Source : THE AGE NEWS
Channel Nine reporter Airlie Walsh has reached a confidential settlement in her sexual discrimination case against Nine Entertainment, saying she is relieved with the outcome and buoyed by her colleagues also speaking out.
Walsh, who has been with the company for 16 years, filed a human rights sexual discrimination case against Nine in the Federal Court. While details of Walsh’s claims were not made public, they were understood to have related to treatment she faced during pregnancy and alleged harassment.
Airlie Walsh has been an on-screen presence at Nine for more than a decade.Credit: Wolter Peeters
Walsh’s complaint, issued to Nine in January last year, was the first to make allegations against the company’s former director of news and current affairs Darren Wick, according to sources familiar with the complaint but not authorised to speak publicly.
Wick left Nine amid a number of complaints from staff about alleged lecherous conduct.
Walsh, who is leaving Nine, said she engaged lawyers in October 2023 to try to “right a number of wrongs”.
“During this time, more women bravely came forward, Nine conducted a culture review, and many of
my broadcast colleagues contributed their experiences. In doing so, I was buoyed. It turns out,
courage is contagious,” she said in a statement.
“While this isn’t the way I wanted to leave Nine, I’m filled with gratitude towards those who made me a better journalist and person, and I’m relieved the legal process has been resolved.”
Josh Bornstein, principal lawyer at Maurice Blackburn and Walsh’s legal representation, said her legal efforts took courage and had spurred a number of other women to take action.
“I hope that the settlement of this important case is a further catalyst for the commercial news media to clean up its act. It is well overdue,” he said.
The details of settlement are confidential, both parties told this masthead.
Revelations of Wick’s alleged behaviour kicked off a run of negative headlines, including the company’s handling of historical complaints made against the executive.
It set off a series of events at the media company, ultimately resulting in the departure of chair Peter Costello, and later, former chief executive Mike Sneesby, who commissioned an independent review into the company’s culture.
Nine published the results of the comprehensive cultural review in October, revealing a culture of widespread bullying, abuses of power and sexual harassment at the organisation, which is the owner of this masthead.
Costello left after a run-in with a News Corp journalist at Canberra Airport, who was asking questions about Nine’s handling of the complaints saga.
Following the release of the review, a number of Nine’s senior news executives departed the company. Nine’s former Queensland News boss Amanda Paterson also lodged a claim with the Fair Work Commission less than a month after she was sacked at the end of 2024.
Nine is investigating one of its sports presenters Alex Cullen, who allegedly accepted a cash prize of $50,000 from billionaire Adrian Portelli. The Melbourne-based Portelli offered the prize to the first television journalist to refer to him on air as “McLaren Guy” as opposed to his widely used nickname “Lambo Guy”.
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