Sarah Ferguson to replace Leigh Sales as host of ABC’s 7.30 program

Investigative reporter Sarah Ferguson will replace Leigh Sales as the presenter of ABC nightly current affairs flagship, 7.30, in July.

Ferguson, who has been reporting from Washington DC for two years, is a forensic long-form reporter and a tough interviewer whose work made headlines when she fronted 7.30 for six months in 2014.

Her opening gambit to then Liberal treasurer Joe Hockey on budget night was: “It’s a budget with a new tax, with levies, with co-payments. Is it liberating for a politician to decide election promises don’t matter?”

The interview was nominated for a Walkley award and attracted accusations of bias, which the ABC rejected.

“These are challenging times nationally and internationally, scrutiny of power is at a premium, but I have also witnessed in the US the destructive force of rancorous political division,” Ferguson, 56, said on Friday.

“On a brighter note, I expect to enjoy the role hugely, interviewing is one of the true thrills of journalism. Working in collaboration with the inimitable Laura Tingle is irresistible.”

The former Four Corners presenter and reporter had a run-in with News Corporation last year after her two-part Four Corners program Fox and the Big Lie took a critical look at Fox News and its relationship with Donald Trump.

News Corp Australia responded by publishing 45 articles in just two days attacking the public broadcaster and Fox News sent a legal threat, saying the ABC had “clearly violated” its own standards by “exhibiting bias and a failure to maintain any level of impartiality in the presentation of news and information”.

The complaint was investigated by audience and consumer affairs and was not upheld.

The ABC managing director, David Anderson, said ABC audiences know and respect Ferguson. “Her work has set an unparalleled standard, not only in Australian journalism but internationally, as evidenced by her recent reporting from Ukraine,” Anderson said.

The ABC’s new director of news, Justin Stevens, who has been the executive producer of 7.30, said Sales has done a “superb job” anchoring the program for the past 12 years.

“The nightly role 7.30 plays in holding to account those in power is a key part of the democratic process and Sarah, along with the rest of the team, will ensure we continue the program’s proud history of delivering agenda-setting public affairs journalism,” Stevens said.

Launched as a state-based program in 1986, 7.30 has been a national program since 1996 when Kerry O’Brien hosted until he stood down in 2010.

In 2021 7.30’s national audience averaged 980,000 viewers a night with an audience share of around 13% in metro markets and 12.5% in regional areas, according to ABC figures.

Ferguson joined the ABC in 2008 after working for SBS and the Nine network after arriving from the UK and France. She has won five Walkley Awards, including the 2011 Gold Walkley for “A Bloody Business”, an expose of Australia’s live cattle trade.

Her documentary work includes the 2015 series on the Rudd-Gillard years, The Killing Season, and in the same year a landmark series on domestic violence, Hitting Home.

In 2020 she presented Revelation, a ground-breaking documentary series on the criminal priests and brothers of the Catholic church.