This was published 4 months ago
The inside story on the biggest news break of the week
By Liam Phelan
What a week it has been in our newsroom. I am sure most of you by now will have read Kate McClymont’s extraordinary investigation into broadcaster Alan Jones and multiple allegations of indecent assault over many years. Jones has denied all the claims.
We published this exclusive for you, our subscribers, yesterday morning online and in print – but that meant we had to finalise its production by Wednesday evening to meet print deadlines.
Alan Jones in 2021.Credit: Janie Barrett
This 4000-word investigation has taken years to come to light – it includes claims that go back several years. McClymont spent months and months talking to the alleged victims and key figures involved in this story, and then, working with investigations editor Michael Evans, checking what they said, cross-referencing with other people’s claims and collecting background documentation and evidence.
I got a heads-up from Bevan before he went on leave that the story might be coming close to being finalised this week, so we sat down on Monday morning in a meeting of the most senior editorial staff and our legal team to map out the final steps before we could press publish.
From that moment began an accelerando blur of meetings and calls and checking and rechecking. Poor Bevan, who was supposed to be on holiday in Bali, spent a lot of his days on Zoom calls.
Our final action in such an investigation is to go to the person involved and give them ample time and opportunity to comment. And so we sent a series of questions to Jones and his legal representatives and waited for a response on Wednesday afternoon.
When it came, at 1.46pm on Wednesday, he denied all the claims. His lawyer, Mark O’Brien, also attempted to discredit McClymont personally and advised us if we published they would commence defamation action against us.
Based on this response we included his denials, both in headlines and extensively in the text. We had one final meeting of senior editorial and legal staff and agreed it was time to go.
These stories start thanks to the bravery of the alleged victims involved, who were willing to freely tell their stories, relive their pain and subject themselves to the intense emotion and potential trauma of going public. We couldn’t do what we do without them, and we salute them and hope our investigation brings them some comfort and relief.
Quoted in the investigation, one former 2GB employee, who alleges he was repeatedly indecently assaulted by Jones, said: “If I went to the police, Jones could be charged. What he did to me was a criminal offence. He cannot die without people knowing what he’s done.”
Aside from the Jones investigation, we have made an important change this week about who can comment on stories.
Online commentary on our articles is enormously popular with all readers. It’s your chance to have your say. So far this year, we have received more than 1.8 million comments and published most of them. However, every one of these comments has to be moderated by a staff member, which as you can imagine is a time-consuming and costly exercise. Frankly, we have been overwhelmed by the volume of correspondence.
So from this week, commenting on our stories will be an exclusive subscriber benefit. Why are we doing this? Prioritising you, our paying readers, is how we ensure the people who help fund our journalism can participate in the community they support. So, this is yet another benefit you get from subscribing. There are some other changes we are making too. To find out more, you can read the full story here, or make a comment below.
Before I finish, I just wanted to let you know about some great things happening next week.
Next Thursday is the release of the 2023 HSC results, with NAPLAN results coming shortly afterward. This is a huge day for all students and their families and the Herald will again lead the coverage of this important annual event. We will have a live blog on the day, news and analysis. Plus our exclusive HSC Honour Roll will publish online at noon on Thursday and in print on Friday.
Also next week, we will be sending you a three-part email series highlighting how our journalism has brought about positive change in our communities and held power to account across a range of subjects and topics.
We are extremely proud of the work our newsroom has achieved this year, and as 2023 comes to a close we wanted to take a moment to reflect on everything the Herald has achieved.
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