Politicians' affairs and the culture wars

The strange situation with Barnaby Joyce (Murdoch tabloids - and today the Australian - giving publicity to his political enemy Tony Windsor spreading via Twitter rumours about some kind of sexual misbehaviour causing marriage stress)  has me thinking about the media and politician's personal lives.

I see that on Twitter, a lot of people have been attacking Katharine Murphy of The Guardian for maintaining the line that politician's private relationships (such as marriage break ups or affairs) are not something Australian reporters report on in principle, as it's largely not relevant to their jobs.   A lot of same sex marriage supporters argue that, no, it is relevant if it shows hypocrisy in their policy attitudes. 

Insiders on the ABC didn't touch the issue as well yesterday, even though it was front page news on the Telegraph the day before.

While I certainly don't want to see Australia go the way of American salacious interest in affairs, it does seem to me that the Australian left-ish media has become too precious about this.

There is no doubt that Australian political discussion has been infected with culture war issues in a similar, though perhaps slightly less extreme, way as in America.

And it is 100% clear that to the culture war obsessed Right, the sexual behaviour and attitudes of those on the Left is of great interest and alleged importance.   Basically, they think the Left is full of sexual depravity and lack of self control.   Hence, at the likes of Catallaxy, the circumstances in which any Labor politician split with their spouse is routinely a matter of criticism and ridicule - both Paul Keating and Bill Shorten have been frequently on the receiving end of such comments.    And in the Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott wars - who can deny that Tony went out of his way to use his daughters and "family man" image to maximum PR use in his campaign, whereas Gillard was the subject to continual rumour in Right wing blogs about her relationship with her partner being fake. 

Of course, the conservative wingnut Right, being as stupid as they have become with culture war obsessions, are not so fussed about politicians on their side having divorces or affairs - look at the forgiveness of Trump as an obvious case, or in Australia, how ex liberal and now one of the Fox News wannabes Ross Cameron's past private life is ignored.

So it seems to me that things have changed somewhat since (say) the 70's and 80's, when (for example) Liberal voters may not have cared for Bob Hawke much, but they also didn't spend all day on the internet talking talking to each other about his rumoured affairs.   There are those on the Left who like to spread rumour of right wingers too - but the context is usually one of hypocrisy, not general moral depravity. 

The internet has hyped up the rumour mill and the trash talk, and the culture wars have given the Right a narrative that the Left are all sexual libertines ready to have affairs at the drop a hat.   In those circumstances, it seems to me that the left-ish journalist's squeamishness about ever mentioning rumour is largely working to the advantage of the Right.

Does that mean I think Piers Akerman should have gotten away with saying on Insiders that it was a common rumour around Canberra that Gillard's de facto was gay?    Well, no, I don't think so, because it appears clear that this was actually just an internet rumour not believed by journalists due to it having no evidence behind it at all, nor (even if it was true) any relevance on the matter of hypocrisy in attitudes on the part of Gillard.

But in this case, where one big media outlet has already front paged an ex-politician spreading rumours against a current one who is likely to go to a by-election soon?    It's also pretty obvious that Windsor would be leaving himself open to serious defamation action if it is completely unfounded, and the response of Murphy indicates that they do know something factual about Joyce's woes, it's just they are choosing not to discuss it.   But if they did, it would be Windsor who made it news, not journalists being salacious.

In these circumstances, I just don't see the justification for not mentioning this on the ABC or in The Guardian.