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Sacked Nine reporter speaks

Former Nine News reporter Melissa Mallet has spoken for the first time about last week's Choppergate scandal.

Former Nine News reporter Melissa Mallet has spoken for the first time about last week’s Choppergate scandal.

“While I don’t for a minute agree with the decision to take the job away from me and I do feel it is unfair, I’ve decided to accept it and just look towards the future and hope I do get to do the job again,” she told The Sunday Mail.

“I do feel let down. The viewer puts their trust in us and we certainly do put our trust in other people as well behind the scenes.

“The legal advice I had was pretty positive and reassuring that there was a case, but I obviously had to weigh up some options.”

Mallet says she had been leaving Nine’s Mt Coot-tha studios on Saturday when police confirmed a second shoe had been found at Beerwah but the search was over when she arrived.

Transmission problems forced her to head back for a live cross to the 6pm news bulletin. Those on board the chopper joked that the network would say they were still at Beerwah but “never for a minute” thought they actually would.

Mallet’s report did state images had been taken earlier (captured in daylight hours) but her live cross (after nightfall) was captioned “Near Beerwah.”

Meanwhile, her colleague Cameron Price has since visited the Morcombe family to explain his version of events.

A source said he was instructed by a producer to go ahead with the false cross from the helipad.

Nine also dismissed producer Aaron Wakely.

17 Responses

  1. i would like to see a tape…. that being a screen grab can sometime, and ima not saying that it is now, but sometimes a moment in time can be misleading…

    thats is all

  2. The newsreader throw was to ‘… near the search site in the Nine News chopper’.

    Both reporters had ample time to correct this at the beginning of their crosses – but didn’t.

    It’s sad because they’re both so talented… but given the amount of pre-production and radio communication prior to a cross, it’s difficult to believe no one confirmed their location.

  3. The real issue here is that three employees had their employment terminated without being given the opportunity of procedural fairness. In other words, these employees have the right to be officially warned and to have an opportunity to reform their workplace practice and improve their performance. This is something that employers in other sectors industry accept as standard practice. Why does Channel Nine think it is exempt from this? If what Ms Mallet says is true then she certainly has a case for unfair dismissal and all employees of broadcasters in Australia should offer her, Mr Price and Mr Wakely their support. If we accept Channel 9’s actions as satisfactory, then all of us as media employees are accepting the weakening of our own workplace rights.

  4. Nein just need to caption any footage they show on their news as “re-enactment”, whether it’s someone leaving cash in their toilets, a live cross, whatever. Just to be sure.

  5. Why didn’t they just have her back in the studio?… I prefer seeing them sit at the desk explaining their story rather than grainy skype footage or dressed up in Madonna head gear microphones.

  6. @Secret Squirrel, LOL!!! Gold!!!

    @Stan, no, not a fanboi (wrong sex) and I have never worked in the media industry. The lines about shredding its credibility and bringing it into disrepute aren’t mine. I read those in an article in the press last week – it is a quote from one of the Nine executives involved in making the decision to sack them. I wish they were my lines, but alas, I’m not that original.

  7. When will people finally realise that Seven will do anything to be number 1 and love playing dirty. Enough is enough. You are number 1, we get it. There is no need to destroy the opposition

  8. Allie, do you happen to work for Nine or are you just another fanboi? Never read such rubbish before! Such lines as, “… for bringing the Nine News broadcast into disrepute and for shredding its credibility,” can’t have been written with a straight face… Could they?

  9. Shouldn’t it be the douche who put the caption ‘near Beerwah’ who gets fired, rather than the reporters who were oblivious to the whole thing?

    Nein are at it again

  10. It’s not a conspiracy, they were sacked for bringing the Nine News broadcast into disrepute and for shredding its credibility. Also, fudging a report concerning the possible remains of a dead child is deeply insensitive and frankly, intolerable. Nine News has been behind Seven for several years now and they simply can’t afford incidents like this to occur. It is testament to how furious the powers-that-be at Nine were and whilst the sacking seems harsh, I think it is justified.

  11. So was nine just looking to downsize their news crew at Mt Cootha and decided this was the perfect way? That’s been my thinking from the beginning of all this this. Those young reporters would have had to answer to someone – surely they don’t make decisions like that! And it happened twice and with two different journalists that smacks of someone higher up making the decisions not those kids.

  12. This is an interesting point. Did the reporters say they were there, or was it only the anchor and captions that said it?

    And, more importantly, I bet there isn’t a single News organisation, be they TV, radio, or newspaper, across the world, who hasn’t fudged the facts just slightly, in ways that don’t affect the information they’re imparting. This seems very unfair.

  13. I knew there was more to this, I don’t think she deserved to be sacked when she clearly didn’t put up the caption or make the decision. Hope she’s successful in the lawsuit!

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