Paul Keating never left anyone wondering about the real Prime Minister and he shared his opinions on privacy laws at a Melbourne University last night.
Lateline reported that Keating’s serve on the media’s invasion of privacy. The former PM lambasted the media saying “Whole industries now revolve around so-called celebrity, fame, rumour and gossip, often more correctly straight fiction, which is published these days often by media organisations. These organisations proclaim the importance of free speech in the dissemination of news, but clearly are more at home in the entertainment business.”
Keating called it “naive in the extreme” to allow the media to self-regulate the extent to which journalists can report on the private lives of public figures based what they “determine… public interest is”. Keating wanted stronger laws enforcing privacy laws and better training for journalists.
But former Age editor Michael Gawenda thinks his proposal is unworkable. He told Lateline “Judges and lawyers and politicians don’t necessarily have the same interests in terms of the public’s right to know things that we journalists have traditionally thought was a right, and that’s my major concern.”