4338.206 · July 25, 2018 AD
The MONA Affair
Two newspapers. Two versions of the same night. The Tasmanian Observer celebrates Sergeant Charlie Claiborne's charity triumph—$1.2 million raised, Tasmania's elite united, community spirit shining. But the Tassie Independent asks darker questions: Why was the gala host investigating a murder connected to his own event? Why did evidence go missing? What was his wife doing with the victim? Champagne and shadows. Glamour and suspicion. Same gala, different truths.
July 25, 2018. MONA's subterranean halls transform into winter elegance. Silver, silk, candlelight. Two hundred guests in black tie raise record funds for Hobart's most vulnerable. Sergeant Charlie Claiborne stands at the centre—gracious, composed, heroic.
The Tasmanian Observer captures it all: the fashion, the generosity, the community coming together under James Turrell's light installations. Jess Goss writes the story Tasmania wants to read.
But three days later, the Tassie Independent publishes something else.
Adam Panchak asks the questions nobody at the gala wanted to hear: A body at the State Theatre. A MONA invitation in a dead man's pocket. Hotel meetings between the victim and the Sergeant's wife. Missing evidence. A conflicted investigator hosting the very event tied to his crime scene.
Two journalists. One gala. And the truth buried somewhere between celebration and scandal.
Which version do you believe?
