Not all in the politicians-media game play by the same rules

A lot of nonsense has been spoken and written about differences between private conversations and protecting sources.

We need to talk about Kevin. And Tony and Julia. And John and Paul. And the differences between private conversations and protection of confidential sources.

A lot of nonsense has been ­spoken and written about this issue since certain book extracts I will not mention were published last weekend in this newspaper and in The Sunday Telegraph.

As I said on Lateline on ABC TV on Monday night, the only source-protected information pub­­lished in the book that shall ­remain nameless is the truth about the Bush phone call story in 2008. That truth was first ­revealed in Paul Kelly’s Triumph and ­Demise two years ago but the ­latest version is more detailed.

Everything else of a private ­nature in the book does not ­concern specific stories or sources but more general conversations, the confidentiality of which was ­respected completely by this newspaper, at least until my ­retirement and the end of the prime ministerships discussed.

The Australian has long ­campaigned for whistleblower protection laws, which both sides of politics routinely promise from opposition but renege on in ­government. So how does confidentiality and source protection work in practice and how should it work?

Smart journalists who are given ­material confidentially have to balance the public interest against the self-interest of the provider of confidential information. Media are in the business of ­publishing exclusive stories and our bias is squarely towards the right to know over the right of ­political spin doctors to dissemble.

Journalists will never reveal the sources of genuine leaks and this paper’s editor-in-chief, Paul Whittaker, famously risked jail over a Walkley Award story he wrote 21 years ago. I was his ­editor-in-chief at the time and stumped up for his legal defence.

In the case of genuine whistleblowers, reporters are duty bound to publish after assuring themselves of the quality of the information and to protect the confidentiality of the source. Political leaks can be very different.

Mark Latham in his Latham Diaries in 2005 belled the cat on former prime minister Kevin Rudd and the way he used the conventions of journalistic source protection to advance his own interests and damage his rivals. Think the leaks against then prime minister Julia Gillard in the 2010 election campaign. Or against his opposition leaders ­before 2006.

All reporters want exclusive stories and many find it too compelling to simply run with such material, even when they know it is unfair to the person being ­targeted by the source.

Then there is a different kind of confidential briefing: one not ­connected with a particular story or leak. Like the one where a ­politician, let’s call him Rudd just for fun, says publicly every six months that he will never ­challenge Gillard, while privately confiding to editors and political editors the exact timing of a strike he has ­already planned.

How many times did Rudd, for example, publicly deny wanting the job of UN secretary-general when we now know he was in ­discussions with Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Foreign Minister Julie ­Bishop about ­exactly that matter?

Journalists are not great ­independent thinkers. That is why public relations has so much of the journalism business on a string. Yes, Joe Aston, it’s you I am thinking of.

But, following Latham’s thinking, is it not time for journalists and editors to start pondering if we owe our readers the truth if we actually know it? To his credit, Dennis Shanahan found ways to report what was likely to happen to Rudd before he was challenged in 2010, and before his challenges against Gillard when she was PM.

Former PM Tony Abbott criticised me last week for revealing his private thoughts about Joe Hockey and Hockey’s commitment issues as a young footballer. It was hardly a state secret. But I think there is a serious argument I should have tried to reveal ­Abbott’s views at the time in late 2014 rather than two years later when he had lost his prime ministership and I had retired.

Think about it. Many in his party for two years wanted Abbott to move Hockey from Treasury, and on the day before the Turnbull challenge 12 months ago last week, far too late to save his own prime ministership, Abbott finally offered Hockey’s job to Scott Morrison. Yet when urged by this paper, The Daily Telegraph and many of his former mentors for well over a year to make such a move, he swore Hockey had the mettle for the job. He swore that but in his own heart he had known of Hoc­key’s commitment issues for more than 30 years.

In the book that shall remain nameless but which has been making headlines, it is clear John Howard and Paul Keating did not engage in this kind of obfuscation. They were forthright about their challenges and able to engage in an open rapport with the voters.

Prime ministers have the most powerful office in the land. They try to influence, muzzle and threaten editors in equal measure. Conservative critics who did not approve of my defence of Niki Savva from attacks by Abbott and Peta Credlin need to know Chris Kenny (as a former Lib staffer), Hedley Thomas (AWU slush fund) and Anthony Klan (Building the Education Revolution) all received similar strong, private backing against complaints and demands under Rudd and Gillard.

Political leaders in the modern news environment engage in a game with editors that has rules and conventions. I did not breach them when I was an editor. But they have no qualms about abandoning core principles and friendships for political gain. To quote my friend Cate McGregor: “A handful of self­-regarding narcissists breach the trust of reporters and voters and now claim they were in the confessional all along.”

It is amazing how many of those who have criticised the Hockey revelations have, in the same breath, completely sup­ported revelations about Rudd.

All this is the making of the media sausage that ordinary working reporters seldom know about or even understand and no readers see.