ABC loses the script as Einfeld, the Left’s “beacon of light”, gets at least two years

The Sydney Morning Herald reports:
“The former Federal Court judge Marcus Einfeld has been sentenced to at least two years in jail for lying to evade a speeding fine three years ago.

“In a packed hearing room at the NSW Supreme Court, Justice Bruce James imposed a maximum three-year sentence on the 70-year-old for offences that struck ‘at the heart of the administration of justice’.”

Covering the story, the ABC’s World Today reporter Karen Barlow today delivered a remarkable report from the New South Wales Supreme Court.

When the program’s presenter Tanya Nolan crossed to Barlow for a report on the sentencing, her intro started strong and comprehensible. Things went downhill quickly from there.

Barlow interrupted her second sentence to inform listeners, “I’m being told by the court to move away from where I am because there is a court in session.”

The journalist seemed to recover briefly, but soon seemed rattled or ill-prepared.

She said that the two-year non-parole “section” of the sentence meant Einfeld would be out “by the 19th of March 2001″.

When the sentence was handed down, Barlow said that Einfeld was “hugged by families and friend members”.

And when the presenter asked Nolan to “take us back over some of the twists and turns of this very curious case”, Barlow delivered this:

KAREN BARLOW: Well, err, it all comes back to, ah, a day, a very calm day, ah, back in 2006 where he was, err, having lunch, err, but he decided, ah, that when a speeding fine became apparent in the mail that he was not going to take, ah, err, take responsibility for that. He started lying. It was a web of lies that, err, where he came undone and he basically, err, err, told, err, a, big complicated story that fell out about a woman who had previously died, who had driven this car. And it was, ah, err, it … but basically it was mm, umm, many, many lies that came undone about this person who apparently had died and he stood by that and went to court and to the media and said that he had actually done something and he hadn’t actually done it.

By the time the story made it on to the ABC’s website, the date error had been corrected in the transcript – hello, Media Watch.

We know that Einfeld, so-called “beacon of light” and “living treasure”, has a special place in the heart of left wing journalists. Is Barlow of the Left? Was she emotionally affected or overcome by the sentencing? Was she rattled by having to move location mid-sentence? Did the court attendant who asked her to move take away her script? Was Barlow ill-prepared for the live cross and, if so, why? Is this an acceptable standard for the ABC?

Listen the World Today report that went to air:

Read the transcript at the ABC’s website.

Read Richard Ackland’s SMH column on Einfeld.