A bouquet for The Daily Examiner editor David Bancroft's Page 10 comment on 26 May 2010:
IN the past week we have seen some parts of the media lurch dangerously towards titillation over substance, highlighted by the "outing" and subsequent resignation of the former transport minister, David Campbell.
Throughout our history, Australians and the Australian media have shied away from intruding into the private lives of politicians, but the treatment of Campbell and, earlier, John Della Bosca suggests the old rules no longer apply.
Della Bosca was forced to resign after the media revealed an affair with a younger woman, and Campbell last week handed in his resignation after Channel Seven secretly filmed him entering a gay night club.
It appears, in Campbell's case in particular, that he was set up.
Despite suggestions in Channel Seven's early report that Campbell had misused his ministerial car he, in fact, committed no crime and no breach of ministerial guidelines.
This was not news.
Channel Seven had no right to first pry and later report what Campbell did in his private life.
Being homosexual is not an offence and did not prevent him from carrying out his ministerial or electorate duties.
It should be a matter for Campbell, his wife of 30 years and his children.
To air his personal life on national television only serves to further erode public confidence in the media.
What politicians do behind closed doors should stay there unless it impacts on their duties or conflicts with moral statements they have made.
I, for one, certainly don't want to know what people like Wilson Tuckey get up to in their bedrooms and I think most Australians would feel the same.
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