Absolutely wild scenes emerging from the frequently insular and bafflingly self-serving Australian journalism industry over the weekend, with a row developing between two prominent journos from rival networks involving a very loose and hastily-deleted tweet that has since escalated to the point of legal threats.
She’s a spicy meat-a-ball, this one. Strap in.
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The story goes that Edwina Bartholomew, currently in London on assignment for Sunrise, went after Nine News Melbourne reporter Seb Costello in a very loose Tweet, the details of which are apparently too loose to print in full.
Costello filed a report from outside Victoria State Parliament on Thursday afternoon after Spring St was briefly shut down by police following a security scare. That breaking news video was posted to the Nine News Melbourne Twitter account a short time later.
SPRING ST: @SebCostello9 is outside Parliament on #springst that was shut down over a security scare. #9News pic.twitter.com/svtOogMeYp
— 9News Melbourne (@9NewsMelb) September 12, 2019
Over twelve hours later, in the early AM on Saturday, Bartholomew has allegedly fired a shot that’s put subsequently put her in the crosshairs of potential defamation proceedings.
In a Tweet that stayed live for around 50 minutes before being removed, Bartholomew replied to the Nine News post, stating “Surprisingly accurate for a [redacted],” with that offending – and now-censored – final word being the source of legal contention.
Industry blog TV Blackbox got a screenshot of Bartholomew’s offending post before it was zapped from her feed, choosing to black out the final word of the post. However we are lead to believe it begins with C and ends with something other than the obvious You Next Tuesday.
Despite taking the tweet down, senior Nine bosses are said to be openly fuming about the slight and legal action against Bartholomew and, by extension, Channel Seven is reportedly being strongly considered.
Bartholomew issued a hasty apology this morning, blaming it on being “half-asleep” on the other side of the world.
“I was half asleep and on the other side of the world. My apologies to Seb and all involved. No offence was intended and hopefully none was taken.”
“It was clearly a mistake and the errant tweet has been deleted.”
Who knows where the hell this absolute mess goes from here, but like most things involving biffing Australian media outlets, it’s sure as shit not going to be pretty.
Neither Nine (who wholly owns this publication but has yet to let me use their corporate boxes at the footy) nor Seven have issued public comment on the matter following Bartholomew’s apology this morning.
