The Age has this extraordinary story from last night's Walkley Awards:
Crikey! News Limited journalist makes a night of it
By
Sasha Shtargot THE most prestigious night in Australian journalism erupted into farce last night when one of the nation's leading political commentators physically assaulted a rival.
A red-faced Glenn Milne marched on to the stage during the presentation of an award by Stephen Mayne and abused the founder of the Crikey website.
He pushed Mayne in the chest and repeatedly referred to him as "a disgrace". Mayne jumped off stage as Milne, slurring his words, continued to abuse him.
Milne, who writes for the Sunday Herald Sun, Sunday Telegraph and The Australian, was restrained by security guards and escorted off stage.
There has been bad blood between the pair since 2005 when Mayne criticised Milne's reporting of a squabble between NSW politicians Bob Carr and John Brogden.
"I just saw this man with drunken, wild eyes coming at me. He threw me off the stage. It was quite a drop and I've twinged my ankle as a result," Mayne said. "Glenn Milne is not even in the top 50 Crikey victims list. This proves what thin-skinned souls some journalists are."
This is video of the incident on YouTube:
Milne has apologised this morning:
"Please accept this release as an apology to my esteemed colleagues, friends and family for the hurt and embarrassment caused by my actions at the Walkley Awards in Melbourne,'' he said.
"I was very proud to represent News Limited as a finalist and was honoured to have been invited to take part in this prestigious event.
"However, I lamentably mixed alcohol and migraine medication with shocking consequences.''
"I apologise too to Stephen Mayne and the organisers of the awards. There is no excuse for my behaviour.''
The Age also reports that Mr Mayne has said he would not be seeking compensation for theinjury he sustained, but he would like an apology from Rupert Murdoch:
"I'm not going to do anything silly like press charges but it would be nice to get an apology from someone at News Limited.
"This incident happened 12 hours ago and I still haven't heard anything from anyone at News Limited saying that this behaviour is unacceptable and they're sorry.
"So I presume that means that I can push Rupert Murdoch off the stage at next year's News Corp AGM and that won't be a problem.''
(Thanks to Michael for the hat tip.)
