Sports journalist for The Age Sam McClure has had his 2020 Quill Award in the sports news category reinstated to him by the Melbourne Press Club (MPC).
After a lengthy discussion by the board, the decision to overturn the annulled award was confirmed on Wednesday by MPC president and investigative reporter at The Age Nick McKenzie.
McClure’s award was stripped after the MPC had voted to strip him of the accolade from 2020 following issues with his reporting on the Adelaide Crows’ 2018 training camp.
Sam McClure broke his silence about the re-awarding, speaking to Sportsday co-host Gerard Healy on SEN who asked if he felt vindicated by the decision.
McClure said: “Not really… I’ve always said on air and off, I think in the fullness of time we will know more and the picture will be pretty clear.”
The Age published a number of apologies following the publication of the articles and subsequently removed them after legal action was taken by Collective Mind, the camp’s organisers.
The review was led by Matt Collins QC, barrister and media law specialist, Jonathan Holmes, former ABC Media Watch host, The Australian’s associate editor John Ferguson and journalist Jill Baker who has worked for News Corporation and Fairfax.
They concluded that the decision to strip the award from McClure was “flawed” and that he should have the award returned.
At the time, the MPC agreed the award should be given to Herald Sun sports reporter Michael Warner who was highly commended in the category. Warner was consulted in regard to the decision, it was agreed that the award would be returned to McClure and that he would be reinstated as highly commended in the category.
McClure award winning article was a double-page spread was published in The Sunday Age back in July 5, 2020 was headlined “The camp that shattered a football club”.
Collective Mind took legal action and the publication agreed to remove 13 articles by McClure and The Age’s former chief sports reporter Caroline Wilson from 2018 and last year.
But after the review, it was decided that three assumptions to annul McClure’s decision were wrong which included the availability of the article – it is available in some print archived version, The Age and McClure made serious errors – they did not, McClure had apologised – he did not.
Gay Alcorn, editor of The Age, said the publication welcomes the board’s decision to reinstate McClure’s award.
“The Melbourne Press Club must be an advocate for tough journalism which is often subject to defamation action in Australia,” she said.
“We are pleased that the board has accepted that its original decision was unfair in terms of process and set a terrible precedent as to the circumstances in which awards should be overturned,” she added.