Paul Kelly warns journalists on the dangers of instant reporting

Paul Kelly, the nation’s pre-eminent political journalist, explains why you won’t see him tweeting anytime soon.

The Australian’s editor-at-large Paul Kelly. Picture: James Croucher

Paul Kelly, the nation’s pre-eminent political journalist, has a very simple policy when dealing with Twitter, which tripped up so many journalists during last month’s prime ministerial insurgency.

“I’m not on Twitter. I don’t see any particular need to be on it,” The Australian’s editor-at-large says.

“It’s my job above all to deal with the politicians and find out what’s happening and I’ve got my own mechanisms and methods for doing that,” the political journalist and historian tells The Australian’s Behind the Media podcast.

“They’re the standard journalistic techniques — you talk to people. There is no substitute for talking to people and you never believe what you’re told about a politician without speaking to them directly.”

Covering politics is unquestionably harder now, says Kelly, who entered the federal parliamentary press gallery in 1971. The insurgency against Malcolm Turnbull was notable for the large number of reports on Twitter, some from seasoned journalists, that were false.

“Well one thing I would say is we live in an age of minute-by-minute reporting, particularly represented by Sky News and other media outlets, and this is very difficult for journalists.

“I think journalists need to be careful. We’re being told all sorts of things by all sorts of politicians for their own reasons. And I think journalists need to be prudent about what exactly they do put to air because a lot of things were put to air which weren’t correct and then had to be corrected.”

Last month, Malcolm Turnbull was deposed by conservative forces backing Peter Dutton, who were themselves outmanoeuvred by Turnbull supporter Scott Morrison, now our 30th prime minister.

Checking facts takes time, an inconvenience in this age of instant reporting. Even more dangerously, predictions seem to be the main currency on 24-hour news and social media.

Kelly — who, it must be pointed out, doesn’t have to file news stories — urges caution. “I’m particularly careful these days about any predictions that I make because predictions are cheap and particularly if you get them wrong then the value of any predictions you make obviously becomes devalued pretty quickly.”

His advice? “Simply try and describe where things are now at any given moment as distinct from predict what the outcome might be.”

So has Kelly, who has been courtyard-side in Parliament House for the overthrow of numerous leaders, ever been shouted at by a prime minister? He seems to regard the question as overly obvious. “Oh, of course,” he says with bemusement.

“When prime ministers are under pressure, they show the pressure. There’s no doubt at all about that. I’ve had some extraordinary encounters with politicians in relation to leadership struggles.

“I’ve had many somewhat rugged phone conversations with prime ministers, with treasurers, with incumbents, with challengers. That’s part of the waterfront.”

But how to deal with them? Kelly says: “It’s important to stay calm, but you’ve got to stand up for yourself as well. And particularly if people are misrepresenting your position, which does tend to happen quite a bit in these hothouse environments.”

Stress comes with the territory, as does weariness.

“You tend to get rather tired because you’re talking to politicians up until midnight and then you start again early in the morning.”

Kelly is all about the analysis. He writes two lengthy columns a week for this paper, plus other commentary, plus regular appearances on Sky News. He has written eight books, covering political eras from Whitlam’s to the present.

During the Turnbull overthrow, much was written about the role of the media, particularly right-wing commentators including Sky News’ Peta Credlin and 2GB’s Ray Hadley and Alan Jones.

“No, the media is not to blame but the media did play an important role,” says Kelly, who lays the primary blame at Turnbull’s failing to unite the Liberal Party.

“The media always play a role in leadership changes.

“They always have in the past, they always will in the future.

“What happened this time was a little bit different to before, in as much as there was a group of identified conservative commentators in radio television and print who’ve essentially carried a torch for Tony Abbott for the last three years and have waged a strong campaign against Malcolm Turnbull.”

It was back in 1971 that he entered journalism from the public service, via a cadetship with The Australian, because he was “driven by politics”.

On the podcast he reveals the name of the famous journalist who beat him to a cadetship at the time.

But relations with the paper soured during the 1975 constitutional crisis. Kelly was extremely critical of blocking supply and dismissal of prime minister Gough Whitlam.

His bosses weren’t happy. “The paper relieved me of my position as political correspondent,” he says.

So Kelly left amid staff industrial action and went to rival Fairfax Media.

Kelly’s return to the paper in the mid 1980s, invited back by the head of News Limited, Ken Cowley, and Rupert Murdoch, can be considered extraordinary. So was his joint print and television deal with Channel 10, then owned by News, which upped the stakes for journalists everywhere. Media Watch once referred to him as a “News Limited sacred site”.

In 1991, when he was made editor-in-chief, he attracted a lot of talent to the paper’s ranks. He says he always looked for journalists who could “perform and penetrate”. Proven story breakers were a necessity, but he also looked “for journalists also that are original — they’ve got their own vision, their own perspective. They don’t just follow the pack. They are capable of breaking out on their own and reaching their own conclusions.”

The death of Whitlam in 2014 was a big moment in Kelly’s life. When pressed, he says it was “an emotional time”.

Kelly had been a young political correspondent in his 20s, travelling overseas with Whitlam on prime ministerial trips, reporting on his substantial strengths and flaws.

“From 1974 onwards when the government went bad, I wrote a lot of very critical articles and columns about Whitlam and that led me into a series of fairly intense moments with him which one’s got to manage. Whitlam was an intimidating figure but essentially because I covered him when I was a young journalist I think that forged some personal and emotional bond. So I did feel it when Whitlam died.”