Senior ABC figures bristle at ACMA’s ruling that January 6 rioters were not a ‘mob’

Senior figures at the ABC have come out in staunch opposition to a “subjective” ruling from the media regulator, which found it had misled its audience in a two-part Four Corners program probing Fox News’ coverage of former US president Donald Trump. 

ABC news analysis and investigations director Justin Stevens took to the broadcaster’s PM radio show on Wednesday to defend what he called an “outstanding piece of journalism”, and query the “subjective” nature of the Australian Communications and Media Authority’s (ACMA) findings. 

“We think it sets a precedent which could place undue pressure on content makers when selecting an editorial focus for fear of potential breach,” he said. 

“The ACMA effectively criticise the ABC with a subjective view of what they believe we ought to have published editorially, and the things they imply ought to have been included would not have been good journalism in our view, and nor is it their role to express a subjective view of what we publish editorially.”

After a year-long investigation prompted by a Fox News complaint, ACMA found the series, which was titled “Fox and the Big Lie” and aired in 2021, had omitted key information “in a way that materially misled the audience”. 

The regulator also concluded in a 65-page report released on Wednesday that one interview subject wasn’t properly informed about the way she’d later be framed.

The report found that the series had left out key information in two instances: first, in relation to the role social media played in the January 6 2021 riots, and second, by omitting Fox’s censure of two presenters who appeared at a Trump rally in 2018. 

The third breach of the broadcaster’s code of conduct came when Fox host Jeanine Pirro was approached for an interview outside Fox News headquarters in New York, without giving her the appropriate context.

“By omitting key information, the ABC did not give its audience the opportunity to make up their own minds about Fox News,” ACMA chair Nerida O’Loughlin said.

The investigation also found the program’s host, Sarah Ferguson, had used “emotive and strident language” to describe rioters at the US Capitol, who she called a “mob”. On other occasions, the watchdog found it inappropriate to describe Fox News hosts as “outrage generators” or the network as a “propaganda vehicle”. 

Stevens stood by the language, which has been adopted by major news outlets such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, and even the BBC throughout their coverage of the riots last year. 

“I’ve searched this before and the definition of mob is a large group of people, especially one that is disorderly or intent on causing trouble or violence,” he said. “So it’s completely unclear to me how the ACMA could assert that the crowd on January 6 at the Capitol building was not a mob.

“This was an extremely serious event in the democratic process in the US and calling what occurred there that day a ‘mob’ is factually accurate.”

Staff at the public broadcaster have remained broadly tight-lipped over the watchdog’s findings, save for Four Corners reporter Louise Milligan, who on Wednesday tweeted out against ACMA’s issue with the word “mob”, and Ferguson, who tweeted out links to the two-part series again, without comment.