THE FOURTH ESTATE:

The Walkley Foundation has struck a special category for this year’s journalism awards to honour two of Australia’s most senior and respected politics scribes.

The Outstanding Contribution to Journalistic Integrity and Total Devotion to the Tenets of Our Glorious Craft Award will be presented to News Crap Australia journalists Simon Benson and Geoff Chambers at the glittering 17 November award nights.

Both men sensationally disclosed in a book on how Australia handled the COVID pandemic and released after the May federal election – Plagued – Australia’s two years of hell – the inside story – that former Prime Minister Scott Morrison had secretly had himself sworn in by Governor-General David Hurley as a minister in two key Cabinet roles apart from his prime ministerial duties.

The citation prepared by the Walkley judges reads: “The temptation of these two fine journalists from The Australian to renege on a promise given to then prime minister Scott Morrison not to disclose information given not only ‘off the record’ but ‘not for publication’ – Morrison’s secret extra ministries – must have been enormous.

“Journalists of lesser calibre would most probably broken that solemn pledge to protect sources – the bedrock on which our craft’s very existence relies – and rushed off to their editors at The Australian who would have known how damaging those secret ministries would have been to the LNP’s reelection hopes and would have eagerly splashed the story on the paper’s front page over and over again!

“Instead Benson and Chambers kept their word to the then PM. They eschewed the obvious industry – and Walkley – glory that would have come with the publication of that amazing scoop – and sat on that information for months before reluctantly disclosing the former PM’s unprincipled and possibly unconstitutional actions in a book on the scandal.”

Benson, the award-winning and better-selling of the two authors, told The Bug the temptation to break the Australian Journalists Association’s code of conduct had been enormous.

“Mr Morrison took a big punt by calling Geoff and me in and revealing what he had done, albeit with those full non-disclosure conditions. He wouldn’t have had a clue as to our politics or whether we were the sort of journalists who could be trusted.

“He simply wanted to get things off his chest, joking that maybe he could share in any profits from any book we might write down the track even though that idea never entered our minds until much later.

“He was obviously very proud of the extra ministerial workload he had given himself to tackle the ravages of COVID-19 but he kept telling us that he ‘didn’t want to big-note himself in any way’ or ‘offend other senior ministers who were doing the best their limited talents allowed’,” Benson said.

He also revealed that as the last federal election campaign neared polling day on 21 May, he and his co-author saw the writing on the wall and begged Morrison to release them from the promises they had made.

“Geoff and I had both formed the view that a late reversal of fortunes for the government was possible if the electorate could have been informed of the enormous workload the broad-shouldered, hard-working PM had unselfishly taken on to keep his fellow citizens safe,” Benson said.

“And that was before we all discovered Morrison had become a minister in three other senior portfolios as well,” he said, alluding to the work of Samantha Maiden of another News Crap Australia outlet, news.com.au, who broke the story on the other ministerial roles the ex-PM had assumed in secret.

The Walkley Awards committee, which has also nominated the three reporters in the Scoop of the Year Award category, has been forced to prepare specially struck award statuettes to be presented to each of them reflecting their corresponding contributions to the story if they win. (main picture)

Benson said even after Maiden’s story was published, the former PM stuck steadfastly to his original NFP edict.

“He told Geoff and me that his winning template from 2019 – porkbarrelling on unprecedented levels, monster lies about Labor’s policies, the almost unanimous support from the mainstream media banging on about how all the polls pointed to the disaster of a hung parliament and how important it then was to avoid such a disaster by returning the Morrison government and a never-ending series of photo ops – would secure him a second miracle win.

“I remember him telling us: ‘Relax boys. My professional photographer and I are about to head out to a kids soccer game. It ticks all the right boxes: the daggy dad who loves his sport! It’s going to make for some great images.'”

As this issue of The Bug was about to be uploaded, the Walkley Foundation judges released a statement saying the new Outstanding Contribution to Journalistic Integrity and Total Devotion to the Tenets of Our Glorious Craft Award would not be an annual category.

“Sadly, journalists of the calibre of Simon Benson and Geoff Chambers come along far too infrequently.”