Side note: it really irks me that almost every ABC article has "allegedly" somewhere in the title.
I get they're all paranoid about being sued, but this isn't alleged, a kid was ACTUALLY stabbed. That can't be disputed, and you can't be sued for defamation for claiming that something that actually happened, happened.
For some people it's "POV:". For me it's "allegedly this situation that very obviously happened, happened".
The headline on the article page is (currently) "Boy, 16, fatally stabbed at shopping centre in Melbourne's west", so I don't know why the share-preview headline has 'allegedly'
The headline has been updated since the item was posted.
Boy, 16, fatally stabbed at shopping centre in Melbourne's west
Perhaps these days in the AI Age where so much slop is being published and also submitted for publication they have a publishing policy to insure themselves.
How is it defamatory? It's not defamatory. It doesn't accuse a specific person of stabbing anyone, and a situation can't be defamation. Unless shopping centres or suburbs can sue for defamation, in which case, they still couldn't, because it objectively happened.
There are technicalities to the legal system, if you name them as a murderer and the case was acquitted or a different outcome came of it from the court ruling you have just named them a murderer when technically they weren’t and you have defamed them.