Sunday 5th of May 2024
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wheels of fortune .....

wheels of fortune .....

from Crikey .....

Is today's press coverage relating to Andrew Wilkie's behaviour as a senior Duntroon cadet in 1983, on balance, in the public interest?

Wilkie himself, in a thoughtful and forthright performance at his press conference today to respond to the claims, dismissed a direct link between this matter and the club industry's expensive, if barely literate, campaign against him. Beyond that, it is a fine judgment to make.

The get-out clause for the media is that Wilkie himself has placed issues relating to his behaviour at Duntroon on the public record, thereby, arguably, inviting scrutiny. Moreover, the matter relates not to Wilkie's personal life, but to his chosen profession.

Nonetheless, what is the public interest in raising Wilkie's behaviour 28 years ago? Is the full past of any politician automatically open to scrutiny? Should journalists go digging through the personal histories of each member of Parliament for anything of interest - rather than being in the public interest - simply because they're politicians? To do so would be to further tilt the scales against the participation in public life of non-career politicians - that ever-diminishing breed of people who had a real career, and a life, before deciding to enter Parliament.

Rather, it would encourage the very people we already have too many of -- the professional politicians who plot a career from student to apparatchik to adviser to MP to post-political life on a board or as a consultant.

Or should such ancient history be raised only when there is a public interest in a past action or statement? Wilkie hasn't been involved in the fallout of the ADFA scandal before now, indeed appears not to have commented on it until today. This undermines the public interest case for revealing the details about his own participation in the then-prevalent culture of bastardisation, either as a victim or as a perpetrator. And will the military discipline records of other former ADF personnel like the Liberals' Stuart Robert, or Labor's Mike Kelly, be subject to similar scrutiny by the media?

At first glance, Wilkie's alleged participation in such practices is newsworthy. But try to pin down exactly why we are being told this now, and to what public interest it relates, and the case starts to look weaker.

If the media want to adopt this approach, it's on for everyone. As media outlets jockey for influence, and commentators consider themselves players in the political process rather than observers and reporters, why shouldn't we be asking what inappropriate behaviour, or worse, they were guilty of as young men and women?

from the glass houses .... yet again!!

from Crikey .....

Rupert, Hitler, 1983, beat-ups ... doesn't all this sound familiar?

Stephen Mayne writes:

ANDREW RULE, ANDREW WILKIE, PETER BLUNDEN, PHIL GARDNER, RUPERT MURDOCH

The Herald Sun triumphantly poached gold Walkley winner Andrew Rule from The Age late last year, but that doesn't mean it should thoughtlessly put every story he presents on the front page. So it was last Friday when the Herald Sun splashed with Rule's beat-up about Andrew Wilkie's behaviour at Duntroon 28 years ago.

The Saturday Herald Sun was even more sanctimonious, producing this long editorial and claiming there were "five questions that Wilkie must answer". The last two were as follows:

4. Can you provide any evidence that Mr Etches, reporter Andrew Rule or the Herald Sun are part of a smear campaign orchestrated by the pokies lobby?

5. If you can't provide any evidence, will you withdraw those imputations and apologise?

Exhibit A, of course, is the fact that the pokies industry has just signed contracts to spend millions of dollars in News Ltd papers on paid advertising demonising pokies reform. The timing looks awful.

Big advertising contracts often generate positive editorial coverage. I well remember then Daily Telegraph editor Col Allan asking me to do a soft feature on Aussie Home Loans boss John Symond in 1998.

Symond was spending up big on advertising at the time and when I called, he dropped out that he had requested some editorial coverage from then Daily Telegraph CEO Malcolm Noad. Noad called Allan who was happy to oblige and a 700-word puff piece duly appeared on the opinion page the following day.

Not everyone is suggesting Wilkie's alleged Hitler salute in 1983 isn't a story. But it never merited the huge page one splash in Australia's biggest-selling paper last Friday.

If the pokies industry hadn't agreed to pay News Ltd millions of dollars, this would not have happened.

Can you imagine the Herald Sun doing that to Wilkie if he had just signed some huge advertising contacts to attack the pokies industry? It is also a bit troubling that Wilkie doesn't even recall the incident.

Rupert Murdoch doesn't have the best record when it comes to events involving Hitler in 1983 as that was the year The Sunday Times paid $US400,000 for the rights to Hitler's so-called diaries. Turns out they were fake and The Sunday Times is still remembered to this day for one of the most embarrassing gaffes in the history of journalism.

The other problem with having Andrew Rule beat up on Wilkie is that his wife, Di Rule, is a two-time unsuccessful Victorian Liberal candidate. The Liberals have played a cynical game with the pokies, ignoring the policy debate and focusing entirely on attempting to bring down the Gillard government.

Even worse, Rule is now admitting that he is related to Brendan Etches, the former cadet making the allegations against Wilkie. Given all this, surely it would have been sensible for Herald Sun editor-in-chief Phil Gardner to assign the story to a different reporter, or at least ensure the coverage wasn't so hysterical.

Gardner also potentially has an interest in the first of the five questions that his paper declared "Andrew Wilkie must answer". It read as follows:

Will you ask the defence force to waive your privacy rights and release your personal Duntroon punishment records so the public can judge what happened at Duntroon.

Gardner himself spent some time in the South African army and used to regale the Herald Sun sports desk with hair-raising tales of those colourful times.

Here's a suggestion for Wilkie: he should agree to release his private records on the condition that Gardner also releases his complete disciplinary record whilst serving during the apartheid era. And while he's at it, perhaps Wilkie should also ask Herald Sun managing director Peter Blunden to release his complete driving record.

At least Wilkie originally outed himself for poor behaviour at Duntroon. When Blunden was pulled over for drink diving in 2002, he waited for the court case before the Herald Sun reported the incident, but the paper failed to note he claimed that asthma prevented him from blowing properly into the bag.

Anyone who has heard the voluble Blunden ranting and raving would be surprised to know that he doesn't have the lung capacity to satisfy a standard breath test.

Finally, it should be clearly stated that Crikey has received no paid advertising from the anti-pokies lobby before running this piece.