Glenn Milne is perhaps best known for two things: doggedly advocating the cause of Peter Costello for most of the life of the Howard Government, and being chucked out of the 2006 Walkleys (enjoy the footage here) after assaulting Stephen Mayne.
Milne later graciously apologised to Mayne – via voicemail.
The reason Milne went for Mayne – apart from the grog – was that Christian Kerr in Crikey had linked to a blog post where claims were made about Milne’s private life. What did Stephen Mayne have to do with that? Nothing, but in Milne’s addled mind he was an appropriate target.
So one might assume that Milne is conscious of the distinction between what is material that is in the public interest and what is private and not worthy of reportage, whether true or not.
Apparently not. Yesterday in the Sunday Telegraph Milne reported that two MPs – I’m not going to name them so this won’t help anyone Googling the issue – are in a relationship.
First, this is ancient news. Some of us first heard about it in June. Apparently a lot of MPs became aware of it at the Labor National Conference in July. Ironically, that was when the same person responsible for the smearing of Milne in 2006 ran a blog post on it. It has been the subject of occasional, but not especially frequent, Gallery gossip ever since. There has also been some idle speculation that the female MP concerned is pregnant.
Second, there’s no public interest whatsoever in the relationship. In fact it’s not even news. Work colleagues end up in relationships all the time.
But Milne couldn’t help himself. Because he’d received a semi-coherent email on the subject, he had to report the relationship as news.
This is by no means new for Milne. He was instrumental in reporting a dirt file on Christopher Pyne prior to the election, which made several unsavoury and entirely untrue claims about the then-Minister. Milne tried to claim it was the product of a Labor dirt unit when it was plain to all it was the product of Pyne’s factional enemies in the SA Liberal Party. Milne is famous for being the Liberal Party’s go-to journalist.
Maybe Milne thinks he’s the only one who gets emails making allegations about political figures’ personal lives. We all get them, Glenn, and most of us have the sense to bin them. True, false, whatever, they’re of absolutely no public interest. Except, apparently, to you.
Contemptible.
33 Comments
Whatever BK is harping on about is not in that article today online.
The reference to Nash and Joyce lends no suggestion.
@BK: Has it been removed?
Mmm. I know what you are referring to as per Sunday tv talkies, Sydney press, leave it at that.
I agree and disagree. Milne has potentially fatally wounded on personal lives type stories and maybe can’t deliver as an objective journo for an employer on this. At the time compere Cassidy said on air re Milne – it’s a complex situation. Admirable diplomacy Barry and probably true. Soon after Milne was noted by Murdoch himself as regretful of the assault on reference to teetotal or words to that effect were made.
At the time we recall commenting on a crikey string, as we do, that it was a mexican legal standoff Milne re Mayne and best were both well served to step back take a breath and return to corners and move on in their own directions. I stand by that too. It sometimes takes a third neutral voice to get people to go all Gandhi and Murdoch calling the dogs off is what it is. Who can forget footage of Mayne in his new incarnation being deliberately welcomed, engaged, treated with respect at some big media social event. As if to say, fair go to you brother.
The thing is Mayne was owner editor publisher behind Kerr notwithstanding Kerr did the right thing and fessed up and offered his own chin for a whack.
……………….
So getting to the news value/ethics of the recent story. I have a perspective right or wrong – that it is surfing the Kernot-Evans ethical can of worms published 3 years after by Oakes. Ramsey feud for 5 years commenced. But recently I blogged Oakes was right to reveal because we minor party types and the public should have had the right to judge whether Kernot’s potential was actual conflict of interest in policy terms.
Okay so the story last weekend is highly distinguishable. Yet I still found real politik value out of it – not the sensational glib but more this regarding climate change politik, and careerism. I will leave it at that on this string as your house rules on this string are clear enough.
BK: “Yesterday in the Sunday Telegraph Milne reported that two MPs – I’m not going to name them so this won’t help anyone Googling the issue – are in a relationship”
Tom McLoughlin: “Mmm. I know what you are referring to as per Sunday tv talkies, Sydney press, leave it at that.”
I saw Insiders. I’ve read Glenn Milne’s article from yesterday today online. It was a good article.
Bk is explicit Tom. He is not vaguely referring to anything.
Has the article been changed online?
If not BK’s charge would be far more disquieting than merely ridiculous
Honestly James and Tom. You really are burbling luddites. Of course you can google the story if you use your noggins.
I thought he was refering to a rumour that Joyce is carrying Bill Hefernan’s love child? Doesn’t the Joyce/Nash par commit some kind of punctuation crime?
No Bernard, the real offence is still there
I said press, meaning dead tree paper. I don’t find online reliable of penetration (so to speak!) of the general audience. The dinosaur is still roaming the Big Media jungle folks. Actually I was referring to Meet the Press at 8 am for the earlier risers but it might have been on Insiders also.
No.
Nor any mention of such an allegation today anywhere else so far as I can discover.
So I ask again: has the present online version been changed to now remove that report the basis on which BK denunciates a colleague?
Not just Sydney, p 22 Brisbane’s Sunday Mail, with happy snaps. She’s already in “Labor” too.
JamesK, Supporting evidence for Bernard’s contention that Glen Milne is a grub is still there if you know where to look comrade.
Once again SBH I ask that you desist from calling me comrade, comrade……..
Once again SBH I ask that you desist from calling me comrade, comrade……..
Do mean the actual article in which BK asserted that “in the Sunday Telegraph Milne reported that two MPs ….. are in a relationship”?.
We also have the absurd situation in all of this that if anyone, such as a fellow journalist or a politician, saw fit to bring up Milne’s, less than savory, past romantic history, then there would no doubt be hell to pay, and an infinite amount of verbal stoushing and hypocritical fulminating.
Sorry James, slip of the wrist, old habits and all that but we’re all in this thing together you know, and yes that article
Stories by Glenn Milne concerning two Labor MPs involved in a relationship appear on the Courier Mail website dated 31st Oct 09 and the news.com.au website dated Nov 1st 09. There is a story on the Sunday Tele webpage about the ‘issue’, however for some reason no author is attributed.
Who cares, last time I looked they are both adults.
(EDIT: no James. we are not naming them. do it again and get sin binned)
This story is hardly new. The real grub is Landeryou, who was peddling it back in July/August.
Glenn Milne a grub? What did grubs do to deserve that smear?
Seems to me there’s a big difference from the Evans/Kernot affair. That one was across parties and involved a senior government member and the leader of a minor party. There was an arguable public interest involved, especially to Democrats supporters, as a possible factor in Kernot’s later defection.
Another example where there would be a public interest would be in a hypothetical case where a former prime minister had an affair with a woman he later appointed to a senior position.
This one apparently involves two people of the same party, and sounds like neither is a senior figure. They’re both adults and if not already partnered it’s their business and not of possible concern to anyone except factional number crunchers if they’re in different factions.
What?
“EDIT: no James. we are not naming them. do it again and get sin binned” ???? !!!!!!!!
It is already published in several newspaers by accounts on this board and in several newspapers and is already thus in the public domain and moreover apparently with the parties consent and indeed wishes. The reason for their consent was that apparently rumours were circulating that there was now a pregnancy which they were fesrful would be used in a Coalition Smear campaign.
The whole story seems frankly silly and a non event/story and what I copied and pasted from one the articles says that two parties involved decided themselves to “go public” and contacted the paper involved (read Glenn Milne) to set the record straight which makes a pointed question of BK’s ad hominem smear of Milne in the circumstance.
Your threat in the circumstances is quite frankly even sillier than the story if that were possible but I am delighted to comply!
This is the kind of salacious voyeurism synonymous with the Sunday tabloids.
There was no salacious voyeurism in the article I read.
Am I missing some important element here? If so please correct me.
The story I read seems utterly by the by.
Presumably if two adult public representatives want their relationship to develop or perforce of circumstances, it is eventually acknowledged. It was.
The article in question (leastways the one I read and referenced and copied and pasted earlier…you know the one that was edited out) seems to give a different version of events.
The question here is whether BK’s version of events is true or not.
Did Milne ’salaciously’ and more importantly without prior approval or even worse, against the known wishes of the parties concerned publish or did he publish with consent?
If with consent then it is Milne and truth that has been grubbily and contemptibly treated here.
The fact there is a cheer squad on this board for such a smear is not relevant to my concern at all.
Says you. As far as i’m concerned a so-called journalist who reports the relationship of politicians where there is no public interest is obscene, gutter-trawling, and worthy of contempt.
Says you. However speculating as to whether one of our politicians is pregnant when there is no evidence she is, constitutes a kind of fascination with intimate behaviour not necessarily present in normal society.
Rubbish. The question you should be asking is why Milne would choose to report, and why newscorp would choose to publish this nonsense at all. As Bernard says, he gets this stuff regularly, is able to use judgement to decide it isn’t in the public interest, and bins it. And what we usually get from Bernard in its place is insightful opinion.
Yesterday’s effort is a major judgement FAIL on Milne’s and newscorp’s part. A bigger question for me is: why are you defending it?
Me and Rupert are mates.
Confessions you sound sicker than that answer to your evidently sensitive paranoia but certainly not fully sick.
Q:”The question you should be asking is why Milne would choose to report..”
A: The answer is in the article. Have you not read it?
It certainly sounds as if you haven’t.
Might be *Phully Sick* in your world JamesK, but at least i’m not flying blind. Or blinkered for that matter.
Yes i have read the offending article and can recognise it for what it is: trash. And my question still remains: why are you defending this kind of salacious voyeurism?
If Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard left their respective partners and got it on in the Lodge, that would be their private business too but does anyone question whether that would also be news?
Crikey has made boorish intrusions on the personal lives of politicians and many others over the years and seems to be struggling with a faulty memory, double standards and a desire to rip into Milne for any reason.
Let the public decide what’s important not self-important, self-appointed gatekeepers and censors. That’s what Crikey once stood for in the Stephen Mayne/Christian Kerr era. Now Crikey seems to have morphed into what it once condemned.
Keane admits here that he knew about this story, sat on it, read about it elsewhere, still didn’t report on it, read about it on Sunday and then attacks the author.
This is not the fearless, crusading, no-secrets journalism I thought I was paying for.
Raymond sorry if Crikey no longer serves up the personal gossip that it often provided in its early days. Perhaps you should go elsewhere if that’s what you want. I guarantee you won’t get it from me.
@confessions:
Needless to say I reject your sick rantings. In particular I questioned the basis for BK’s ad hominem attack rather than even attempting to defend “salacious voyeurism”.
Thus far, my challenge has not been answered either way.
It was you asked why Glenn Milne wrote the article.
Did he report it at the request of these two parties to deny pregnancy rumours or even merely with their consent?
If he did then BK’s nasty personal smear is without foundation (and yours).
It is plain that you need no evidence to convict Milne nor anyone else you loathe (many in number I suspect).
You are without fact nor a supportive argument and frankly what you do say sounds like the rantings of psychotic who is angry at the world. Reason is apparently completely superfluous whilst your foam-at-the-mouth rants are the order of the day.
The article from Milne that I read and that I referenced above suggests he published it with the parties’ consent and indeed with their desire to set the record straight.
It is possible that BK is correct but then Milne would also apparently be deceitful in addition to playing contemptible ‘grub’ to your self-delusional moral superiority.
Is Milne lying? If so where is the evidence?
Put simply, if Milne published without the parties knowledge and consent then he deserves opprobrium if not then BK does.
Either way you do.
Your self righteous indignant extremism and your patent denial of reason provide more than adequate justification.
Well now you are being hysterical. There should always be a ‘public interest’ test when reporting the private lives of our politicians. That test fails when applied to the two people in question.
Instead of screaming at me it might be better for you to remind Milne of this. What he’s produced for the sunday tabloids is nothing more than salacious voyeurism as far as i’m concerned.
@confessions:
“salacious voyeurism”…… are you sure?
Totally agree Kernot/Evans case is distinguishable as a media subject that reasonable people might disagree.
……………………….
Actually, Milne did refer on Insiders some months back about a certain frisson between two federal MPs (both minister and shadow minister rivals at different times (!)) which was ‘too sensitive to discuss’ further.
Either the man has Uncle Martian antennae beyond mere mortals, a foetid imagination or he’s killed a few too many brain cells.
If Milne is hooked into the Coalition drip as much as he seems to be, and there is a pattern emerging of cheap jack gossip tactics – as per SA Parliament ructions – then he risks presenting as a player not journo.
That’s the underlying problem really. We all have our biases, hopefully declared, but when it slants the work toward fictional trimmings (like non existent pregancy?) or complete bollocks that crosses the line as a disservice to democracy and unprofessional: Words are bullets in politics and fictions similar.
@Tom McLoughlin
Ross Gittins and Alan Mitchell always predict RBA interest rate moves/nonmoves in their columns before board meetings and unerringly.
Ken Henry Combined Treasurer of the Commonwealth of Australia and Treasury Secretary is a board member and he is simply wonderful fellow according to BK his colleagues Ross Gittins and Alan Mitchell who all confidently inform us that Australia would go to hell in a handbasket without him.
Isn’t reassuring that Swan and Rudd know this unlike that basket-case opposition who evidently as Liberals are not liberal enough (who in this genius nation would be so silly as to hold some conservative views like say a ’supposed’ journo by initials GM)?
Any comment especially with respect to your “player not journo” insight on what I’m sure you would agree are weightier matters?
On this occasion also please no innuendo smear….at least not without a supporting argument and preferably with say…… some evidence..
mjp
I think Milne is a grubby bore who is the most annoying participant on the insiders. I don’t read his articles, watching him talk over everyone and laugh at his unfunny witticisms occasionally on the insiders is more than enough for me.