60 Minutes kidnapping: Senior producer departs network as internal review censures staff
CHANNEL Nine has sacked a favourite son to save its flagship news program in the wake of the disastrous Beirut kidnapping story.
NSW
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SIXTY Minutes senior producer Stephen Rice has been sacked by the Nine Network after being singled out as the main person responsible for the program’s disastrous Beirut child kidnapping story involving Brisbane mother Sally Faulkner.
It comes despite the internal review into the scandal explicitly recommending against this course of action.
Insiders confirmed that at least five other Nine Network staff were also “censured” over their involvement in the story — but they got to keep their jobs. These include three other members of the crew who were imprisoned in Beirut — most notably star 60 Minutes reporter Tara Brown — as well as former 60 Minutes executive producer Tom Malone and the show’s current EP Kirsty Thomson.
Malone was recently promoted to become Nine’s head of sport.
The scathing internal review into the kidnapping story, led by the founding 60 Minutes boss Gerald Stone, recommended “management censure, in the strongest terms, those most directly involved in the events”.
However, it also said: “the review panel does not recommend that any staff member should be singled out for dismissal given the degree of autonomy accorded to 60 Minutes.”
Nine chief executive Hugh Marks confirmed last night he had personally “terminated” Mr Rice’s employment yesterday in a meeting at the company’s HQ also involving the network’s head of news and current affairs Darren Wick.
A close friend of Rice contacted by The Saturday Telegraph last night expressed anger about his treatment.
“Steve has been made the fall guy,” the friend said. “He worked for the network for 28 years, and he was ambushed when he was called in yesterday. He’d previously been told that no one was would lose their jobs on this matter. Let’s just say this: he didn’t send himself to Lebanon.”
No-one at @Channel9 has deeper credentials in serious journalism than #StephenRice. He's now the scapegoat for the #60mins fiasco.
— Hugh Riminton (@hughriminton) 27 May 2016
The @60Mins soundman gets a formal warning, but senior show executives get off scott free for #childabduction fiasco. Bizarre @Channel9
— Hugh Riminton (@hughriminton) 27 May 2016
The decision to single out Rice was also met with criticism elsewhere.
Hugh Riminton, the award-winning Channel 10 anchor, dubbed Rice the “scapegoat” for the “fiasco”.
But Mr Marks defended the decision: “Why Stephen and not others? There have been many people involved in this story where mistakes have been made, but the producer is the one who carries primary responsibility. I think Stephen is the one who’s responsible. And it’s had a dramatic impact on the network, or the program in particular, and has cost us money and continues to cost us money as the proceedings in Lebanon continue to drag on.”
Mr Marks confirmed he and Wick had also personally met with Brown yesterday about the report, saying that she would be “back to work” for Nine next week.
Stone’s report warns 60 Minutes had “begun to blur the line between stories of genuine public interest and those catering to public curiosity”.
It also states that a range of “critically relevant questions” had not been raised on the story “by the executive producer who approved it (Malone), the senior producer who proposed it (Rice) or the reporting team that volunteered to participate in it”.
The questions not asked had included: whether Nine was effectively encouraging Faulkner “to commit some unlawful act in Lebanon”; if “any of the staff of Nine (were) participating in an unlawful activity in Lebanon?”; and if “the interest in telling Ms Faulkner’s story sufficiently outweigh(ed) the risks which are involved in producing the story?”
Wick was cleared of any involvement: “The degree of autonomy granted to 60 Minutes was so great … the executive producer saw no need to consult with the director of news and current affairs on the wisdom of commissioning this story.”
The report concludes Ms Faulkner’s story, in which she had lost custody of her kids to her Lebanese husband, “warranted coverage”.
“It points to the sometimes insurmountable hurdles … in dealing with the inevitable ‘tug-of-love’ conflicts between estranged spouses who wish to live in different countries.”
But it went on to state that Faulkner’s story “could have been told in a number of ways that did not expose Nine to formidable risks”.
The review panel found the reporting team had formed “a genuine emotional attachment to Ms Faulkner and as they saw it, the justice of her cause”.
“Worthy as that might sound, such commitment has its obvious pitfalls in coverage of a custody dispute between parents of different nationalities,” the report states.
“In this case, it led to 60 Minutes grossly underestimating a number of factors, not least being the power or willingness of a foreign government to enforce its laws. That type of misjudgment is not to be expected of seasoned journalists and is bound to tarnish the program’s worldwide reputation for credible reportage.”
The panel interviewed the staff who were involved in the planning and execution of the Faulkner story, as well as other 60 Minutes staff wanting to contribute their views.
“Those directly involved had no hesitation in agreeing that there had been a series of inexcusable failures,” the report states. “If Nine’s usual procedures had been adhered to, the errors of judgment may have been identified earlier, with the result that the story would not have been undertaken at all, or at least not in the way in which it was implemented.
“… It could have been executed with the 60 Minutes crew maintaining a more appropriate distance from the events occurring in Beirut.
“This would have protected the crew from the risk of imprisonment in Beirut and may also have lessened the impact on Nine’s reputation, although that is still tarnished by Nine paying CARI directly, knowing the nature of CARI’s operations.”
HOW THE SCANDAL UNFOLDED
April 7: Ten people, including four 60 Minutes staff, are arrested and imprisoned in Beirut over the botched attempt to remove Australian mother Sally Faulkner’s two children Noah, 4 and Lahela, 6.
April 13: Kidnapping charges filed against the 60 Minutes team, Faulkner, and five others including child recovery agent Adam Whittington. All face Beirut judge; claims the charges could lead to 20 years’ jail.
April 20: Deal struck with children’s father Ali Elamine, rumoured to be worth $1-million, for 60 Minutes team and Faulkner. The five are released from their Beirut cells.
April 21: The four-person 60 Minutes crew arrives back in Australia. Channel Nine launches review into its Beirut operation headed by show founder Gerald Stone.
April 22: Sally Faulkner arrives back in Australia. Lawyer for Whittington provides court with a document purporting a payment of $69,000 from Channel Nine to Mr Whittington’s firm.
May 27: Producer Stephen Rice sacked as internal Channel Nine report into botched abduction finds “systemic failures”. Reporter Tara Brown, cameraman Ben Williamson, and sound recordist David Ballment handed formal warnings. A Lebanese court is still considering criminal charges against Brown, Rice, Ballment and Williamson.
May 28: Whittington and four others involved in the matter remain in prison
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