The Daily Telegraph's Masterchef "Scoop"

While watching Masterchef tonight, I was also flicking around the various news sites, and at the point the show was down to revealing the final judging, The Daily Telegraph had this story on the front page of its website:

Poh wins MasterChef Australia
By Erin McWhirter, TV Editor
July 19, 2009 8:57PM
Source: The Daily Telegraph

AUSTRALIA'S culinary experts backed her and Poh Ling Yeow delivered, becoming the first contestant to win MasterChef Australia last night.

It was a case of third time lucky for the Adelaide artist who initially didn't make it past the first audition, was asked back, eliminated from the top 20 and returned one last time to claim victory over mother-of-three Julie Goodwin in the reality TV cooking contest.

It contained the following:

After pocking the $100,000 cash prize and a cookbook deal Ling Yeow says she's excited about launching her book Food From Mars.
With a heavy Asian influence, the MasterChef winner believes Australians have been waiting for a cookbook which explores her roots.

It then had a comment from the "loser" Julie:
Disappointed but humble, Goodwin praised her feisty opponent for her success.
"Poh's a very deserving winner," she said. "I'm proud of her, she's a good friend and I wish her every success in the world."

All I can say is "whoops". It was obviously a case of Erin McWhirter writing two stories, one of which would be published depending on who won, and then The Daily T deciding to spoil the ending, and completely stuffing it up. This is obvious because by 9:42pm they put out this story:

Julie wins MasterChef
By Erin McWhirter
From: The Daily Telegraph
July 19, 2009 9:42PM

A MAJORITY of Australia's culinary experts didn't back her, but MasterChef Australia contestant Julie Goodwin went from underdog to winner last night.
In a shock victory, the mother-of-three's old fashioned home-style cooking beat out Poh Ling Yeow's passion for Asian cuisine in one of Australia's most-anticipated TV cooking showdowns.

Both articles had a similar sentence that gives away they were both written earlier. In the "Poh wins" article there is:
However, for Ling Yeow her immediate focus is on returning to her painting after neglecting it for four months.
The established artist is yet to finish all her pieces for an exhibition of her works at the Hill Smith Gallery in Adelaide in November.

In the "Julie wins" article there is:
For Ling Yeow, 35, her immediate focus is on returning to her painting after neglecting it for four months due to her MasterChef Australia commitments.
The artist says she has been busy painting works to display in an exhibition the Hill Smith Gallery in Adelaide is holding in November.

So The Daily Telegraph in an attempt to scoop the field has completely revealed its lack of professionalism, and absolutely ballsed it up.

From the organisation that did the fake Godwin Grech email and the "oops, they were not really Pauline Hanson" nude pics, I would expect nothing less.

UPDATE:
The "tweet" of the night goes to @AbuSufyaan: Exclusive: Telegraph announces Jeff Goldblum nearly wins #masterchef Australia. Came second to Richard Wilkins.

Brilliant.

UPDATE: The Daily Telegraph has now taken the "Poh Wins" page down, but Crikey has made sure you can still get it all. Crikey also shows that Channel 10 was complicit in the whole shambles - by getting Julie and Poh to provide answers to journalists as though they had either won or lost. Gotta love "reality TV".