The Australian Communication and Media Authority's recent finding that Four Corners breached the ABC’s impartiality standard in its report Sacrifice (“the Program”) has been rejected by the ABC, reflecting arguments by the ABC's Editorial Director and Ombudsman in their response to ACMA's preliminary report. In this letter to the ACMA Chair, Nerida O'Loughlin, ABC Alumni adds it voice to the criticism, arguing that argue that ACMA’s investigation report fatally confuses “due impartiality” as it should be applied to a discussion program, on the one hand, and an exercise in investigative journalism, on the other.
27 September 2026
Ms Nerida O’Loughlin
Chair, Australian Communications and Media Authority
Dear Ms O’Loughlin,
ABC Alumni is an organisation of some two hundred former ABC staff and contractors who believe passionately in the need for a fearless and independent national broadcaster as a vital part of Australian democracy.
Among our members are people with experience of leading the ABC’s journalism in very senior positions for many years. We are not, however, associated with the ABC and no serving ABC director, executive or staff member has played any part in composing the contents of this correspondence.
We wrote to you in December 2022 about the ACMA’s finding that the Four Corners reports entitled Fox and the Big Lie breached two of the standards in the ABC’s editorial policies.
We commented that in our view that ACMA investigation “seriously damaged any claim that it is a body whose opinion as to what is or what is not good journalism is worth anything”.
We regret to have to say that the ACMA’s recent finding that Four Corners breached the ABC’s impartiality standard in its report Sacrifice (“the Program”) has compounded that lack of respect for the ACMA’s findings in the eyes of most professional journalists.
We agree with the ABC that the ACMA’s interpretation of the impartiality standard could have a “chilling effect on the body of investigative journalism”.
In fact, we agree with almost all the detailed arguments made to the ACMA in May this year by both the ABC’s Editorial Director and the ABC Ombudsman in response to your preliminary report.
We will not try your patience by repeating those arguments.
We would, however, argue that the ACMA’s investigation report fatally confuses “due impartiality” as it should be applied to a discussion program, on the one hand, and an exercise in investigative journalism, on the other.
Throughout its report, the ACMA refers to Mr Mark Willacy as the “host” of the Program. This is a term used in the industry to denote the presenter, anchor or moderator of a studio-based discussion program such as Insiders or the ABC National Forum.
In such programs, it is usually the task of the “host” (at least on ABC programs, if not on those of channels like News24) to moderate any discussion impartially and to ensure that a reasonable balance is maintained between contending parties.
The term is never used by professionals to describe the role fulfilled by Mr Willacy at Four Corners. He is a reporter, not a “host”. Like any reporter, his primary job is to help viewers decide where the truth is most likely to be found among contending claims and arguments. In this instance, the Australian National Audit Office (ANAO) and several highly qualified critics had found fault with the aims and management of the Australian War Memorial’s (AWM) $500 million renovation. Mr Willacy’s task was to summarise those criticisms fairly and accurately, and to elicit, fairly and accurately, the responses of responsible officials at the AWM.
In this kind of investigative reporting, the concept of “balance” is much less relevant. The yardsticks of “due impartiality” are factual accuracy, fairness, and a genuine pursuit of the public interest.
Yet, throughout its report, the ACMA’s wording, and its rulings, suggest that it thought Four Corners was setting out (or ought to have been setting out) to pitch “supporters” and “critics” of the AWM’s renovation in a “balanced” discussion.
On six different occasions in its report, the ACMA found that an action or inclusion would have made the Program “more balanced”, and on one occasion it found the Program “not balanced”.
In the same vein, the ACMA found fault with Mr Willacy for interviewing AWM officials in a more interrogatory style than its critics, as if he were the “host” of a studio discussion program. As the ABC’s Editorial Director complained, the ACMA exhibits no understanding of the difference between an explanatory interview and an interview holding public officials to account.
Similarly, the fact that there were 11 critics included in the Program, and only 3 AWM “supporters”, might be an indication of bias in a discussion program like the ABC National Forum or SBS’s Insight. If such a program were debating the pros and cons of the AWM’s renovation, it might well have been appropriate to have included recent veterans, and other “supporters” of the renovation. In this Four Corners investigation, Mr Beazley, Major General Melick, and Mr Anderson were not there as “supporters” of the AWM. They were there as public officials answerable for the responsible expenditure of half a billion taxpayer dollars.
The tests for due impartiality that the ACMA appears to consider indicated by the ABC’s editorial policies would leave little room for the rigorous investigations on which Four Corners has based its reputation for more than six decades.
In the ACMA’s media release, Ms O’Loughlin, you are quoted as saying:
“It is disappointing that the ABC chooses to regularly dispute the findings of the regulator when we stand in place of ordinary reasonable viewers in assessing its compliance with its Code.”
To our knowledge, the ABC has seldom disputed the regulator’s findings. The last occasion it did so was in 2022. The use of the word “regularly” is inaccurate and therefore inappropriate.
Perhaps the ACMA should ponder why some of its findings have evoked such scorn from those it seeks to regulate. The 21 September edition of Media Watch – a program not averse to forthright criticism of the ABC when occasion demands – provides one example.
The ABC, and indeed Four Corners, have been the subject of intense criticism on other matters in recent months, from its own Ombudsman among others. But in our opinion, Sacrifice was a rigorous but fair examination of a matter of legitimate public interest.
The ACMA, on this occasion as in the case of Fox and the Big Lie, seems to us to stand in place not of “ordinary reasonable viewers”, but of powerful, unreasonable complainants.
Yours sincerely
Dr Michael Ward
Chair, ABC Alumni Ltd.
