Masters, for those who have spent the last few decades under a rock, had the majority of his career at the ABC, most notably at Four Corners, where he broke the kind of stories that changed our country. His achievements are too numerous to list here, but there is a website for those who want to know more.

Masters had a cooling in his relationship with the ABC following its 2006 decision to can the publication of his biography of Alan Jones – which went on to be a best seller for Allen and Unwin. I have reported on the background to this imbroglio on Crikey before.

At a time when the ABC newsrooms are not known for breaking stories, what is the organisation’s former star investigative reporter going to do for the Tele?

This morning Masters told me he hoped to explore not only conventional investigative projects, but also  “anthropological” journalism – “stories that reveal not only what happened but how people behaved and what that says about them and us.”

He will also be assisting the paper with its investigative effort. In his mind this should be not so much a matter of “a few gun slinging stars” but rather an inculcation of investigative attitude throughout the paper. The details of how this will work at the Tele have yet to be nailed down.

He hopes to help counter an “unhealthy and destructive” trend in recent journalistic history in which reporters spend too much time “preoccupied with what to think, and not enough time on how to think.”

Masters’ gig with the Tele is not a full time staff appointment. Rather, he will be paid a retainer plus wordage. As for how the tabloid snaffled him, distressingly and tellingly, it seems there wasn’t much competition.

Masters says that after his retirement from the ABC he wanted to keep writing, while not having to go back to full time work. “I stumbled for a while trying to find the right home.” He did some work for The Australian, but got the impression that neither that newspaper nor the Fairfax broadsheets “needed me or wanted me”. Fairfax, apparently, didn’t even make the call, although since he signed with the Tele “a number of people from there have said they didn’t know I was on the market.”

The key factor in the Tele getting Masters was editor Gary Linnell, for whom Masters has considerable respect. He also admires the Tele. “An under-rated newspaper”. Linnell and Masters had a number of conversations before the deal was sealed. Perhaps things ere helped along by the fact that Clare Masters, Chris’s daughter, is deputy chief of staff at the Tele.

Masters’ first story for the Tele, on the Rugby League Grand Final, was published last Saturday.

His ongoing relationship with Sydney’s tabloid will be one to watch.

Declaration: Chris Masters is on the board of the recently established Foundation for Public Interest Journalism,  of which I am the Chair.

Michelle Grattan opined on the Radio National’s Breakfast show this morning that common human decency should have told Bidgood that what he did was no good.

But what about the newspapers that bought or tried to buy the photos – and for that matter the readers of those newspapers who are presumed to have an appetite for such things? Are the standards of human decency not applicable here? Or is Michelle just being precious?

Is it okay for newspapers to try and cater for voyeurs, but not okay for citizens – or MPs at any rate – to cater to them?

I am not sure of any easy answers here. The man’s threats are certainly news. So too the reasons for his serial protests – his quest for a visa for his aged parents. I don’t know the background, but why is it that the immigration problems of a nice German doctor in Victoria make news, and yet this is the first I have heard of this man and his problems?

the man, Marat Aminov, has protested before by jumping on to the floor of parliament, among other things. HIs parents have staged a hunger strike on the lawns of Parliament House. I still don’t know the rights and wrongs of their stance, and I would like to. I would like to think the media might pay attention without the need for dramatic photos.

Amid all this, it’s interesting to see the different ways Fairfax – which tried and failed to buy the pictures – and News Limited, which got them, dealt with their reporting duties.

The Herald Sun print edition used the photo big on page 19, with a story that stated Bidgood had supplied the photos in return for a donation to charity, and that a Sydney Morning Herald photographer had offered more “but Mr Bidgood insisted his pictures were only published in the Daily Telegraph.” (and, apparently, the Herald Sun, and online, and and…), as though this was a matter of journalistic pride.

Is it really something to boast of, that an MP in disgrace for his callous behaviour chose you, and only you?

And now online, the photo is still being used, but Daily Telegraph editor Garry Linnell is quoted as saying that there was no question of sale for Bidgood’s profit. It was always going to be charity “I said instantly, ‘Yes, let’s do it’.”

Interestingly News Limited stable mate the Australian print edition story this morning contradicts Linnell. The Oz chose not to use the pics, and ran a story leading on the trouble Bidgood was in, and quoting his exchange with photographers, which states Bidgood sought cash, but the photographers refused to pay until Bidgood made clear that the money was going to charity.

“He agreed to provide the photographs to News Ltd but is understood to have refused to provide them to Fairfax,” says the Oz

And Fairfax? The Age reports the story on the front page, leading on the fact that Rudd has “blasted” Bidgood over the affair, and claiming that when The Age approached him to buy the photos, he “said he had already done a deal with News”.

So apparently the charity deal included exclusive rights.

The photos are certainly dramatic, the story is news, and its naive to expect the tabloids not to go after the pics.

But the media outlets that sought the pics are certainly not now in a position to go tut-tutting about Bidgood’s behaviour.

And what about some reporting of the cause of the protest?