All the President’s Men and the more recent film Spotlight portrayed journalism as a noble quest, but the great works of fiction about the business, Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur’s play The Front Page, and Nathanael West’s novel Miss Lonelyhearts, Evelyn Waugh’s Scoop and Michael Frayn’s Towards the End of the Morning, all depicted journalists as bibulous, cynical and lazy.

Buying a scoop is slothful and no different from attending a real estate auction. The biggest bid wins. Just now, thanks to Seven’s Spotlight program, the stench is high, and it is perhaps no accident that it was the mindset within the network which was also a staunch defender and supporter of the disgraced Victoria Cross winner Ben Roberts-Smith.

Six years ago, the Herald revealed Roberts-Smith had murdered helpless Afghan civilians and prisoners and ordered or bullied others to kill them, too. He sued the Herald, The Age and The Canberra Times for defamation. He lost. In defence of good journalism and good journalists, we backed our reporters, Nick McKenzie, Chris Masters and David Wroe, because we had faith in their integrity. We also chose to adhere to our own code, which was not to remain silent but to go where the evidence took us and stay the distance. Seven’s tawdry standards, as delineated in the Lehrmann matter evidence, are an affront to faithful viewers and reporters who work under such tainted journalism standards.

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