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As I watched the heart-wrenching interview with Alex McKinnon and his girlfriend Teaghan Power unfold I had a tear in my eye.
I’m sure a large number of viewers would have been in a similar position as they witnessed the courage and determination of Alex and the unbridled love and support of Teaghan.
It really struck a chord with me, but alas Liz Hayes and Channel Nine had to manipulate a beautiful love story to depict the captain of the Melbourne Storm, Queensland State Of Origin team and Kangaroos as an insensitive and uncaring human being.
To assassinate Cameron Smiths’ character on national TV, to not mention the concerted effort that Smith and the Melbourne Storm have made to contact Alex and to take what Smith said out of context was a disgrace. It painted Smith in a bad light and gave him no chance of reply.
Make no mistake, Smith is a decent human being and a man of integrity who gives of his time generously to a number of charities and to rugby league fans. How do I know this? Because I have had the pleasure of meeting Smith on a handful of occasions and have seen firsthand why he is an ornament to the game of rugby league.
For a multi-Logie award winning TV programme to show Alex only 30 seconds footage of Smith talking to the referee with negative connotations was misleading to say the least. It took place after Alex McKinnon had been taken from the field, something that Liz Hayes conveniently forgot to mention or she had done insufficient research to know the true facts of the story.
Another clever ploy by Channel Nine, which they used to maximum effect, was to not beep out the audible obscenities from Alex after he had viewed the footage. This would have had an impact on a large number of viewers and pulled at their heartstrings, far from impartial reporting I would have thought, if anything it came across as being bias.
For Channel Nine to portray Smith as a villain and manipulate the McKinnon story to boost their TV ratings and garner more interest in the State Of Origin decider was an embarrassment for not only the TV station, but also the game of rugby league.
I hope that Liz Hayes and 60 minutes are proud of themselves for tarnishing the reputation of arguably rugby league’s greatest ever hooker. The onus is now on them to apologise publicly to Cameron Smith for bringing his integrity in to question and for driving a wedge between him and Alex McKinnon.
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