Nine sacks Brisbane staff, accepts resignation following “Chopper-gate” debacle
QTQ's Director of News Lee Anderson has resigned from Nine and three staff have been sacked after live helicopter crosses were faked by Nine News.
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The Nine Network has sacked three staff in the wake of faked live crosses to reporters in a helicopter and accepted the resignation of QTQ’s Director of News Lee Anderson.
Anderson said in a letter, “This morning I tender my resignation as Director of News accepting full responsibility for the events of the last few days. I have served this network to the best of my ability for almost 25 years. It has been a privilege and I wish the team all the very best.”
Following his resignation, two reporters, Cameron Price and Melissa Mallet, have been terminated. News Producer Aaron Wakely has also been dismissed.
Nine launched an inquiry following the revelation that two live crosses during weekend bulletins purported to be “near Beerwah” but were actually near Nine’s Mt. Cooth-tha studios. It was revealed one of the two crosses didn’t even require the helicopter to leave Nine’s helipad.
Nine Queensland Managing Director, Kylie Blucher and Nine’s Director of News and Current Affairs, Mark Calvert said in a joint statement: “This has obviously been a very difficult process, but our primary consideration was always Nine News’ commitment to accuracy. This is critical not only to our charter, but to maintaining the trust we have developed with our audience over a very long period.”
Nine Managing Director Jeffrey Browne said: “Our position is unequivocal. We rightly demand accountability and high standards of others, and we must meet those expectations ourselves. Over the weekend, we did not. Our clear determination is to ensure that sort of conduct is never repeated, and we have drawn a very clear line in the sand by removing the staff involved in in that breach of trust with our viewers.”
Last night QTQ News apologised to viewers for the ‘misrepresentation’ in its weekend bulletins.
In a statement Nine advises that ‘newsroom procedures and lines of communication have been reviewed, resulting in immediate changes to QTQ’s news gathering guidelines. All News staff will receive further training on their editorial, legal and code obligations.’
TV Tonight understands an unfair dismissal case by some of the parties is now under consideration.
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79 Responses
Whoever thought this was a good idea was a bloody idiot.
What would Kerry Packer say!!
Straight out of Frontline. Classic.
Shame shame shame channel 7. News …on saturday….fronting up to the morcombe home on saturday evening……this wasn’t an interview…..but harrassment…..if journalists could not have the sensitivity to realise that he had asked him far too many questions and it was time to stop……but they persisted ….to extract more and more from mr. Morcombe….this warrants sacking…..i felt sick watching it.
As for channel 9….at no time did they state they were….at beerwah…..but ……near beerwah….there is a big difference……
they were obviously trying to re-enact the happenings of the day when the choppers were….at beerwah….by re-creating the scene for their viewers…..
It is a sensitive story……which was brought to us from channel 9 studios to our lounge room with that same sensitivity by news anchor, eva milic…….well done.
Channel 9 should re-consider and re-instate cameron price, melissa mallet…..aaron wakely and lee anderson.
I don’t believe for one minute that channel 7 have not stretched things a little….and stated that they were near somewhere…..but may have been 3 houses down…..where do you draw the line…….
Remember they were …..near beerwah……..not at beerwah…..there is a difference.
JM , I read in Courier Mail today that the helicopter proof was through it being tracked by Aviation map, I’m not sure if that is through airport or not???
I first became aware of all this brouhaha in the Courier Mail personally,so I’m assuming a leak of some sort, Channel 7 has been reporting on it, surprise there!!!, and channel 9 gave a brief story and apology on it the other night.
Ten News Sydney always say their reporter is located in Pyrmont and then we see them one story up in the Channel Ten building with the Ten News studio in the background. I don’t thinks there’s anything wrong with what they did. It happens time to time. I would have been surprised is they were suspended let alone sacked.
@JM, Air Services Australia records apparently show that the chopper involved in the Saturday night “live cross” was actually circling above Nine’s studios. On Sunday night, Seven News recorded footage of the second chopper that was supposedly “near Beerwah”was in fact sitting on Nine’s helipad going nowhere. I don’t live in Brisbane, so I don’t know if Seven News there showed the footage they filmed it as part of their Sunday bulletin, or whether they leaked it to the press after the fact. Either way, it is a really bad look for Nine. Really bad, credibility shattering look.
Was the content of the story correct? Yes, then who really cares where they were while reporting it!
As bad as this is and as much as i hate Nine News, they don’t deserve to be sacked over the matter. They were told where and when to report from and only followed what they have been told i would have thought. If anyone should be sacked over this its the head of Nine News not the journo who is only trying to do their job. This is just an absurd thing. Its a bad look but its Nines fault not the journo.
Did Channel 7 release the footage of the Helicopter circling? Or did it just appear out of thin air? Did 7 report on it? or leak it to a newspaper?
I always remember my mother saying:
“believe half of what you see and none of what you hear.”
Take the “I don’t need news challenge”. I did.
Don’t read the paper.. don’t watch TV news.. and your life will be so much happier.
Yes.. happier.
What is called news these days is not much more than gossip and fear, with lists of accidents and fatalities from near and far.
What passes for current affairs now is little more than ‘creative’ ways to promote products.
Stop watching this s#it, read a book, learn something, talk to the people you share your house with and you will discover what really matters to You.
Actually just read in paper they were caught out when Melissa Mallet was doing her report from inside the chopper Sitting on the helipad at Mt Cootha while Cameron Price was in a chopper circling Mt Cootha.
Melissa’s actions happened in front of Channel 7 news crew.
Kinda asking for it…
Hmmm… says:
August 25, 2011 at 8:27 pm
“Journos have the right to refuse any orders that are in direct violation to the Code of Ethics. They had a choice to do this.”
Quite right. Well said. If a lesson is to be learnt, it goes to the training of young reporters. Are they taught the ethics of the craft?
You’re right, DB!! There totally is a smiley face in the lower left corner of this site.
I wonder how long that has been there.
I don’t understand the logic of people saying that the journos should be sacked by their employer for doing something (assumedly) that their employer asked them to do.
Also, I’ve just noticed a smiley face in the bottom left hand corner of the site. Has it always been there?
One of the more perverse media stunts of all time !
Jeffrey Brownes high standards weren’t present when, as MD of Nine Melbourne they faked that toilet footage a few months ago. Mr Browne is also the man who famously brought us the industry the term “boned” and “shit sandwich”. The rot starts at the top. Time for him to go.
I am amazed. I would have thought they’d just move them to their like-minded colleagues at Today Tonight. Does this mean that stealing footage from other channels and using it unattributed will now be a sackable offence at Nine??
Really people – calling for more people to be sacked, I think this was harsh enough as it is – surely channel 7 nose isn’t so clean! The anchor reads an autocue – isn’t producing the news and probably isnt keeping tabs on where all of the journalists are when they are reading the news (isn’t that the job of the producer????) What about the camera man, the pilot surely they knew – but for my part I think enough people have lost thier jobs over what is a ‘storm in a teacup’
it’s an interesting debate. Whilst I deplore the actions of Nine news in Brisbane, let’s look at other similar ‘creative crosses’ that occur every night.
Quite often TEN sydney news cross to Angela Bishop or one of their specialist reporters…But the cross is from the news set to the walkway one flight up! In fact if the reporter turned around they could wave at the news reader. Every network has done ‘live crosses’ to reporters on the roof, out the front, even the car park.
The fact is it’s just a bit of stage management to give the story more gravitas…the reality is the information would be the same so in many ways the location of the reporter is irrelevant.
Of more concern is the grey area between news and advertorial, such as the yellow brick road story on ACA last night. In my mind that is a far greater abuse of journalistic power than a live cross location. It is more a case for dismissal as well.
But will Jeff Browne sack his bosses wife?…probably not.
The lowering of standards of news and current affairs in this country is driven ultimately by us…the viewers. We prefer to watch the tabloid trash rather than shows with real journalistic integrity and there is nothing wrong with that, it’s everyone’s right to choose…but let’s not complain when we get what we seek.
They Do it all the on Gold Coast news or they have very good cameras and only use for the weather. when they do a live feed to Paul Burt doing the weather in winter, it was pitch black outside my place and on the tv it looked like it was done at least 45mins before. you could see background clear as day.
I don’t understand this obsession with having reporters “live, at the scene” even when what they are reporting on may have occurred many hours earlier. Even if the helicopter had actually been where it claimed to be, it would have been a stupid waste of resources as it was dark by that time. I suppose it’s all about news as showbiz.
They were found out by a tracking device of I think the Brisbane paper Courier Mail obtained, I guess a journo may have been eagle -eyed about background enough to suss it out .
I think it is sick what they did considering the story they were covering, they could of just said look, the weather’s gone too bad to fly out there after all, we’re mid flight back to Mt Cootha, and said the story from there.
Insensitive, awful thing they did.
I guess Nine bosses think this public sacrifice is necessary to ‘save the brand’.
No sympathy for the producer but none for the reporters either – in this life you’ve got to stand up for what is right, or live with the consequences of your decision.
Important life lesson there for all of us.
But in the business world the rot always starts at the top, so there should be some more sackings imo.
Agreed.. It could have happened to any news reader in the country. It’s unlucky, but she would have trusted the “behind the scenes” people to get the little details right.. and on this occasion they stuffed up.. big time. It’s a shambles.