It is also to highlight that bullying has always been a feature of political journalism. I share these anecdotes partly to show that neither I nor any journalist who has covered politics for more than five minutes is thin-skinned. We are on good terms, as I am with the former Labor politician mentioned earlier. The bullying immediately stopped and the minister involved apologised. I forwarded it to the prime minister's chief of staff. The final straw for me was when I was feeding my toddler early on a Sunday morning and his latest text landed. A few years ago, a Liberal minister blasted me for an inaccuracy in an interview (I immediately publicly corrected it and apologised to him) but he continued to harass and belittle me about it via text on an almost daily basis.
In my personal experience, most of the time such exchanges end on cordial terms, with the professional relationship intact. Sometimes they are erupting because something is going badly for them and they want to take it out on somebody, or they are desperate to stop a story that is turning into a runaway train. Sometimes MPs ring or text with a legitimate grievance about an inaccuracy or something they believe was unfair, in which case, a good journalist listens, takes it on the chin and makes amends. We can dish it, we should be able to take it, goes the mantra. This kind of thing may be news to people who work outside the media or politics, and while it certainly does not meet the modern standard of a "safe workplace", it has been considered normal in political journalism.
He was the first politician to tear shreds off me, but since then the list has expanded to include a prime minister, cabinet ministers, shadow ministers and innumerable political staffers. To be a political journalist, you have always needed to be able to resist bullying aimed at making you second-guess your work.Īs a young reporter in the 1990s covering my first state election campaign, I received a furious call at home on a Friday night from a Labor premier, berating me for my story on the 7pm ABC News.
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