Samuel's Blog

Channel Seven release journalists’ staff mobile phone numbers in video footage

November 14th, 2007 at 06:25pm

Video Update:

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I was just watching Nine News covering the story about Channel Seven taking out an injunction against the ABC program “The Chaser’s War On Everything” to prevent them using footage they gathered whilst inside Seven’s Martin Place building.

Channel Nine used footage of the stand-off between the Chaser team and Seven security which appears to have been released by Seven…sadly for Seven, the footage is mostly of the Chaser team in front of a whiteboard filled with names and phone numbers of Seven journalists.

I will be switching over to Today Tonight at 6:30 as they are apparently running the story, and it will be interesting to see if they broadcast the same footage.

Update: Yep, it was Seven footage…here’s a couple screenshots from Today Tonight. It looks like it was staff other than journalists that had their mobile numbers exposed.

There were other shots where the numbers were even clearer than these shots (click the pictures for larger versions)…one does have to wonder why Seven chose to hold the Chaser team in that location, film the events and then release the footage to the rest of the media, when there were many other more innocuous positions only metres away. In an industry such as the media, one would expect an employer such as Seven to be more responsible with the personal details of their staff.
End Update

Further Update: I’ve forwarded this information to a handful of people including Stuart Bocking at 2UE. The reason I mention Stuart is that, not long after 8:30 he ran with the story, and rang a few of the people on the whiteboard (referring to them by first name only) on the air to alert them to their names and numbers being broadcast on national television. The first person didn’t answer, the second person produced a dumpable expletive and the third person was almost willing to have a chat, and made it clear that a number of people had already called him. I’m not sure if the second or third person said they were a freelance cameraman who had only been used by Today Tonight once this year. I’m uploading some video footage now.End Update

Samuel

Entry Filed under: TV/Radio/Media

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