"Harden the f--k up, darling. This is not a game for wimps"

So said one of my early mentors when I started in television 35 years ago. I've had cause to remind myself of his measured advice a few times over the years but never more so than in the past week and a half when I've had to watch a feeding frenzy by the Australian media on four colleagues in trouble.

Those colleagues are our friends in jail on the other side of the world, and I'm going to be totally straight with you: I want them home.

I want the big, boofy smiling soundo Tangles home on the couch with his splendid wife Laura, a mate of mine. I can't stand to see her in pain, and she's no good without the person she loves best in the world.

I want Tara, a good, kind woman whom I've known for more than 15 years - in the old days when we could still both do lunch - back here playing in the yard with her two gorgeous little boys, hearing about what they've done on school holidays while she's been away.

I want cameraman Benny the Bear to walk in the front door of the home he shares with his childhood sweetheart Cara. The door will have a hand made sign on it saying "Welcome home Daddy" It's a ritual his two little girls have whenever he goes away, to make that sign. I think this one might be bigger than usual, but it's always been big enough for him.

And I want Stephen Rice - Ricey/Longrain/Bags - to be back home with his much loved wife Denise, hearing all about his kids' Uni work and recent travels, and planning his parents' upcoming 60th wedding anniversary in July.

Our four friends are not "tabloid cowboys." They are not a threat to society. That's probably the biggest Captain Obvious statement you will read all day. They are good people who care about what they do, who love their families and friends and are loved very much back.

Tangles' mum passed away a few months ago. He took a long time off work while he nursed her, and 60 minutes supported him and understood he wouldn't be around for a while. He's a big softie, the favourite uncle of his three nephews who is still mates with everyone he's ever worked with in television. No mean feat.

The man is Geneva.

Everyone loves Tangles. Seriously. Laura says so. They walk into a room together and everyone gravitates to the big fella with the grin, who has a thousand stories, but wants to hear all about YOU.

On a 60 minutes shoot with Fleetwood Mac a few years ago, Stevie Nicks - no pushover - was obviously a wee bit smitten. After the interview as the crew packed up she asked Tangles his favourite Fleetwood Mac song.

"Rhiannon" he said, no hesitation. So she sang it. Just for him. Poor girl's only human.

Tangles worked for Getaway and A Current Affair before 60 minutes. The man has about a billion frequent flyer points. But on his annual leave every December all he wants is to head to Brooms Head beach in NSW with his missus.

And Tara....the notion of Tara in a jail cell is doing my head in. Seriously, I doubt this girl has ever had a parking ticket. She has a strong sense of right and wrong. And "wrong" offends her.

Tara won a Walkley award a few months ago for a searing bust she did on the nauseating pedophile Peter Scully. I watched her tear him apart in the interview and thought the bloke would be desperate to go to jail... anything for the interview to end.

She's been to Syria three times in 10 months. Two of them were to report on the band of female fighters taking on ISIS.

Her husband John asked her why she would risk going back a second time and she told him the bravery and struggle of these women needed to be known.

But don't get me wrong. Tara doesn't come across as some commando. I've never seen her dirty. Or even remotely disheveled.

She could wear a white shirt in the Syrian desert and it would still be white and unwrinkled after three days. I'd get coffee on mine before I left the airport.

Her favorite place in the world is lying on the couch drinking milkshakes with her little boys. She would not spill the milkshake.

Ricey is a meticulous dude. An old school journo who once rode a donkey through the Burmese jungle to track down and interview a heroin-running warlord. If the Burmese government troops had seen him they'd have shot him.

Working with Liz Hayes on the Lindt cafe survivors story last year, he made her stay in the office until 2 or 3 am each night until it was done, living on no sleep and take away Chinese. She still loves him. But the takeaway part would have hurt, because Ricey believes in a nutritious, well balanced meal.

No one gets baked beans on toast in Ricey's kitchen. Even if there doesn't appear to be anything in the fridge, he can produce all the important food groups on a plate that would satisfy any Masterchef. And no matter how busy he is, he has the neatest desk in the office, which irks everyone a little.

Benny is pretty much the perfect cameraman. He's also the guy who makes the little kids relaxed on every shoot. He plays with them, brings them toys, gives them a look through the viewfinder of the camera so they know what's going on.

He's a devoted husband and dad, so he's a natural for stories about families.

But he's also brave. When the Ebola virus was decimating Sierra Leone, a story that needed to be told but with significant risk to anyone who went there, Benny put his hand up.

He survived the Ebola story unscathed, but appeared at breakfast on another shoot with a nasty gash on his forehead. He'd worked all night on an edit, and had fallen asleep in the shower.

Oh, and one more important thing about Ben. Don't get between him and chocolate.

If he's gone quiet in the car on a shoot, he may be thinking about a shot he wants to get, or how he's going to light it, or the best time of day or night to shoot it.

But he's just as likely to be thinking about how soon he can get his hands on the piece of chocolate cake he saw in the shop window outside the hotel.

So you've no doubt figured out by now this is not going to be a reasoned, impartial analysis of what happened over there, and why, and how. That's not my case to make. It's for a Lebanese court to decide and I'll be following the proceedings with my heart in my mouth and my fingers crossed.

But I am volunteering to be a character witness for them, starting here. And frankly after some of the malicious, ill-considered, rabidly self serving and in some cases manufactured rubbish that has been written and said about our friends in the past week, I think it's time you heard something different.

This is certainly not a game for wimps, and goodness knows it's competitive, but here's an insider tip and you can take it to the bank: TV journos are not all a bunch of ratings mad cowboys. We don't spend all our working time thinking about ratings.

Frankly that's someone else's job.

The number of times I can remember being with a crew heading to shoot a story discussing whether it will rate it's socks off, is roughly nil.

Usually we talk about logistics. If it's an interview we're heading to, we might talk about the interview subject's sensitivities; whether they are nervous and how best to calm their nerves; whether they are honest, and how best to prise the truth from them.

Very often they've been through a life changing event...the biggest event in their lives. They can be damaged, and traumatised, and we form a bond with people whose stories we tell.

How could you not?

We will talk about whether we like them; sympathise with them.

We will psychoanalyse them, maybe argue about them, express our admiration for them.

We don't treat people like commodities, not if we have any heart and decency. There are a few bad apples in the industry just like anywhere else. But not as many as some of the gleeful commentariat this past week or so would have you think.