It’s awkward being a Media Watch host when you are criticising colleagues in your own building, but somebody’s gotta do it….
That was the case for Paul Barry grilled by investigative journalist Mark Willacy some years ago in a bathroom at ABC’s Ultimo HQ.
In 2021, Media Watch called out a story by Willacy which alleged Australian soldiers executed an unarmed prisoner in Afghanistan.
The allegation was based on a single source, a US Marine who said he’d heard a “pop” on his helicopter radio, which he assumed was a gunshot.
Barry told his audience he had a “problem with Willacy’s story” and believed the ABC had “hit publish too soon.”
When asked to comment, Barry told The Daily Telegraph he and Willacy “had a minor disagreement about the Media Watch segment, which he (Willacy) thought was unfair. It was no big deal”.
An ABC spokesperson added: “We can confirm there was no physical confrontation and no investigation.”
ABC Investigations escalated the complaint over Media Watch to John Lyons, then ABC’s Head Investigative Journalism & Exec Editor.
The same Line of Fire report is now part of a deeper review over claims extra gunshots were added to audio.
ABC has previously blamed the audio on an “editing error” telling 7News Spotlight, (producer) Jo Puccini, and (journalists) Mark Willacy and Josh Robertson played no role.
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