An extraordinary effort by our team on deadline

We had first published the story on theage.com.au at 6am on Friday and, not surprisingly, there had been plenty of reaction. It included confirmation from Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull that the allegations were being investigated, a defence of Mr Roberts-Smith from former Australian of the year Rosie Batty and a full and frank denial of every allegation from Mr Roberts-Smith himself.

In Saturday's papers, the story was placed on the front page and three full pages inside.

If the injunction was granted we would have to pull all four pages and fill them with other stories (and it was not immediately apparent what some of those stories might be).

The timing of the court case was highly problematic. Legal arguments did not start until about 6pm and the chance of the judge making a decision either way before 6.30 was remote.

We had to plan for three outcomes: 1. That the injunction would be denied, in which case we could run the paper basically as it was with a few additions and details about the court case itself; 2. That it would be successful, in which case we would not be able to run the story, and have to redo the front page and run three pages of different stories; 3. It would be partially successful, in which case we would need to remove the parts of the story that the judge wanted suppressed and adjust layouts accordingly.

All these scenarios put strain on our small crew of print production staff, who were creating dummy pages while awaiting instruction on the progress of the case.

Meanwhile, I was getting messages from lawyers, senior Fairfax management in Sydney and updates from court, where top Sydney Morning Herald reporter Kate McClymont had rushed to cover the case. She had been on her way to the Kennedy Awards (NSW's top journalism awards night), where she had been nominated, alongside Nick McKenzie, as one of the three finalists for the journalist of the year.

"There are rules in war, as there must be. And no one should be above the law."

Our 6.30pm deadline came and went with no resolution, and while we were able to arrange an extension of the deadline for sending pages to the printers to 7.30, I knew that with the presses on hold, trucks waiting at the print site and distributors preparing for the biggest delivery of the week, there was a limit to how long we could stretch deadlines further. And whatever the outcome, the required adjustments and subsequent legal checks would take time.

At 7.11, I received the message that the judge had started his deliberations. A further extension to the deadline was arranged. At 7.34, I was told that the injunction had been unsuccessful. There was no time to consider anything else except what it meant for the production of the paper.

Kate immediately filed a story with the help of SMH investigations editor Michael Evans. We adjusted the front page to refer to the existence and failure of the injunction attempt, reinstated the three pages that contained the main investigation and updated our news story with Kate's take from court.

All the pages were sent to the printers by 8pm. It was a remarkable effort from our print production team.

We have, not surprisingly, received a good deal of negative feedback about publishing the story in the first place, the accusation being that we were unfairly trashing the reputation of a war hero.

I have huge respect for our armed forces. They are fighting and keeping the peace in places like Afghanistan so that I, and the vast majority of us, don't have to.

But there is an inquiry into the culture of the SAS, and several members of the armed forces have come forward with allegations that should be investigated. There are rules in war, as there must be. And no one should be above the law. If there are allegations that these rules have been breached, then they should be investigated, not swept under the carpet.

Neither Kate McClymont nor Nick McKenzie won the journalist of the year award at the Kennedys. But Nick and Chris Masters did win the award for outstanding investigative journalism, and fellow Age journalists Adele Ferguson and Sarah Danckert won the finance reporting award for their expose on the Retail Food Group.

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