Melbourne, VIC

How a 20-year partnership that built Melbourne’s suburbs ended in scorched earth

The Age Sarah Danckert

27 Sept 2026 16:30 AEST Summary

From the report

Villawood Properties executives Rory Costelloe and Tony Johnson were once close business partners. Now Costelloe’s group alleges Johnson ripped the business off and lied to the court.

This is a summary. The indicators are not. The scores were measured over this summary alone, which is less of the article than we would like and makes them less certain.

Indicators

Niral Score 6 mundaneloaded

Highlighted in the text. Words that carry a fact and quoted words are not counted.

business2

Sourcing 63 unattributednamed sources Mood 50 sorrowjoyful

6 read zero: sentiment, political diction, generational, gender, jingoistic, religious

Sentiment 0 hostilefavourable Political diction 0 left-codedright-coded Generational 0 harder on the oldharder on the young Gender 0 no gendered framingframing throughout Jingoistic 0 reports to a readerwrites from a camp Religious 0 not invokedovert

Measurements of how this article is written, not of whether it is correct. How each one is measured.

Measured on The Age’s report as filed, which is all we may publish of this one.

How this outlet filed it, and how we rewrote it

No other newsroom we read has filed on this event, so there is nothing to compare it with yet.

Also covered by WAtoday, Brisbane Times, The Sydney Morning Herald. We hold only their summary of it, not the report, so there is nothing of theirs to measure here.

Outlet	Niral Score
The Ageas they published this story	6

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The same event elsewhere

3 other outlets filed this story. The scoreboard above is what they did differently.

WAtoday How a 20-year partnership that built Melbourne’s suburbs ended in scorched earth Niral 6 political 0 Brisbane Times How a 20-year partnership that built Melbourne’s suburbs ended in scorched earth Niral 6 political 0 The Sydney Morning Herald How a 20-year partnership that built Melbourne’s suburbs ended in scorched earth Niral 6 political 0