Today show’s co-host Georgie Gardner has been moved to tears over a moving news story, months after Channel Nine slammed a Daily Telegraph report claiming she is seen as “cold” by viewers.
The journalist became emotional on Tuesday morning during a segment on two young children, Azura and Torrin, whose father Brett Watson was murdered in Greengrove, NSW in 2014.
After their father’s death, the two children were taken in by their aunt and uncle.
“It’s impossible not to be moved by that story,” exclaimed Gardner.
The segment came two months after the Nine network slammed a fake report by the Daily Telegraph claiming that audience focus groups described the 48-year-old journalist as “cold”, “ice maiden” and “smiling assassin”, and that her banter with co-host Deborah Knight were “forced”.
Nine’s news and current affairs director Darren Wick denied all the fake claims made in the article, saying they were “a fabrication” and “one of the most deliberate acts of bullying I’ve ever seen”.
Wick said in a statement, “Nine’s position is that this is an outrageous, false, reckless and defamatory attack on Georgie Gardner and the Today show. The claim by the Daily Telegraph reporter that Nine has conducted focus groups this year is wrong.
“We haven’t as yet commissioned any focus groups for the Today show, let alone held them in 2019.”
Wick also said the focus groups conducted in the last six months of 2018 showed that audiences were receptive of Gardner.
“She rated head and shoulders above every other on-air presenter. And that’s consistent with all Today show focus groups we’ve held during the last seven years, while I’ve been in the national news director role.”
Following Wick’s statement, the Daily Telegraph retracted its story and apologised to Gardner.
