TV journo lets Barnaby Joyce off the hook

TV journalist Alex Cullen failed to ask any hard questions on Sunday night. Picture: John Appleyard

My father’s view of what to do after you have been responsible for a cock-up was pretty simple. “Get out and get out quick,” he would say.

He was a trade union secretary and he knew that if he had made an error, his guilt would not be a secret. He believed that if you apologise and promise to fix the mess you have created, you are far better off than by pretending you were never in the wrong. Your denial is more than likely to infuriate the mass of people who have made their judgment on your decision. When a host of people all believe you erred, even if you passionately cling to the notion that you are blameless, it is possible that you are right but in truth it is unlikely.

I wish my father had been around this week to give the benefit of his wisdom to Alex Cullen, the Channel 7 journalist who interviewed Barnaby Joyce and Vikki Campion on Sunday night. The chorus of criticism has come from the left, right and centre and it has been utterly overwhelming.

Cullen’s attempts to defend himself looked puny and pathetic. This was one time where he should have admitted that he could have been tougher on Joyce and Campion and could have followed up on some golden opportunities to grill them.

Cullen had the chance to put himself on the map along with the likes of Mike Willesee, Laurie Oakes or even Andrew Denton. Instead, he allowed his subjects to get away with something akin to murder.

Where were the questions about Campion being given jobs in the offices of Joyce’s fellow Nationals Matt Canavan and Damian Drum. Just what a heavy-hitter like Vikki Campion was going to do for a non-event like Drum remains a mystery. This was a mystery that did not rate a mention on Sunday night.

Whether a question like this would be answered is hardly the point. This was a bare minimum of questions to show a real intent to get a real story.

When Joyce conceded that he knew from the moment he found out that Campion was pregnant that he would lose his job as deputy prime minister, where was the question about why he held the Coalition to ransom for months? Why did he trash the Prime Minister and berate his colleagues or abuse journalist Sharri Markson for daring to break the story if he knew he would roll over in the end? Is it any wonder that viewers were turning off at such a rapid rate?

Cullen even told Campion he wasn’t asking her to name names when she claimed she had been pressured by conservatives in the National party to have an abortion. As Network Ten’s Joe Hildebrand rightly said, getting her to name names was precisely what a journalist should do. Given that everyone in the National party is a conservative, they have all been stained by this allegation.

I hope Cullen goes on to become a great television interviewer, but Sunday night just demonstrated how much he still has to learn.