In February 1988,
60 Minutes collaborated with
James Randi to create a fictional psychic called "Carlos", played by José Alvarez, for an elaborate investigation into how much free publicity a fraudulent medium could garner through the Australian media, and how such people could manipulate the gullibility of vulnerable people. However, during their investigation and successful attempt at convincing the Australian media that "Carlos" was a genuinely notable medium who had a strong following in America, other Channel 9 programs were caught out reporting on the fake "Carlos" who appeared on
Today and
A Current Affair and was featured on
Sunday and
Nine News. In July 1989, an episode of 60 Minutes entitled "The County" aired on Channel 9, which focused on the
Indigenous population of
Redfern, New South Wales from the perspective of local police. The episode received condemnation from the
Koori community for its negative portrayal of the
Aboriginal Australian population of Redfern, the invasion of private property by police and reporters during the filming of the episode, and for the use of ethnic slurs by police throughout the episode. The episode was the subject of a complaint to the
Australian Broadcasting Tribunal, citing "a breach of the Television Program Standards relating to racial vilification". The complaint was rejected. were arrested on allegations of child abduction in
Beirut. According to
Lebanese authorities,
60 Minutes allegedly paid $115,000 directly to the Child Abduction Recovery International Agency, despite claims that the exchange was made by the mother of the children. The abduction agency used has also been widely discredited, with fake recovery stories being posted on Facebook and their operators having been arrested all over the world. The recovery involved the team waiting in a parked car on the street and then snatching the children from their grandmother and nanny before driving away. "A Lebanese judicial source" told
The Guardian that the group were to be charged with "armed abduction, purveying threats and physical harm" – crimes which carry sentences of twenty years' imprisonment with hard labour. The group were released from custody only after Nine paid a substantial money settlement to the father of the children the subject of the abduction attempt. This operation sparked wide debate about the ethics of the journalism being conducted. In May 2019, a
jury ruled that a
60 Minutes story aired in 2015 about the
2011 Grantham floods defamed four members of the Wagner family, from
Toowoomba, Queensland, by implying they were responsible for the 12 deaths that occurred during the disaster. In November, a
court ordered Channel Nine to pay $2.4 million plus $63,000 in
interest to the family.
Nick Cater, a journalist featured in the program, was ordered to pay an additional $1.2 million in
damages. Justice Peter Applegarth, who was in charge of the case, stated that while Cater had information contradicting the program's allegations, he did not include them in the story. Applegarth also concluded that Channel Nine failed to inform the Wagners of the allegations until after the program had been publicised, and when the family did send a statement to Nine, they did not include it in the program. == In popular media ==