{"id":120587,"date":"2018-02-18T17:32:12","date_gmt":"2018-02-19T01:32:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=120587"},"modified":"2018-02-18T18:29:07","modified_gmt":"2018-02-19T02:29:07","slug":"nyt-is-australias-media-too-prudish-for-a-sex-scandal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=120587","title":{"rendered":"NYT: Is Australia\u2019s Media Too Prudish for a Sex Scandal?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><A HREF=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2018\/02\/14\/opinion\/barnaby-joyce-affair.html?action=click&#038;pgtype=Homepage&#038;clickSource=story-heading&#038;module=opinion-c-col-left-region&#038;region=opinion-c-col-left-region&#038;WT.nav=opinion-c-col-left-region\">Amelia Lester writes in the New York Times<\/a>: <\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Barnaby Joyce was probably the last politician average Australians would expect to be embroiled in a sex scandal. A comparison to Mike Pence isn\u2019t so far-fetched: They\u2019re both second in charge of a conservative government led by a flashy businessman, and standard-bearers for family values, tilled in the nation\u2019s agrarian heartland. For most of the Australian public, Mr. Joyce was a bumbling farm boy who meant well.<\/p>\n<p><iframe width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/xr6tm2kDxVk\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"autoplay; encrypted-media\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Last week, though, a story broke that turned public sentiment against him. Following investigations by two small websites last year, the Sydney-based Daily Telegraph reported that the deputy prime minister was having a child with a former staff member, Vikki Campion. A photo on the front page of the tabloid showed Ms. Campion, pregnant and unwitting, crossing the street. (\u201cBundle of Joyce\u201d said the headline.) That this story, like so many others, involves personal hypocrisy is hardly surprising. Mr. Joyce has been a strident opponent of gay marriage, basing his opposition in part on what he has called his four daughters\u2019 right to a \u201csecure relationship with a loving husband\u201d and the right of every child \u201cto know her or his mother and father.\u201d What is more noteworthy is the degree to which the Joyce affair has sparked a long-overdue debate about the deference Australian media still accords politicians when it comes to their private lives.<\/p>\n<p>Mr. Joyce\u2019s relationship with Ms. Campion, we\u2019ve learned in the past few days, was an open secret among the Canberra press corps. Back in October, Sharri Markson, the reporter who eventually got the print scoop, wrote a piece alluding to a \u201cdeeply personal crisis\u201d in Mr. Joyce\u2019s life. Now that the story\u2019s out there, it\u2019s very easy to read between the lines about \u201cvicious rumors\u201d and \u201cpersonal pressures\u201d in dozens of media clips from last year. The deputy prime minister\u2019s private situation was well known enough that he got into a pub brawl with a constituent about it last year and apparently knocked the man\u2019s hat off.<\/p>\n<p>Did the media choose not report on Mr. Joyce because they didn\u2019t have all the facts? Perhaps in part. As the national broadsheet The Australian has reported, repeated inquiries about Ms. Campion\u2019s multiple job titles, let alone her taxpayer-funded salary, were met with stonewalling. Mr. Joyce would refuse to talk about the relationship when they asked. (This week, he released a statement denying that the relationship, and Ms. Campion\u2019s employment in the government, breached ministerial rules.) Another major consideration is that Australian journalists face extremely strict libel laws, the kind Donald Trump would appreciate.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Amelia Lester writes in the New York Times: Barnaby Joyce was probably the last politician average Australians would expect to be embroiled in a sex scandal. A comparison to Mike Pence isn\u2019t so far-fetched: They\u2019re both second in charge of &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=120587\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[182,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-120587","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-australia","category-journalism"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120587","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=120587"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120587\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":120589,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120587\/revisions\/120589"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=120587"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=120587"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=120587"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}