Responding to the story in the Melbourne HeraldSun’s “Confidential” pages, Charles Wooley told radioinfo that he was disappointed that the journalist who wrote it hadn’t paid him the courtesy of a phone call to get his version of events.

Wooley’s networked morning program, Charles Wooley Across Australia, notched up three awards and Wooley himself was asked to present a few to others.

The HeraldSun article stated, “Wooley, who took the stage after winning a gong at the Melbourne function, obviously had one too many in celebration. He stumbled on names, read the awards in the wrong order, and rambled on”.

Wooley (a self confessed wine snob) told radioinfo jokingly, “I, in fact, had very little to drink, the wine was so appalling. We didn’t really get into the drink till after the function”.

In a more serious vein, Wooley, veteran of several Logies in his previous career as a 60 Minutes reporter, did admit that he was more used to working with an autocue and a tight script. “I was a bit thrown, as were some others, by being handed the wrong envelope to start. And then, at the very last moment, I was asked to read the names of those who had died during the year. Apparently, all their names were originally captioned on the video, but it was discovered that they had misspelled Stan Zemanek’s name, so I was asked to read them all instead. Since I didn’t actually know everyone on the video and without rehearsal, I’m not surprised that I may have looked to be somewhat out of sync”.

Asked if he might take action against the HeraldSun, Wooley replied, ”No, I don’t believe in journalists suing other journalists. I can sympathise with the journo, working a Sunday, a deadline to meet and perhaps without the benefit of a sub-editor or legal people on hand. But a simple phone call to me for comment might have helped”.