Carey CCTV: Did Seven pay?

In covering the news story of Wayne Carey’s arrest in Melbourne, Seven News tonight aired “exclusive” CCTV footage of the ex-footballer being taken into custody.

The footage showed a handcuffed and apparently confused Carey being escorted by police into his apartment block lift and onto the street.

As exclusives go, it was good imagery to go with the day’s top news story. Seven News presenter Peter Mitchell also chatted with reporter Dylan Howard who was covering the event. The footage was also used on Today Tonight.

But over at Nine, their story relying on eyewitness accounts made mention of the fact that it had been approached by a security guard wanting $20,000 for CCTV footage. Nine claims it refused to pay for the footage believing it to be stolen goods. Carey, of course, is a sports commentator on Nine’s own Footy Classified and AFL Footy Show.

So the question now arises, has Seven paid for stolen video footage? Or did they find another creative way to get the pictures of the day?

Last year Seven News got into trouble after a “drugs in sport” story using AFL players’ private medical records -records for which it had paid. It later learned the records had been stolen and a police raid was conducted on the premises of Seven’s newsroom. Seven complied with police investigations, but it’s not a great image for a newsroom to be creating the news. Angry Melbourne viewers turned off in droves as a result.

Getting the upper hand in News is crucial to the big media players. In the two weeks that Seven News and National Nine News Melbourne has returned from summer broadcasts, Peter Hitchener has beaten Peter Mitchell every night thus far.

And in one final question mark over the use of Carey CCTV footage…… the reporter for Seven tonight was again Dylan Howard -the same reporter who covered the AFL story using illegally-obtained medical records.

UPDATE: The Nine Network said police were investigating how the footage was obtained. A security guard offered Nine the same footage for $20,000 but the network did not buy it because it was feared the images were stolen, Nine reporter Tony Jones said tonight. Source: Herald Sun.