The Daily Telegraph, John Brogden and hyena journalism

Days before the NSW Opposition Leader John Brogden would resign and attempt suicide, former BBC managing director John Birt criticized the British media for becoming too reliant on "easy cruelty" and the "desire to humiliate" (Guardian 27-8-2005). His words were prophetic about the Daily Telegraph's behaviour, which the following Wednesday brought its practice of hyena journalism to a new peak.

The reporting that led to Brogden's political downfall started in the Sunday Telegraph, with a column emanating from Canberra by Glenn Milne, based on sources in the Liberal Party. Milne described how at the end of the week when Premier Carr had resigned, Brogden, fuelled by beer and euphoria, behaved in poor taste after a function at the Hilton Hotel. His most important transgression was to describe Helena Carr as a mail order bride. In addition he behaved boorishly towards two female journalists.

The day after Milne's story, the Sydney media were full of Brogden's insult to the Carrs, and the reactions to it. Late that morning he resigned in front of a crowded press conference. The following morning's media naturally gave this political drama saturation coverage.

As the rest of the media were moving forward, the Telegraph, practising the well-established tabloid maxim that the best time to kick a man is when he's down, decided that Brogden's past life needed full exposure. Its first edition front page was headlined "Brogden's Sordid Past. Disgraced Liberal leader damned by secret shame file." Late Tuesday evening, however, Brogden attempted suicide, which of course again radically changed the media focus and tone.

The essence of hyena journalism is that they are scavengers rather than hunters; that they wait until a public figure has been politically wounded or worse before they become most aggressive; and that once that figure has lost power then standards of accuracy drop, and previous constraints are abandoned. It was after Brogden resigned as opposition leader that the paper went in hardest and most unfairly.

It is worth here cataloguing the transgressions alleged against Mr Brogden, which the Daily Telegraph thought deserved front page exposure. The original two, occurring on the evening of his slur against Helena Carr, and retailed by nearly all media following Milne's report, were that:

• He pinched the bottom of a female reporter. with whom he has been friendly for 15 years, and apparently she did not take offence.
• He propositioned a young woman in a bar, who turned out to be a reporter, by asking if she was available. She found his approach distasteful, and he retreated.

Then Wednesday's Telegraph included some more:

• He proposed having a threesome to two reporters in the NSW press gallery at the end of a party, and said they were so attractive they should be in a nunnery.
• He had an affair with a former staff member, such that his father in law told him to get rid of her.
• He had been seen "in the company of a blonde woman" at a David Jones fashion launch.

The ABC's Media Watch program contacted the two press gallery reporters, who both emphatically denied the Telegraph's account, and were angered by it. Brogden and the former staff member had already denied having an affair, and Brogden's father in law denied to Media Watch that he had told Brogden to get rid of the staffer or that he had talked to the Telegraph. The blonde at the fashion launch remains unidentified.

Hyena journalism is manifested in this reporting firstly in the shifting and ambiguous boundary of what are matters of public interest. Decisions about what might remain unreported is different for those still in power from those in political trouble. One of the two incidents of Brogden's behaviour towards women on his fateful Friday night apparently caused no offence to the person concerned, but was still deemed worth publishing. The other incident was distasteful and inappropriate, but if all such incidents were reported they would fill the Daily Telegraph.

Beyond the shifting lines about what are acceptable topics for public reporting, a second aspect of hyena journalism is the radical lowering of standards of proof. Telegraph editor David Penberthy's only excuse for including the long account of the alleged affair with the former staff member was that it cleared her name of rumours, even though the paper's presentation of the story might lead one to believe the opposite. Again if all smutty unsubstantiated gossip about politicians were reported the paper might fill its pages just clearing people's names..

According to the paper's account of Brogden's misdeeds with two female journalists, "the women yesterday revealed details of the night on the condition of anonymity. They had not planned to go public until details of Mr Brogden's drunken behaviour emerged this week." According to those journalists' statements to Media Watch, this is a brazen lie. It is debatable anyway whether anonymous sources should be used to make such serious allegations, but in this case the more fundamental point is that the anonymity is being used not to protect the sources but to allow the newspaper to misreport them.

The final aspect of hyena journalism in the Telegraph's Wednesday reporting was the prolific use of lurid adjectives and the inflation of particular incidents into unsubstantiated generalisations. 'sordid", 'secret shame file", "raft of fresh allegations of sexual misconduct", "harassment of three female journalists … was only a sample of his behaviour towards women", "a catalogue of shameful performances", "an avalanche of new allegations".

The tragedy of Brogden's suicide attempt led several to make blanket condemnations of the media and invasions of privacy, and some seemed to hold the media and particularly the Telegraph responsible. Columnists Miranda Devine and Matt Price made the point that no-one except the individual concerned is responsible for such an action. While true, this overlooks that individuals do not act in a vacuum. Would the suicide attempt have happened without the Telegraph's reporting?

Other individuals would have responded differently. Certainly Brogden's very vulnerable psychological state must be a large part of the explanation. As Alex Mitchell commented, "Overnight a man of boundless energy and ambition with strong civic values was pilloried across Australia and sickeningly branded as a womanizing drunkard and a racist."

The Daily Telegraph's own account of the sequence of events would seem to give the prospect of its coming story great pertinence: "Declining to respond to the latest allegations that he had harassed other women, he had rushed into his office at the rear of the building, locked the door and refused to emerge."

The paper has a consistently high estimate of its own causal powers. Its lead sentence in its first edition, unlike all other accounts which concentrated on the slur against Helena Carr, uniquely claimed Brogden "was forced to quit … because a raft of fresh allegations of sexual misconduct was set to destroy his career."

In evaluating the generalized condemnations of the media, as was offered by Brogden's successor, Peter Debnam, it is important to note that not all media organizations behaved in the same way. Too often the excesses of one media organization allow politicians and commentators and the public to tar them all with the same brush.

Blanket condemnation of the media also overlooks the interplay between journalists and politicians. Central to this episode were the activities of Brogden's conservative opponents within the Liberal Party.

Greg Baxter, the Daily Telegraph's corporate affairs director, said "the source of the original story came from within the Liberal Party itself, and the new source about the fresh allegations also came from the Liberal Party, including at very high levels of the Liberal Party." Editor David Penberthy told Media Watch that the three episodes contained in the 'shame file" came from a source within the Liberal party and corroborated by two other (not described in any way) sources.

After the suicide attempt, Prime Minister Howard said "the thoughts of the Liberal family" were with John and Lucy Brogden.

Around that time, the conservatives had, according to Alex Mitchell, "turned their attention to the heir apparent, (deputy Barry) O'Farrell. They produced a grubby 12 year old story of a gay magazine which was found in his office and threatened to belatedly expose the allegations." Progressive elements in the party were told that if they supported O'Farrell their preselections would be threatened, according to O'Farrell's own statement.

The following Sunday on the ABC's Insiders program, more of the Liberal Party's family values were revealed with Tony Abbott's crass remarks following Brodgen's suicide attempt.

In contrast to the quality papers The Daily Telegraph thought this revelation only warranted a very short story on page eight.

The difference between its approaches to the Brogden and Abbott revelations might be explained by there being no sexual sleaze element in the latter, that they found Abbott's politics more congenial, or perhaps they were showing the hyena's caution towards someone still in power.