The withdrawal of Mahmood Fazal’s stories was mentioned on Media Watch last night.
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DUPED: FOOD EXPOSED – PART TWO
Monday 3 August at 8:30PM
Australians love chocolate. We eat more than 160,000 tonnes of it each year.
It is sold to us as a guilt-free pleasure. But few consumers know where cocoa comes from, or who pays the price for producing it.
In the second part of this major Four Corners investigation, Gold Walkley winner Adele Ferguson follows food supply chains from cocoa farms in West Africa to fruit farms in Australia, exposing the hidden human cost behind everyday food items.
This is the story behind the food on our supermarket shelves, the workers we rarely see, and the promises and labels consumers are asked to trust. After watching, you may never look at the food on your supermarket shelves the same way again.
The investigation begins in West Africa, where much of the world’s cocoa is grown, and goes inside the multibillion-dollar industry, where ethical certifications and sustainability claims on chocolate wrappers promise consumers they are making the right choice.
With rare access to remote communities and cocoa farms in Ghana, Four Corners examines whether these promises stand up to scrutiny.
Returning to Australia, Adele Ferguson traces the fruit on our supermarket shelves back to the farms where it is grown, hearing from workers who say exploitation is happening here too.
Across two continents, this investigation asks why exploitation persists despite decades of promises to stamp it out, and who is responsible for ensuring the food Australian’s buy is produced fairly?
Just bring on the Soylent Green and be done with it…
After its unprecedented move to remove two Four Corners episodes last Friday, the program really didn’t need even the most minor of hiccups. But another editorial snafu has hit the investigative heavyweight, after the first of a two-part investigation into the food industry led by Gold Walkley winners Adele Ferguson and Chris Gillett dropped this week.
Among a host of alarming conclusions, the investigation found that Australians “may have unknowingly eaten horse meat”. That distasteful revelation was in the headline of an online piece by the pair and another reporter, Madi Chwasta.
It didn’t stay unaltered for long. The ABC updated the piece with a fairly significant editor’s note at the bottom, telling readers the headline, caption and a line in the story had to be updated.
“The headline, a caption and a line in the story summary box have been updated to reflect the position of the NSW Food Authority which says that no horse meat has been detected in food for human consumption,” the editor’s note said.
Also see NSW Food Authority press release
Media Watch had part two tonight.
tonight, we’re going to raise new questions about another of Fazal’s mask-wearing characters — a so-called corporate cocaine slinger given the moniker ‘Remy’…
Now we’ve turned up a social media video, published by an unmasked ‘Remy’ within a year of the Four Corners going to air, claiming the core of the story she told on the program was an invention.
The story mentioned that last Friday (July 31), the ABC pulled a Background Briefing episode featuring ‘Remy’ rather than facing extensive questions about fact-checking and verification from Media Watch.
THE PRESIDENT VS THE FED
Monday 10 August at 8:30PM
US President Donald Trump is fighting for control of the institution that helps set the price of money around the world.
The US Federal Reserve’s decisions reverberate through global markets, influencing inflation and investment, including in Australia.
Four Corners brings you a Frontline production on the final term of Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell, tracing President Trump’s escalating campaign to force down interest rates and reshape the fiercely independent central bank.
Featuring current and former Federal Reserve officials, economists, and Trump allies, this story examines a power struggle with ramifications far beyond Washington DC.
The ABC’s head of investigations and current affairs Jo Puccini is leaving the public broadcaster (after 25 years) as it deals with the fallout from allegations relating to content produced by sacked Four Corners reporter Mahmood Fazal.
An all-staff email confirmed her exit on Thursday afternoon, two weeks after the ABC removed two Four Corners episodes following concerns raised internally over the veracity of sources used by Fazal.
Fazal has denied any wrongdoing in his reporting. There is no suggestion Puccini was aware of any issues with Fazal’s reporting at the time it went to air.
During her time at the broadcaster Puccini served in senior roles at some of the ABC’s most prominent programs, including Four Corners, Lateline and 7.30. She has held the investigations and current affairs role since 2022.