Caroline Wilson lashes out over reporting on annulment of Sam McClure’s Quill award

Veteran football journalist Caroline Wilson has criticised media reports on the annulment of colleague Sam McClure’s Quill award as ‘inaccurate’.

Age sports reporter Sam McClure. Picture: Mathew Lynn

Veteran football journalist Caroline Wilson has criticised media reports on the annulment of colleague Sam McClure’s Quill award as “inaccurate”, but declined to identify any specific flaws in the stories covering the fallout.

Speaking on her latest podcast, Don’t Shoot the Messenger last week, the former Age chief football reporter discussed her colleague being stripped of his 2020 Quill award in the sports news category.

“For people who aren’t across the story it’s probably a little bit dull but it was a big issue last week and the Herald Sun made an absolute meal out of the story and inaccurately reported some of it,” she said on the podcast with co-host Corrie Perkin.

“But anyway, the point is this has now been deferred to another authority, an independent authority who are going to look at this whole question of removing awards after legal settlements or acknowledgments.”

Caroline Wilson. Picture: AAP

The Australian contacted The Age’s editor Gay Alcorn and Wilson about the claims of inaccuracies with the Herald Sun’s stories, but both declined to comment.

The stripping of McClure’s award was first revealed by The Australian earlier this month and came after issues arose with his story, “The camp that shattered a football club,” that The Age published on the front page on Sunday, July 5, 2020 and included serious allegations of what occurred on the camp.

Legal action was taken by the organisers of the camp, Queensland-based high-performance mindset training specialists Collective Mind and its operators, Derek Leddie and Amon Woulfe who denied any wrongdoing.

It was resolved this month that Nine would remove 13 articles that reported on the camp and were published between 2018 and last year.

The Age issued multiple apologies and removed the content from all its digital channels.

The Melbourne Press Club board voted unanimously to strip McClure of his award and give it to the highly commended entrant in the category, Herald Sun sports reporter Michael Warner. An independent review will be now held into the MPC’s decision.

Originally published as Caroline Wilson lashes out over reporting on annulment of Sam McClure’s Quill award