Last night, 60 Minutes aired its mea culpa – a scathing episode into the botched Beirut kidnapping and the fallout that followed.
Talking to reporter Michael Usher, 60 Minutes founder and former executive producer Gerald Stone slammed the actions of the 60 Minutes team, wondering just how they’d managed to cock things up so badly.
“There were ways to do it that could have reduced those risks, but to try and cover a parental kidnapping in one of the most heavily-guarded capitals of the world was a bridge too far,” he said.
“I just though, and it’s amazing to me, that a program that bases itself on asking the right questions, didn’t think to ask those questions itself.”
The program comes two days after the Nine Network published an independent review of ‘the incident’, which found that it was “inappropriate” for 60 Minutes to pay a child recovery agent $115,000 to retrieve Sally Faulkner‘s children.
Reporter Tara Brown, cameraman Ben Williamson and sound recordist David Ballment received formal cautions following the review, while executive producer Stephen Rice copped the lion’s share of the blame and got the sack.
Stone criticised Rice’s sacking, saying that Nine’s chief executive Hugh Marks had acted unfairly in doing so.
“I felt very strongly that as long as management was not completely in supervision of the program, that it seemed to me unfair, and I am a journalist, that a journalist should be picked out,” he said, but added: “If anyone was going to be picked out it would have to be the producer … because things do rest heavily on the role of a producer.”
“The fact is, there is a lot to learn from this experience for us at #60Mins & the entire Network.” – @MichaelUsherhttps://t.co/KK7VhRSMvh
— 60 Minutes Australia (@60Mins) May 29, 2016
Photo: Nine Network / 60 Minutes.
