SameSame.com.au ~ Inside Out Australia

Peter Hitchener Was Pushed

Local News, By Christian Taylor, 18th April, 2008

At the beginning of the month when Peter Hitchener came out as gay, he told the Sunday Herald Sun, “there is never a right time, or an easy time, to talk about these personal issues.” He then went on to say however, that it was finally time to “say it and to move on”. So if Hitchener was right, if there is never a ‘right time’, then what pushed him to say anything at all?

According to independent Aussie news source Crikey.com.au, Hitchener’s words must have been uttered through clenched teeth. He didn’t come out of the closet – he was well and truly pushed.

A piece written last week by Margaret Simons and Jonathan Green essentially accuses the Sunday Herald Sun of blackmailing Hitchener into coming out exclusively to their newspaper. According to their piece, a Ballarat policeman observed two men sitting in a car two years ago – while they weren’t doing anything illegal, the policeman found it suspicious and filed a report about it. While doing so he performed a check of the vehicle’s registration number – it came up as belonging to Hitchener.

Apparently the story swept around the police force – Hitchener had been “caught in a compromising situation in a car with a man” – Crikey says that the story fell into the lap of James Campbell, a freelance journalist with strong ties with the Sunday Herald Sun newsdesk. Campbell tracked down the Ballarat police officer – he called him on the phone and even arrived unannounced on the officer’s doorstep one night – when asked how he got his address Campbell said that he’d found them on the Electoral Roll. Campbell was asking a lot of “explicit questions” about the incident in the car.

A week before Hitchener spoke to the Sunday Herald Sun Campbell called him and basically told him that if he didn’t come out to the newspaper, then they would run with a beat up story of the Ballarat ‘incident’. And so began negotiations between Channel Nine publicity which finally resulted in Hitchener’s interview with gossip columnist Fiona Byrne.

Interestingly, according to Crikey, when they contacted stakeholders at Channel Nine and the Sunday Herald Sun editor, they were all sticking to the same story – Hitchener’s coming out was his decision and no stand over tactics were used.

On the one hand it’s commendable that Hitchener’s coming out has been positively received – that a highly respected newsreader like Hitchener can come out and still retain his job is a great sign of progress indeed. However, dirty blackmail tactics like these also highlight just how far we still have to go.