "exhibiting bias".^[33][34]

The Murdoch-owned newspaper The Australian published 45 articles in two days attacking the program, accusing the ABC of doing a "full frontal hit-job on Rupert Murdoch, NewsCorp and the US Fox News Channel".^[35] Episode 1 was watched by 586,000 viewers.^[36] News Corp denied there had been a coordinated campaign against the program.^[33] The ABC said the News Corp response was expected and that "the striking uniformity of the attacks from News Corp journalists, commentators and outlets ... has only further served to highlight the importance of having a range of independent voices in the Australian media. News Corp not liking a story does not mean the story is biased or inaccurate".^[37]

Ferguson responded to the threat of legal action by Fox News, stating that "We're not in fear of anything ... there are fewer more important stories to look at in America right now."^[38]

In the second episode of Fox and the Big Lie, Ferguson's interview with former federal prosecutor and Trump lawyer Sidney Powell generated international headlines^[39][40] as Powell struggled to answer questions about her claims Smartmatic and Dominion were involved in rigging the 2020 Presidential Election. Ferguson asked Powell what fact-checking she had done to find out what Smartmatic's actual involvement in the election was. Powell responded that she was confused as to why Ferguson was interviewing her. Ferguson explained it was because Powell had made a series of very strong allegations against Smartmatic and Dominion, containing 'many errors of fact.' Ferguson then said 'You said Smartmatic owns Dominion. How do you justify such a basic factual error?' Powell walked out of the interview, only to reluctantly come back and continue to stick to her baseless claims.^[41][42]

After Powell said the election fraud had been planned for at least three years, Ferguson asked her: Do you ever hear yourself and think it sounds ridiculous? Powell replied: No. I know myself very well. I've been me a long time. ^[43][44]

The Australian Communications and Media Authority finalised a year-long investigation on 19 December 2022 which was prompted by various complaints about the story by Fox News.^[45] Although the ACMA dismissed most of the complaints, they did find that Ferguson's report had breached two standards in the ABC Code of Practice 2019 - standard 2.2 (materially misled) and standard 5.1 (inform participants of the nature of their participation).^[45][46]

The ACMA concluded that the program omitted key information that resulted in information being conveyed in a way that materially misled the audience.^[45] The ACMA found that the ABC failed to include information about two Fox News presenters (Sean Hannity and Jeanine Pirro) being censured after appearing at a Donald Trump rally and also neglected to report on the role social media played prior to the Capitol riots.^[45] The ACMA also found that an interviewee (Jeanine Pirro) was not adequately informed about the way the program would be presented.^[45]

The ACMA rejected Fox News' suggestions that Ferguson's report was partisan.^[45] However, the ACMA reasoned that the program "came close to, but did not breach" the impartiality standards in the code, finding that there were instances where Ferguson used "emotive and strident language" (specifically her use of the word "mob") but did show impartiality in her questioning.^[45]

In a statement, the ABC defended Ferguson's story.^[47] The organisation described Ferguson's story as a "world class report" and "a strong and measured piece of public interest journalism".^[47] The ABC criticised the ACMA by saying their interpretation of the code could have negative consequences for public interest journalism, and were "deeply concerned at the ACMA's subjective characterisation of the program".^[47]

Ferguson also publicly responded to the findings of the ACMA investigation.^[48] She accused the regulator of issuing an "inflammatory" media release and failing to understand journalism.^[48] Ferguson accused the ACMA of creating the impression that her story was misleading and dishonest when in fact that regulator had found only three minor subjective breaches and had dismissed 19 complaints.^[48] She also accused the ACMA of attempting to restrict the ABC's freedom in choosing the most relevant editorial focus of its programs which Ferguson considers to be central to the success of current affairs programs like Four Corners.^[48]

Ferguson's report was also defended by the ABC's director of news, analysis and investigations Justin Stevens who also criticised the ACMA's findings.^[49]

In April 2022, the ABC announced Ferguson would return to Australia to succeed Leigh Sales as the host of ABC TV's flagship news and current affairs program 7.30 from July 2022.^[2]

• 2008 – Buying Back The River
• 2009 – Code of Silence^[50]
• 2011 – A Bloody Business^[51]
• 2012 – Another Bloody Business^[52]
• 2012 – Growing Up Poor^[53]
• 2013 – Trading Misery^[54]
• 2015 – Hitting Home
• 2015 – The Killing Season
• 2016 – The Leaders^[55]
• 2017 – The Siege^[17]
• 2018 – Trump/Russia^[56]
• 2018 – Bitter End^[57]
• 2019 – Revelation
• 2021 - Fox and the Big Lie
• 2022 - Despair And Defiance: The Battle For Ukraine^[58]

• Ferguson, Sarah (2016), On Mother, Carlton, Victoria: Melbourne University Publishing, ISBN 978-0-522-87408-2
• Ferguson, Sarah; Drum, Patricia, (authors.) (2016), The Killing Season Uncut, Melbourne University Publishing, ISBN 978-0-522-86995-8{{citation}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) Carlton, Victoria : Melbourne University Publishing

• Profile on ABC website