The Daily Telegraph, John Brogden and hyena journalism

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.