Channel Nine CEO Hugh Marks sends email to all Channel Nine staff, announces ‘full review’
A LEAKED email sent to all staff at Channel 9 has revealed how the network plans to “ascertain what went wrong”.
A LEAKED email from Channel Nine CEO reveals the broadcaster plans to conduct a full review to “ascertain what went wrong” and why its systems failed to protect its staff, but reiterated it will continue to report on child abductions.
Hugh Marks sent an email to all staff this morning describing his “enormous relief” over the news Australian mother Sally Faulkner, reporter Tara Brown and her 60 Minutes crew — David “Tangles” Ballment, Stephen Rice and Ben Williamson — have been released from prison after charges against them were dropped.
He revealed the broadcaster will conduct a “full review ... to ascertain what went wrong and why our systems, designed to protect staff, failed to do so in this case.”
It is the first indication of how the broadcaster plans to fix the diplomatic mess its found itself in, after the group was jailed and charged related to a botched attempt to abduct Ms Faulkner’s two children from their father Ali Elamine in Beirut.
“As you would all by now be aware our 60 Minutes team, together with Brisbane mother Sally Faulkner, are out of detention and on their way home,” Mr Marks’ email reads.
“It is an enormous relief for all involved but particularly the families and loved ones of our 60 Minutes team who have suffered a great deal over these last two weeks.
“This has been an extraordinarily stressful time for the crew and for their families and I want to very publicly acknowledge how much they have been through and thank them for their courage, their perseverance and for the trust they placed in us to resolve events.”
Mr Marks said the crew “asked me to thank the officials in Lebanon who were involved in their detention for their professionalism and for treating them with dignity and respect”.
Meanwhile he defended Channel Nine’s actions in the saga, claiming it was “important to reiterate that at no stage did anyone from Nine or 60 Minutes intend to act in any way that made them susceptible to charges that they breached the law or to become part of the story that is Sally’s story. But we did become part of the story and we shouldn’t have.”
Despite the drama since the failed abduction, Mr Marks declared the issue of child abduction was “an issue that we will continue to highlight”.
“What has happened to Sally happens all too often and affects thousands of Australian families. It is a story that not only is profoundly in the public interest but also one the public is interested in,” he wrote.
He defended Nine’s head of news and current affairs Darren Wick, who reports claim is on Nine’s chopping block. But perhaps not so, with Mr Marks urging all staff to “drop in to Wickie’s office when he is back and say thanks”. Mr Wick has been in Lebanon since the saga unfolded.
Mr Marks personally thanked the Australian Government — in particular Foreign Minister Julie Bishop, Australian Ambassador to Lebanon, Glenn Miles, and his consular staff in Beirut and staff at the Department of Foreign Affairs in Canberra — “for their advice and assistance”.
The review will be headed by Gerald Stone, with David Hurley and General Counsel Rachel Launders.
Mr Stone, American-born Australian television and radio journalist, television executive, and author, was the first executive producer of the Australian version of 60 Minutes which first aired in 1979.
He has written numerous books throughout his career including War Without Honour, 1932: A Hell of a Year, Singo — Mates, Wives, Triumphs, Disasters and most recently in 2007, Who Killed Channel 9?
The father at the centre of the botched kidnapping plan, Ali Elamine, dropped the charges against his estranged wife, Ms Faulkner, saying he did not want his children to think he’d left their mother in jail.
However it came at price — in return she must grant him a divorce and custody of the children.
She has rights to visit them in a third country or Lebanon, but not in Australia.
Child Abduction Recovery Network boss Adam Whittington and fellow Briton Craig Michael remain in jail.
— youngma@news.com.au
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