Queensland

Wallaby who overcame cystic fibrosis to play rugby diagnosed with MND

ABC News

1 Oct 2026 08:34 AEST Summary

Summarized version

Nathan Charles has said he has motor neurone disease. The 37-year-old publicly announced his diagnosis during an interview with Stan Sport.

The report’s most important sentence, shortened and in plain words. How

From the report

Former Wallaby Nathan Charles has been diagnosed with motor neurone disease.

How outlets headlined it

Each outlet's own headline. ~~Struck through~~: the loaded words our version leaves out. Plainest first.

ABC News Wallaby who overcame cystic fibrosis to play rugby diagnosed with MND plain
The West Australian Former Wallabies player Nathan Charles diagnosed with motor neurone disease aged 37 plain
Brisbane Times He beat cystic fibrosis and became a Wallaby. Now Nathan Charles is fighting another ~~cruel~~ disease 1 change

Headline check

There is nothing in this headline a machine can check against the report: no figure, no name and no quotation.

Nothing was measured here, so nothing is claimed. How this is checked

This is a summary. The indicators are not. Every score on this page was measured over the full 501-word report, which is the only way the numbers mean anything.

How it is written

Niral Score 6.6 · calm mundaneloaded

10 more readings adjectives, repeated words, sentiment, sourcing and 1 more and 5 at zero

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

cystic4defied4diagnosed4diagnosis4fibrosis4interview4rugby4disease3know3motor3neurone3played3yeah3already2around2different2felt2former2four2getting2going2impacted2long2matches2play2revealed2science2short2sporting2

Sentiment -0.2 hostilefavourable Sourcing 86 unattributednamed sources Mood 33.2 sorrowjoyful

5 read zero: political diction, generational, gender, jingoistic, religious

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

How the article is written, not whether it is correct. How each is measured.

Measured on ABC News’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 Brisbane Times, The Age, WAtoday, The Sydney Morning Herald, The West Australian. We hold only their summary of it, not the report, so there is nothing of theirs to measure here.

Outlet	Niral Score
ABC Newsas they published this story	6.6

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The same event elsewhere

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

Brisbane Times He beat cystic fibrosis and became a Wallaby. Now Nathan Charles is fighting another disease Niral 33.1 · loaded political 0 The Age He beat cystic fibrosis and became a Wallaby. Now Nathan Charles is fighting another disease Niral 33.1 · loaded political 0 WAtoday He beat cystic fibrosis and became a Wallaby. Now Nathan Charles is fighting another disease Niral 33.1 · loaded political 0 The Sydney Morning Herald He beat cystic fibrosis and became a Wallaby. Now Nathan Charles is fighting another disease Niral 33.1 · loaded political 0 The West Australian Former Wallabies player Nathan Charles diagnosed with motor neurone disease aged 37 Niral 4.7 · calm political 0