A Current Affair About a Current Affair About a Current Affair

Labor Party Member for Dobell, Craig Thompson, has been all over the news lately due to a number of allegations of wrongdoing and a Fair Work Australia Investigation. Politicians being accused of things is nothing new but, according to an article by Kate McClymont and Phillip Coorey published in The Age today, the way Channels 7 and 9 handled the saga may have lasting ramifications for Australian media. 

Channel 9’s A Current Affair aired footage of a woman who claimed that Mr Thompson paid her for sexual services while she was working as a prostitute. Channel 7’s Today Tonight then tracked down the same woman and aired footage of her claiming she had never slept with Mr Thompson, was mistaken in identifying him and had tried to retract her statement before ACA went to air with the story. She claimed her request was ignored. ACA then retaliated with more counterclaims and the whole thing basically devolved into something reminiscent of a Jerry Springer episode. 

By the time you get to McClymont’s and Coorey’s article you’ve got a current affair about a current affair about a current affair! According to McClymont and Coorey the furore caused Labor Party Member, Joel Fitzgibbon, to call for greater government regulation of the media. Apparently there were already reforms in the pipeline and this chain of incidents is likely to bring them before parliament sooner and see politicians more inclined to vote for stronger governmental control. While it remains to be seen whether this threat is followed through on, it is still a scary prospect. How can we have a free press if the government has a strong controlling hand in the media?