Everybody’s
getting their quid’s worth in the wake of John Brogden’s travails this
week. “The media loves nothing more than self-analysis and it will no
doubt begin in earnest following John Brogden’s downfall and subsequent
sad suicide attempt this week,” Mark Latham’s former press secretary Glenn Byers writes in The Australian today. Byers has a particular beef with how the meeja reported the story about his old boss and that video.

Fair
enough, but pollies also need a bit of self-analysis – and should
remember some basic facts of life. Number one is journos are not your
friends. They have to be close to you, but they are close to you so
they can do their job, not because they like you.

Peter Coleman’s column in The Oz on Tuesday was absolutely right. Never trust a journalist. Or better, if you’re a politician, watch yourself.

I
can think of two federal ministers whose basic approach to women
journalists is to flirt. It’s jokey, but it’s also arguably
patronising, sexist and inappropriate – especially since one of them
has a record in the pants department. Contrast that with the almost
wooden formality of the Prime Minister.

One minister I used to
sometimes mind was fine in interviews. It was they were over that
he couldn’t help himself. He just had to add that little bit
more or make an aside. Of course, those, not their main message, all
too often ended up becoming the story. I’ve stuffed up myself. I still
cringe at the memory of a gag I made on a policy while backgrounding a
journalist before an interview that was turned into a very barbed
question for my boss.

Politicians and journalists have to live
in each other’s pockets. They naturally become close. And both seek and
need a certain degree of intimacy. At the end of the day, though,
journalists are there to get a story.