But now for a real story, in which Nine's 60 Minutes is making news for all the wrong reasons.

JAYNE AZZOPARDI: Two Australian children involved in a custody dispute have been returned to their father in Lebanon after their mother tried to bring them back to Australia. Sally Faulkner hired a child recovery agency as a last ditch attempt to retrieve her son and daughter, but the operation went wrong. Tara Brown and her 60 Minutes crew were covering the story and have been detained by authorities in Beirut. Consular officials and lawyers have visited the group and they're working to get them released. — Channel Nine, News, 8 April, 2016

Yes, 60 Minutes reporter Tara Brown and producer Stephen Rice have spent the last four nights behind bars in a Lebanese cell.

They were detained with their two-man crew after a botched attempt to recover-or perhaps kidnap-two Australian-born children.

Five year old Lahela and three year old Noah.

from their Lebanese-American father, Ali al-Amin.

And this in broad daylight is how it went down.

PETER STEFANOVIC: Through the grainy CCTV footage what appears to be two women and two small children walking along a street. Then, from an already parked car, a snatch and grab as the children are taken and rushed into the vehicle, which is then driven off leaving the two women behind. Reported by local media to be the grandmother and nanny. GRANDMOTHER: They hit me on the head with something and I got quite dizzy. They pulled the child from me. Then they hit the nanny and took the little girl. We held onto them as much as we could, but we couldn't stop them. — Channel Nine, News, 7 April, 2016

The men who grabbed the children are also now in jail, along with a former British police officer alleged to have organised the snatch

So what exactly was 60 Minutes doing? Well before things went pear shaped Nine was telling viewers:

Tara Brown and her crew possibly in police custody after filming it all — Channel Nine, Promo, 7 April, 2016

And if 60 Minutes didn't do that ... seems the snatch team was filming it for them.

But that may not be all. Because according to Lebanon's Interior Minister , the 60 Minutes crew were also:

... "involved in abducting the two children and detained in respect of their participation in the kidnapping operation". — Reuters, 7 April, 2016

Now if that is true-and Nine has denied it-what were they thinking?

No doubt the answer is: the story would rate its socks off.

But Nine would doubtless argue it was also trying to help a mother in distress.

Five months ago, Sally Faulkner made this impassioned plea to the Australian government for help

SALLY FAULKNER: My two small and very young children have been kidnapped and taken overseas to Lebanon by my ex-husband. For six months now I've not seen them or heard from them. My daughter turned five only a number of days ago and my son turns three next month. — Facebook, Change.org, 21 November, 2015

But sad and moving as it undoubtedly is, the story is not so simple.

Although the children were born in Australia they lived in Beirut from 2011 to 2013.

And it was Sally who took them to Australia nearly 3 years ago.

She then tore up their passports-their father Ali al-Amin claims-and told him they weren't coming back to Beirut, where he owns a surf shop.

So Nine's crusaders do not have right all on their side.

But worse than that, they may not have been just innocent bystanders.

60 Minutes crew detained in Beirut paid $120,000 to a child recovery agency which 'faked' success stories on Facebook and whose operators have been arrested around the world — Daily Mail Australia, 7 April, 2016

Yes, the Daily Mail claimed last week that 60 Minutes actually put up the money for the failed abduction

And the ABC's Matt Brown reports that one of the child snatchers has allegedly repeated this claim to the Lebanese police.

Authorities say they now have a signed statement from a member of the "recovery team" who says Nine paid $115,000 for the operation. — ABC Online, 9 April, 2016

If 60 Minutes did conspire to organise a crime on foreign soil, then Tara Brown and Stephen Rice may be in serious trouble.

Not least because the recovery team has a record of breaking the law, as the Daily Mail revealed:

Former British police officer Adam Whittington, who runs Child Abduction Recovery International (CARI) and who is reportedly under police arrest in Beirut along with 60 Minutes' Tara Brown and her crew, was jailed in Singapore 18 months ago over a child abduction case. Another CARI operative, Kevin Critchley, is currently in a Peruvian prison following the alleged kidnap of a five-year-old girl in Lima last month. — Daily Mail Australia, 7 April, 2016

We asked Nine whether they did pay the snatch team, or paid Sally Faulkner so she could hire them, but they declined to comment.

Odd that they don't deny it.

Meanwhile, father Ali al-Amin has told the Guardian's reporter in Lebanon that he was warned the abduction was coming.

He said he had access to his wife's emails until last December, and had taken screenshots of emails discussing the outlines of the plan, which allowed local police to identify the suspects ... — The Guardian, 9 April, 2016

al-Amin told the ABC that the emails he has seen do not implicate 60 Minutes, but he still reserved his fiercest comments for them.

"To hire mercenaries to come and kidnap your kids? How horrible are you guys? You're endangering everyone's lives including my mother and the kids, for what? For a story?" — The Guardian, 9 April, 2016

It's widely expected that charges will be laid today.

And unless the Australian government can work some diplomatic magic, it seems likely Tara Brown and Stephen Rice will be among them. At least, that's the implication of this report in Lebanon's Daily Star , which shows two happy-looking children, back with their father.

Seven to be charged in child abduction case — Daily Star, 9 April, 2016

If 60 Minutes did effectively pay for the abduction of those two children-and that will be for a court to decide-they have behaved disgracefully. And whoever authorised it should be sacked.

Just imagine for one moment that it was a Lebanese TV crew doing that on an Australian street. Would anyone line up to defend them then?