Instead of a mea culpa, she offered a defence. Worse, she implied the Lebanese authorities treated the 60 Minutes team unfairly. An emotional Tara Brown explains her perspective on 60 Minutes after being released from a Beirut jail following a botched child recovery story in April. Credit:Channel Nine "I thought, 'We're journalists, we're doing our job – and they will see reason, they will understand that'," Brown told colleague Michael Usher. "We are here just to do a story on a very desperate mother, and I thought that reason would prevail – and it didn't." Instead of complaining, Brown should count herself lucky.

She, her three colleagues and Faulkner are back home. The two child recovery agents are still in detention. Michael Usher greets colleague Tara Brown at the beginning of a 60 Minutes interview on Lebanon. Credit:Channel Nine It might have been so much worse. The TV crew could have been convicted of kidnapping, then left to rot in a Beirut prison. Sally Faulkner, who has returned to Australia without the two children she tried to retrieve from Lebanon, seen here with estranged husband Ali Elamine.

Faulkner's estranged mother-in-law could have been more seriously hurt while being manhandled during the raid. Ali Elamine, Faulkner's soon-to-be ex-husband, was supposedly tipped off about her arrival in Lebanon. Apparently, he knew of her intention to bring their children back to Australia. What if he had assigned armed bodyguards to protect them? Tara Brown and sacked producer Stephen Rice on their return to Sydney, after being released from a Lebanese jail. Credit:Getty Images Not to mention that in Lebanon, it is illegal to go around snatching kids from bus stops. In their culture, they call it "kidnapping". It's a strange custom they observe. Whether or not Sally Faulkner had full custody – under Australian law – is not the point.

It's perfectly legitimate for 60 Minutes to report on the growing problem of international custody disputes. To use Faulkner as a case study. To focus on her (entirely understandable) anguish. This does not mean that anything goes. Last week, Fairfax Media revealed Channel Nine transferred almost $70,000 to the "child recovery" agency Faulkner used. Whether Nine wired the money "accidentally" – thinking it was Faulkner's account – it does appear that someone got paid. If Nine's money funded the operation, directly or indirectly, Brown's argument doesn't hold water.

She can't claim the 60 Minutes crew were just journalists "doing our job". They crossed the line from observers to participants. Very active participants. Their goal was not only to re-unite a mother with her children. They wanted dramatic footage of a raid, to boost their ratings. To be the heroes of their own story. Of course, journalists often influence the things they report on. Merely asking a question can change the outcome. If I probe a TV network about a bullied staffer, for instance, their manager might get fired. Journalists can also break laws without doing anything ethically wrong. The ABC's Linton Besser and Louie Eroglu were detained, then thrown out of Malaysia, after trying to probe the Prime Minister about a corruption scandal. To draw comparisons between this, and the 60 Minutes crew, is mischievous.

The Malaysian authorities used their laws to intimidate reporters asking legitimate questions. The Lebanese authorities used their laws to detain foreigners who barged in and grabbed two children off the street. What, exactly, is unreasonable about that? The Lebanese police could have opened fire. An armed civilian might have tried to save the day. The children themselves could been hurt – or killed. As I've said before, Ms Faulkner's distress is understandable. Did she exhaust every other option, though, before going down this path? And would 60 Minutes have paid her a large sum just for an interview? Or did they want her to spend her fee on a "child recovery" operation? The 60 Minutes crew might scoff at all this. But if their plan was so great, how did they all wind up in jail, in the centre of a global media storm – and a major international diplomatic incident?

Tara Brown is a Walkley Award winner. I've commended her previously as a superb reporter and tough interviewer. She should have known better. On Sunday night, at the start of the program, Usher said: "There's one thing we want to state very clearly from the outset. We made mistakes." He did not spell out those mistakes, explaining that an internal review was under way. It would be wise for Nine to recognise that the public is not actually divided over this scandal.

Most, it seems, are simply appalled by the actions of 60 Minutes. Twitter: @Michael_Lallo