Former Foreign Minister admits he’s a bigger media tart than Kevin Rudd but says its part of the job

BOB Carr used the “Carr Doctrine” to control media as commentator and entertainer, but that control seems to have vanished if the reaction to his book is anything to go by.

Former Foreign Minister Bob Carr was in Sydney today and held a doorstop on his upcoming

BOB Carr accepts he is a ‘media tart,’ perhaps an even bigger one than former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.

But he prefers to call himself an ‘entertainer’, his diaries reveal, who can control his audience with what he calls ‘The Carr Doctrine’.

That doctrine doesn’t seem to be working at the moment, however, as the former senator is under fire over his book which details his 18 months as Australia’s Foreign Minister.

He’s not enjoying the attention he once engineered as a politician.

“And I thought Rudd was a media tart,” then Foreign Affairs Department chief Dennis Richardson is quoted in a November, 2012 diary entry as telling a friend of Mr Carr’s.

Mr Carr replied in the private notes he has now published: “Yes Dennis, but the medium is the message, in this job as much as any.’’

He promoted “the notion of the politician as the commentator, even as the entertainer’’.

“Well, it’s part of the job because it gives you more authority when you have to win an argument with (Labor) colleagues or put some other proposition to the media.”
“The easy stuff is money in the bank.”

As Mr Carr promoted his high profile he was critical of the government of Julia Gillard for antagonising the media who provided it. He called it “wholesale war with the newspapers” over proposed media regulations.

As NSW Premier, he told ministers they had to keep editors and commentators informed; maintain a flow of stories; exploit divisions in the media.

“That’s it. The Carr Doctrine: persuade and charm, and throughout it all, simply entertain,’’ he recorded in his diary in March last year.

“Instead we are choosing to antagonise all the media six months from the election. There could be a brilliance behind this but I’m not going to ask.’’