Criticism hot on heels of glamorous take on ABC’s women

ABC investigative reporter Sarah Ferguson might feel she dodged a bullet when she didn’t turn up for a photo shoot for Fairfax magazine’s Sunday Life cover story“Powerhouse Women of the ABC: How the ABC’s Female Journalists are Changing the Newsroom”.

Ferguson had gone straight from making the brilliant political documentary series The Killing Season into working on her next project, a challenging three-part special on domestic violence, and was simply too stretched to keep the commitment.

Sunday Life writer Erin O’Dwyer explained her absence from the early morning photo call thus: “Four Corners reporter Sarah Ferguson cancels at the last minute, amid good-humoured ribbing that the Gold Walkley winner would rather be on the road than in a make-up chair.”

Given the ribbing that has gone on since the ABC high-fliers appeared in the magazine spread, we are sure Ferguson was happy to be on the road. But seven of Ferguson’s female colleagues did turn up, including Annabel Crabb who, O’Dwyer reports, needed two hairdressers to get her curls ready for the shoot.