Why would anyone want to be in the public eye?

[beardoc]

In the last 24 hours, the New South Wales Minister for Roads, David Campbell, resigned ahead of footage which showed him exiting a well known gay sauna. Apparently the Seven Television network was able to film him exiting KKK aka "Ken's Karate Klub" on Anzac Parade, Kensington.

The Sydney Morning Herald has the story. Essentially David Campbell

Comments

[pink_halen]

Unless Mr. Campbell is paving the roads with semen we really don't need to know what he does with his. But this fascination about private lives goes very far into the heterosexual areas as well. I'm not interested in knowing how many children my elected representative has fathered. That tells me that his dick works but it doesn't tell me he can do his job. In fact, he may be as bad a father as he is a public servant.

As long as the public eats this stuff up we will have useless and harmful information about our public servants and representatives collected and sensationalized.

[beardoc]

I think that's the thing - the public does eat it up - there's an increasing amount of gossip in newsmedia, and I'm just not sure how we can go back. I suspect that we can't, because this stuff rates - it's harder for people to what a Minister is doing in his portfolio than it is to understand that he's going and having sex with men surreptitiously.

He has an personal issue with this wife and kids. This is not something that I need to know. I need to be able to assess his performance as a minister, and his family life doesn't make part of that assessment.

[bigbeard61]

We need public figures to start brazening it out, to learn to say "It's none of your business," and stick to it. And if it's not actually illegal, their colleagues, families and friends need to show some personal courage and decline to pass judgment. It will be very hard at first (and impossible for those who tout their stance on personal morality, but they deserve what they get). By buying in to the mea culpa culture, politicians are perpetuating it. I remember a reporter confronting Prince Philip many years ago with evidence of some extracurricular hanky-panky, and his reply was "Good God, woman, what sort of company do you keep?" He was never asked again.

[clintswan]

i agree with you in all aspects

except that he used a ministerial car to go to said gay venue

which would put it available for public view/interrogatives

had he used his own car/transportation....

then i would have said leave him alone/no ya business!!!!

same as using a work computer for porn : not evil but places you in a position to expose your proclivities

[sunsmogseahorse]

A boss of mine got reprimanded for using a state motor pool car to hit the grocery store on the way home.

The way it worked is you'd drop your car off at the motor pool and pick up one of theirs. She was leaving on a business trip at 6am the next day, as we often did, and the practice is to get the motor pool car the night before if you need to leave before it opened.

Some kook called her boss complaining that a state car was in a grocery store lot. She very reasonably picked up some chopped meat for dinner that night on the way home.

Mr Campbell has committed a similar offense. That is, it's not worth the hassle he's getting.

Unless he was using his position to hurt gay folks, who cares?

[beardoc]

http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/seven-defends-outing-despite-false-claim-20100521-w1r6.html

It is not an offence to use a ministerial car for private activities. It is a fringe benefit of the job.

[clintswan]

i understand

i agree that they shouldn't have even done this report; it's obviously gossipy and disingenuous

however that being said, i reiterate : use public car = public eye, good or bad

i don't know him or of him but i wish he would have stated : "what my private life is is none of your business" and dismissed the reports as having nothing pertaining to his job duties

[stoicbear]

I blame Reality TV. For everything. ;o)

I really dislike the tabloid stuff.

[beardoc]

Sadly, the tabloid current affairs shows are really light human interest shows now:

http://au.todaytonight.yahoo.com/ - this is Seven's peak current affairs show now.

[holy13nation]

It was dumb to use the car.
But the whole hoohah is depressing and disgusting in equal amounts.
There is even one 'surveillance' shot of him 'allegedly'.
Journalism was once a great profession.

[beardoc]

Interestingly, the two people involved in the bringing the story (journalist Adam Walters and News Director Peter Meakin have not had a lot of sympathy from their colleagues - there has even been to some degree cutting loose of these guys by other members of their profession as details about Walters and Meakin leak out:

http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/a-family-man-beyond-our-ken-20100521-w1p7.html
http://www.crikey.com.au/2010/05/21/the-minister-the-gay-sauna-and-a-reporter-with-scores-to-settle/

That heartens me - that journalists generally regard private lives as private. Unfortunately it only takes two people (Walters and Meakin) to do this sort of thing.