Crikey editor Misha Ketchell writes:


The question everyone’s asking is: did the Telegraph
go too far? What was the point of splashing with a “secret shame file”
story about John Brogden after he’d quit the party leadership? Wasn’t
it just gratuitous, cruel and sensational to hound him after he’d made a grovelling
public apology?

Yet the answer should be blindingly obvious. Of course the Tele went too far – because it always goes too far. That’s what attack-dog tabloids do. That’s why they exist.

The fact that there’s a serious debate about whether Daily Tele
editor Dave Penberthy crossed an ethical boundary in his treatment of a
public figure is simply evidence that some people still believe one
actually exists. It doesn’t.

Tabloids like the Tele exist for one reason – to attract
the attention of readers. To suggest the paper’s editors spend their
days agonising over public interest, and the potential negative impact
of a story on a politician, is to misunderstand the role of a tabloid
editor. Larry Lamb, former editor of the London Sun, sums up
the job description thus: “One must … aim to stimulate, educate,
coax, coerce, cajole – shock when necessary – but, above, all to
entertain. No newspaper, and no newspaperman, should ever be ashamed to
entertain.”

The broadsheet commentators and university pundits
who agonise over ethical niceties have simply been unable to grasp this
fact. The world in which they live is a million miles away from the
culture at the Tele. The only real check on what the Tele
will publish is what its readers will tolerate and, as editors like
Dave Penberthy have learnt, you can get away with quite a lot before
people stop forking out their $1 a day.

Even that savvy old political warhorse Jeff Kennett showed a lack of understanding of the media when he argued that the Tele was somehow obliged to back off on the Brogden story after he’d quit the leadership. Of course the Tele
was going to hound him. And no, it’s not because John Brogden was still
a member of parliament. Nor is it because the question of whether his poor behaviour
was an aberration or part of a pattern is an utterly legitimate topic
of public interest. The reason is much simpler than that: it’s what the
Tele does.