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60 Minutes: “We made mistakes”

Nine admits errors have led to a lot of "soul searching."

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Last night 60 Minutes addressed its Lebanon ordeal -briefly- with footage of its crew and Sally Faulkner reunited with family in Australia.

“In the past two weeks we’ve been limited in what we could say about Australian mum Sally Faulkner and our crew detained in Beirut. There’s one thing we want to state very clearly from the outset — we made mistakes,” Michael Usher said.

Usher said 60 Minutes staff and management had already begun interviews with its internal review panel, headed up by founding 60 Minutes producer Gerald Stone.

He also spoke briefly with Tara Brown, who said she thought Lebanese police would not view them as complicit.

“I really thought ‘We’re journalists, we’re doing our job, they will see reason, they’ll understand that,'” she said.

“That we are here just to do a story on a very, very desperate mother.”

Nine did not address payments that have been revealed by media.

Meanwhile Nine News boss Darren Wick has told News Corp, “We can’t sit here and think: ‘we didn’t do anything wrong, we had a bit of bad luck’. You make your own luck.

“We have to look at how we operate. We’ve wandered into a foreign country and basically walked into a storm.”

But Adam Whittington’s mother, Georgina, has pleaded with Nine for assistance.

“I don’t have any money, I don’t want any payment, but if you can help with my son’s legal fees and costs, that would be good,” she said.

13 Responses

  1. I have posted this comment elsewhere however when it comes to the people left behind. I do not think it is Nine’s responsibility to get the professionals out who were suppose to get the job done, They, as a company know the risks being undertaken in this line of work.

  2. Agree with all comments, channel 9 really do think they are above the law and can get themselves out of any situation with the offer of money, there really has been such a back lash about this story which is understandable and are they going to go through the heartache that Sally is going to have to endure for years to come about her children still in Lebanon, don’t think so, it would serve them right if they were recalled to Lebanon to face other charges but I don’t think that will happen as they only have to open their cheque books again to avoid that by the looks of things.

  3. Tara Brown’s response is utterly astonishing. With an entitled attitude like that it is no wonder that the sympathy for this debacle is from the general public is virtually zero and the only sympathy is coming from a select band of journalists.

  4. “…[we] walked into a storm.”

    They’re responsible for causing the bloody “storm”. All I see is a whole load of B.S. carefully articulated by their publicist. The type of morons who still watch current affairs programmes without an awareness of its farce will lap it up though. After all, we are living in a particularly enlightened age where people are throwing themselves at the likes of Donald Trump.

    It’s amazing how arrogant and conceited Nine sound, even when they are supposedly admitting to fault (I’m not convinced that they believe that they are though).

  5. Very disapointing comment from Tara brown, she has learned nothing, so will probably go forth without changing anything.

    Damien Wick not much better. “We’ve wandered into a foreign country and basically walked into a storm.”
    They didn’t walk into a storm, they created one.

  6. Not complicit . Without Ch.9 ‘s money there would be no story, no time in gaol and Sally would still have custody of her children. She is now far worse off because of 9.

  7. “He also spoke briefly with Tara Brown, who said she thought Lebanese police would not view them as complicit.”

    The way I see this, she still thinks they’re above the law. Incredible.

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