Sarah Ferguson

Sarah Ferguson (born 3 February 1965) is an Australian journalist, reporter and television presenter. She is the host of ABC TV's flagship news and current affairs program 7.30. She was previously a journalist for Dateline, Insight, Sunday and Four Corners.

Personal life

Ferguson was born in Lagos, Nigeria, in 1965 to Iain and Marjorie. In a teenage essay she said that she wanted to be "a commando and a librarian in the British House of Commons".

Ferguson married journalist Tony Jones in 1992 or 1993. They have three sons, including one from Jones' previous relationship.

Career 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 won the Logie for Most Outstanding Public Affairs Report in 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013.

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".

In 2014, Ferguson caused controversy at the Walkley Awards when she publicly railed against job cuts at the ABC. Ferguson presented two 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. 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.

In May 2017, Ferguson presented "The Siege", a two-part special investigating the 2014 Sydney hostage crisis 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.

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. 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.

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

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.

Documentaries 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 and the Walkley Documentary Award.

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

Revelation aired on ABC on 17 March, 31 March and 2 April 2020. Ferguson interviewed convicted Catholic priest Father Vincent Ryan and Bernard McGrath, a former religious brother from the Order of St John of God. {primary source inline|date=March 2026

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.

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. 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".

"Fox and the Big Lie" In August 2021, Ferguson's two-part report "Fox and the Big Lie" screened on Four Corners. 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 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".

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". Episode 1 was watched by 586,000 viewers. News Corp denied there had been a coordinated campaign against the program.

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".

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 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.

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.

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. 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).

The ACMA concluded that the program omitted key information that resulted in information being conveyed in a way that materially misled the audience. The organisation described Ferguson's story as a "world class report" and "a strong and measured piece of public interest journalism". She accused the regulator of issuing an "inflammatory" media release and failing to understand journalism.

Filmography

2008 – Buying Back The River 2009 – Code of Silence 2011 – A Bloody Business 2012 – Another Bloody Business 2012 – Growing Up Poor 2013 – Trading Misery 2015 – Hitting Home 2015 – The Killing Season 2016 – The Leaders 2017 – The Siege 2018 – Bitter End 2019 – Revelation 2021 – Fox and the Big Lie 2022 – Despair and Defiance: The Battle for Ukraine