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Nine apologises for 60 Minutes story -but not the one you were expecting

Nine forced to bury the hatchet with Queensland captain ahead of the State of Origin series.

The NRL Footy Show last night issued an on-air apology to Maroons skipper Cameron Smith.

“Before we get started, we know it’s been a difficult relationship between Channel Nine and yourself over the past 12 months,” Paul “Fatty’ Vautin said.

“With regards to those issues, on behalf of the Nine Network we want to apologise to you and your family.”

In 2015 60 Minutes spoke with Alex McKinnon about a devastating on-field neck injury in 2014. In the report McKinnon blasted Cameron Smith for arguing with the official about the resulting penalty.

But reports later emerged that Smith’s comments were made after McKinnon had left the field. He was also not given the opportunity to defend himself in the story, with Producer Tom Malone saying the report was “Alex’s story.”

Smith then refused all Nine interviews ahead of the State of Origin decider.

With State of Origin season less than a week away, Nine has now buried the hatchet with the Queensland captain.

“It has been a difficult 12 months,” Smith acknowledged, “and I want to thank you for that apology on behalf of the network.

“I think it’s no secret I was pretty disappointed with the 60 Minutes episode that aired last year and everything that happened afterwards too. That was probably the most disappointing thing. I thought it took away from a beautiful story about Alex McKinnon and his fiancee Teigan. That was something we should have been focussing on and celebrating. But that’s in the past now.”

5 Responses

  1. of course they apologized Origin starts soon so now they can talk to the QLD captain that is the only reason , otherwise why wait til now , why not do it before the season started

  2. Agree with others, its not Vautins job or place to apologize for the errors of the 60 Mins “journalists” – guess it was the only time that Smith would give the time of day to any Nine personnel for totally unsurprising reasons but its still a claytons apology in my opinion unless it comes from someone high up in Nines News and Current Affairs division.

    1. Would only rate that as a quarter-arsed apology. Really poor effort and, as already said, should have been made by the people who had done the deeds being apologised for. Sixty Minutes has really being covering itself in glory lately (glory=poo).

      Still waiting on Nine to release the report on their review of the Lebanese kidnapping.

  3. Possibly the worst on air apology I’ve ever seen. And why did Fatty have to read it from a piece of paper? It was a five second apology. It was promoted as a big apology to a legend of the game and it ended up being 20 words. And why would Fatty Vautin be the one apologising? He didn’t have anything to do with the original story. Really poor in my opinion.

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