Today Tonight was up to its old tricks on last night, filching a quote from the Nine Network’s Sunday program that featured Schapelle Corby’s sister, Mercedes. That story went to air a week ago on Sunday and rather than give Nine or Sunday any credit, Today Tonight lifted the grab from the Ross Coulthart story and then blew it up in the editing of the story to remove the Nine and Sunday watermarks.

The quote was lifted and used in a grubby little story that retailed a few of the salacious claims about Schapelle Corby’s life: her marriage to a Japanese man, “sampling the Japanese night life” in Tokyo after the marriage fell over, and suggestions of too many trips to Bali. The story retailed the cover story from this week’s New Idea.

To its credit, TT quoted an “investigator” in Japan (for the New Idea story) as saying that her friends had dismissed the stories that Schapelle Corby was involved in the drug trade. The TT reporter put the claims to the chief financial backer, Gold Coast businessman Ron Bakir, but it’s a pity that Schapelle Corby wasn’t around to have the stories and claims put to her, to give her the chance of reply.