It was the feelgood story of the year from the Northern Territory when 19-year-old Keegan Payne caught a barramundi worth $1m in a competition designed to promote tourism.
“The whole family was shocked – they’re all proud of me,” he told the ABC. “We’re from Katherine, Mum’s from Kakadu.
“It’s pretty hard going for us at the moment with money but now, with a million dollars, don’t have to complain about it.”
Keegan Payne, a 19-year-old from the rural town of Katherine, today becomes the NT's newest millionaire, after snagging the million dollar fish on the Katherine River. https://t.co/IoxNE5Q1lb
— ABC News (@abcnews) April 30, 2024
But one live interview, on Sky News Australia, turned into a humiliating experience for the Indigenous teenager when the host, Peter Stefanovic, asked him a question about an incident he was involved in when he was 16.
“There is a claim online that you stole a Polaris Ranger and Polaris quad that you and your friends stole and damaged from a business a few years back. First of all, is that true?” Stefanovic asked.
A shocked Payne, who was sitting in the Darwin Sky News studio, quietly said “yes”.
Pushed to explain himself, Payne said he and his mates “weren’t thinking at the time”, were “still young” and that he regretted it “big time”.
It was excruciating to watch.
Contacted by the Daily Mail, Payne’s former boss Bob Cavanagh said the young man had “always felt so terrible for what he did” and he was an otherwise “good kid”. He had also offered to pay him back.
After the Stefanovic interview, Cavanagh told Sky News reporter Matt Cunningham he did not proceed with police charges at the time, opting instead to talk to the boys and their parents and they agreed to work for free on weekends.
Indigenous leader and Sydney city councillor Yvonne Weldon said she was appalled by the interview.
“They invited him on to talk about his prize catch and then proceeded to put him on the stand for an adolescent misdemeanour,” Weldon said in a LinkedIn post. “In doing so, they’ve shown no regard for his wellbeing and right to privacy.
“Moreover, they have perpetuated a harmful and negative stereotype about Aboriginal young people.”
Naomi Moran, the general manager of Australia’s only independent Indigenous newspaper, the Koori Mail, said “this is what institutionalised discrimination looks and sounds like in mainstream media”.
“A narrative that is so familiar,” Moran said, also on LinkedIn. “That a black person will only be who he once was, rather than who he has become in this country.
“We must continue to call out this representation of our people in mainstream Australian media.”
Sky News did not respond to a request for comment and Stefanovic deleted his social media accounts overnight.
On Friday afternoon Sky News issued a statement that recounted the exchanges in the interview and included an apology to Payne.
“Sky News Australia and Peter Stefanovic apologise to Mr Payne and his family for raising these claims during the live interview about his million dollar win in the fishing competition,” the statement said.
”Mr Stefanovic has reached out to Mr Payne and his family directly to convey his apology.”
The original video had been taken down by Friday afternoon.
Fitz tackled
Sydney Morning Herald sports writers are slugging it out in the paper over the emotive issue of banning the kick-off in NRL matches as a measure to reduce high-impact tackles that may cause concussion.
The SMH’s chief sports writer, Andrew Webster, took aim at Peter FitzSimons on Friday over a column by FitzSimons about moves to prevent head impacts in NRL.
Conceding there is “nothing quite as boring as columnists trading barbs in their allocated space”, Webster wrote he was so hurt by what Fitz had written that he had to respond.
“How dare someone accuse us of not caring about these people, our mates, just so they can fill column inches to prove they’re right and we’re wrong,” Webster said.
“So, in summary, we get it Fitz.
“You hang your journalistic hat on your coverage of concussion and that’s fair enough. You were the first and that will never be forgotten. You deserve credit for fighting the good fight.
“But wouldn’t it be more effective to bring people with you on this concussion journey, instead of continually belittling them?”
What did Fitz say to provoke this angry response? In a column on Thursday headlined “The expert opinion is in: NRL must take on the kick-off concussion issue”, without naming Webster, he ridiculed “people saying that a source of concussions in the NRL, the long kick-off, is no problem, and that all of us who advocate changing it for the sake of sanity are somewhere between engaging in a silly debate and out to destroy the game”.
Webster’s column two days earlier had referred to the kick-off ban proposal as a “silly debate”.
Will Fitz now respond to Webster’s response to his criticism?
Picture imperfect
The executive chairman of News Corp Australia, Michael Miller, has shown an optimistic attitude to artificial intelligence, telling staff last year it would “change our industry” and setting up an AI working group to explore “10 new high-value opportunity areas for AI”.
He also boasted last August that News Corp was producing 3,000 articles a week using generative artificial intelligence.
Now it would appear AI is increasingly being used for illustrations at the Daily Telegraph, replacing newspaper photography or commissioned art. An opinion piece by James O’Doherty about federal funding for roads, published last Friday, was accompanied by an image of a traffic jam snaking though a fictional western Sydney suburb, credited to ChatGPT.
A quick review showed us many of the opinion pieces by O’Doherty, Joe Hildebrand, Tim Blair and Andrew Bolt are now illustrated by ChatGPT. We have asked the editor, Ben English, what the paper’s policy is.
Ten stops celebrating
The Ten Network may have won the defamation case brought by Bruce Lehrmann but the network has had little to celebrate since the judgment was handed down on 15 April.
Not only is Ten likely to have to cover millions in legal costs due to Lehrmann being of extremely limited means but its behaviour outside the federal court raised the ire of Justice Michael Lee, who demanded Ten’s lawyers explain themselves before the costs hearing on Wednesday.
Lawyer Justin Quill, who was authorised to comment on the judgment by Ten, said outside the court Ten had been vindicated by the judgment.
Lee, who described the comments as misleading and discourteous, said it was it is “open to argue” that Ten’s conduct “was intended to, or had the tendency to, interfere with the administration of justice in a particular proceeding”.
Three very “contrite” lawyers submitted affidavits to Lee apologising for saying his judgment was a “vindication” and performing a backflip on some evidence given at the trial.
Lisa Wilkinson was heavily criticised in the media for an acceptance speech she gave at the Logies in 2022 for the Project interview with Brittany Higgins. The speech led to the criminal trial in the ACT supreme court for the alleged sexual assault of Higgins being delayed by three months.
Ten’s chief litigation counsel, Tasha Smithies, told the court in February she did not think there were any issues with the Logies acceptance speech, which she had approved.
Lee did not agree, asking Ten why it “repeatedly expressed the view that the Logies speech not only did not have the tendency to interfere with the administration of justice but presented no difficulty whatsoever”.
Smithies told Lee the judgment had been “profound and sobering” and she had a different view now she had reflected on it.
“Since the delivery of the trial judgment I have taken counsel from senior members of the legal profession including Dr Matt Collins AM KC about the advice I gave in relation to the Logies speech, the evidence I gave, and the observations and conclusions about me in the trial judgment,” Smithies said in her affidavit.
“As a result of all of those matters, I believe I’ve developed greater insight into my conduct.”
In a separate claim for costs, Taylor Auerbach’s solicitor Rebekah Giles told the court her client had run up a bill of close to $40,000 for giving evidence. Her fees alone were $900 an hour.
Devil in the detail
The ABC has deleted a social media post which was not marked “analysis” and which gave the impression the public broadcaster’s newsroom was accusing the prime minister of getting it “horribly wrong”.
The article was commentary by Annabel Crabb about Anthony Albanese’s appearance at the domestic violence rally in Canberra.
ANALYSIS: The footage of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese attempting to cope with the febrile environment outside Parliament House at Sunday's domestic violence rally is nearly unwatchable, writes Annabel Crabb https://t.co/SgA3LWtxxV
— ABC News (@abcnews) May 3, 2024
The new post on X is clearly labelled.
The ABC told Weekly Beast the automated process dropped the word “Analysis” from the post on X.
• This article was updated on 3 May 2024 to include the statement issued by Sky News, which came after publication.
