Why did it take this long for Barnaby Joyce news to come out?

Vikki Campion and Barnaby Joyce. Source: Facebook

Is this in the public interest? And if so, why has it taken such a long time for this story to break?

Those are the questions — the furious questions — that are being asked about this morning’s report that the Deputy Prime Minister, Barnaby Joyce is expecting a baby with a former staff member.

MORE: Natalie Joyce reveals devastation over split

First, congratulations to the happy couple. A baby is always a blessing.

Much will be made about how the mum-to-be, Vikki Campion, an ex-News Ltd journalist, is two decades younger than Mr Joyce, and once worked for him as a media officer, and how he was married when they met, and how he has four daughters, and got thrown out of home, and had to live for a while with his sister.

All that is a matter for him.

For the rest of us, especially in the media, especially in the Canberra press gallery, where this has been an open secret for quite a while, the question is: why was it not reported?

Because most people in the press gallery — most journalists, actually — have known about this for quite a while.

They’ve known since before the crucial New England by-election.

Why didn’t they go there?

Vikki Campion. Picture: John Grainger.

Cheryl Kernot, on the Left side of politics, was outed by the press for her affair with Gareth Evans.

Put aside the fact that a woman never recovers from that kind of thing — men do, but not women — she was offered very little protection.

This looks very much like the press was protecting Barnaby Joyce ahead of the crucial by-election. He’s a conservative, in a conservative, family-values electorate, and people said nada.

Does this go to his character?

Did the voters of New England have a right to know?

Certainly the media, whose job it is to inform, knew that even while Barnaby Joyce was campaigning on behalf of traditional families during the same-sex marriage debate, he was himself in the process of being thrown out of home.

Never got reported.

Sharri Markson, who has broken today’s yarn, had a good go at getting some of it out during the campaign and she was criticised for it by other members of her profession.

News Corp’s @SharriMarkson defends reporting on Barnaby Joyce leaving his wife for a former staff member as being in the public interest. pic.twitter.com/srOYnh75WH

— Sunrise (@sunriseon7) February 6, 2018

Good points from @SharriMarkson on Barnaby Joyce debacle https://t.co/h9oDFwdMNw

— Juliet Rieden (@JulietRieden) February 6, 2018

It may well be that people weren’t sure about the details. Maybe some reporters couldn’t firm it up, and obviously the pregnancy was then in its early stages, requiring delicacy in reporting; and maybe there was this idea that it’s his private life, and therefore not in the public interest.

I saw that argument being put forward by one of the Guardian’s reporters during the campaign: what’s my brief, she wanted to know. Reporting on people’s private lives now?

Well, you can feel the anger on Twitter:

The AFL sacked 2 execs for having affairs with staffers.

— Juju 🇦🇺 (@_fred_says_) February 6, 2018

You betcha that will be the question! Public interest? How about blinding hypocrisy from Dep PM who played “family values” card in #SSM debate?

— Rosemary Vass (@coonavass) February 6, 2018

It’s not the media’s ‘decision’ to report these things.
It was absolutely news and the stunning hypocrisy that this was kept under wraps while he was spouting“traditional marriage”?
Media hid the ball, not only dropped it.

— Lady Lovely Lumps (@Chemu18Cheryl) February 6, 2018

The heat is on, that’s for sure, and not on Barnaby Joyce.