Media intrusion: crossing the dividing line
Comment by Peter Reid
Is Cheryl Kernot becoming the media rat pack's No. 1 quarry? In just three months since she quit the Democrats for Labor, she's had to endure more critical sniping and intrusive press attention than many politicians cop in a lifetime. Chances are she's in for a lot more blitzing now that she's emerged as an electoral asset for Beazley and Co.
Kernot joins the company of half a dozen other high-profile women MPs, mostly Labor, who were similar targets for the carping onslaught of political hacks.
Victoria's Joan Kirner found herself in their sights once she became state premier. Next in the firing line came Bronwyn Bishop, Ros Kelly, Carmen Lawrence and Amanda Vanstone.
Kernot became choice prey as soon as she switched to Labor. Within a few weeks, smut hounds were sniffing out stale revelations of an affair she had more than 20 years ago.
Even though there was nothing illegal or even improper about the relationship, it was enough for the Sydney Morning Herald to sound the huntsman's horn. Overkill coverage spread over three entire pages, complete with photos, plus a headline mocking Kernot as "Saint Cheryl".
Next day, the Fairfax's tabloid stablemate, the Sun-Herald, dished up more of the same, with a highly unflattering photo of Kernot splashed across page one, headlined, "The sex smear that's haunted Cheryl".
The combined coverage was gutter journalism, which wouldn't have been given anything like the same prominence had Kernot been a male politician who'd defected to the Liberals.
"Most journalists would not have regarded it as a legitimate matter to report on", said Chris Warren, joint federal secretary of the journalists' union, the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance. "Public figures are entitled to the same rights of privacy as everyone, though they lose certain of those rights because of the need for public scrutiny of their activities. The dividing line? When it impacts on the performance of their public duties, which didn't seem to apply in Kernot's case."
The SMH published some of the umpteen letters it received from outraged readers accusing it of sexism and muckraking. Their wrath fuelled expectations that the Australian Press Council (APC), the print media's self-regulatory watchdog, would investigate the matter. But to date there has been no council probe into the Kernot coverage.
Why? Because nobody has complained to the APC, which won't look into alleged ethical lapses unless someone lodges a complaint with the council, preferably after first raising the matter with the publication concerned.
The council's non-pro-active stance, regarded by critics as akin to police ignoring a crime because the public hasn't complained about it, is a key weakness.
The complaints process itself doesn't exactly encourage complainants either, especially if the council deems a complaint could be the basis for legal action, in which case the complainant is required to sign a document waiving his or her legal rights before the council proceeds further.
As for the media, all too often they display an insensitivity about delving into a person's private life. Kernot's plea to reporters to respect her family's privacy, when a runaway removalist truck wrecked their Brisbane home, was depicted by some newspapers as a sign of weakness.
And when she dared to chide a journo for posing the question, "How come you organised to have your family move during the [ALP] conference?", her reproach was branded a "meltdown" and a "temper tantrum".
The mere mention of media intrusion invariably evokes from editors the hoary rationale of "public interest" or "freedom of the press". Sneak photos, so long as photographers shoot from public property and thus aren't technically trespassing, are quite legit, they insist, even though long lenses are regularly used for photographic intrusion.
The publication of paparazzi-type photos are now banned under a tough new ethics code ratified by the British Press Complaints Commission. For the first time in press guidelines, the code upholds the right to privacy for everyone. It also accords respect for their family and home.
In Australia, recent lapses by the media have been among the worst on record — in particular, aftermath coverage of the Port Arthur and Thredbo disasters, the sham location in a report on Skase, plus the Woods and Colston family home intrusions.
Time perhaps to consider tightening up codes of ethics, akin to the UK crackdown on media intrusion? Not so, according to the APC.
"Ethically, our press is vastly superior to the worst of the British tabloids, so it's not considered necessary to revise our set of principles", said Jack Herman, council executive secretary. "There have been unfortunate lapses of late here, but overall the Australian press behaves itself reasonably well."
Prices for paparazzi photos in post-Diana UK have slumped, but, according to London's Spectator magazine, Australia is likely to become a more lucrative corner of the global market because of continued demand for celebrity pictures by our thriving mass circulation magazines.
If that's so, it's likely we'll see as many, if not more, intrusive paparazzi photos published.
All of which raises the issue of privacy as it affects the publishers of those very magazines, the more popular of which regularly feature sneak photos from here and overseas, along with celebrity scandal and tittle-tattle.
Most of those magazines are controlled by two of Australia's richest and most powerful families, the Packers and Murdochs, the former well-known for his dislike of the media — particularly journalists when they invade people's privacy. Both families have young and attractive heirs-apparent, who could be expected to be focused on now and then in the popular magazines their fathers publish.
Yet, except for occasional, usually favourable profiles, neither Jamie nor Lachlan seems to have been subjected to indelicate media intrusion. No sneak photos, for example, of them sharing a private moment with someone of the opposite sex.
When it comes to invasion of privacy, could there be one rule for media proprietors and one for the rest of us?
Footnote: If you think media treatment of Cheryl Kernot calls for investigation by the Australian Press Council, contact it on (02) 9261 1930 for a complaints form.