Reporters must respect public's right to say 'no'

Ibowled up to a door in Lithgow in 1999 seeking an interview with Kevin Sinnett, the driver of a train that had ploughed into the back of the Indian Pacific at Glenbrook. That was my brief. A dreadful thing had happened, seven people were dead, the public wanted to know everything it could, including who the driver was and what he looked like. The man answering the door said: ''He's got nothing to say. You can piss off. And if you don't piss off, we'll show you how we do it in the bush.'' I had to withdraw, News Ltd had reporters and photographers camped outside his door, he was under siege.

It is moments like these that anyone in this reporting game has serious doubts whether it is all worthwhile. I had to grit my teeth and go back, but decided the next day to go into a pub and think about it. I got talking to a fellow drinker and he told me all about Mr Sinnett, who as events would demonstrate had little to answer for. Then, lo and behold, he opened his wallet and gave me a photo of the man himself.

I thanked him and we published the photo and the information - all without the approval of Mr Sinnett. But the thought came back whether this was what I wanted to do - that is, things which as a private individual I would not dream of doing, pushing into the very private world of a traumatised individual, getting every possible detail.

I don't think any reporter worth his or her salt does not battle with the subject of privacy. So much easier, it would be, if we were assigned to intrude into such situations as paramedics, police officers or priests - that is, people with recognised and respected roles.

Journalists are seen as semi-legitimate. I felt it acutely way back at the start of my career, in 1971, while working on a country paper, the Dubbo Daily Liberal, as its correspondent at nearby Wellington.

I had decided this was not for me, that people should not be disturbed, and I would take the train to Sydney (taking the train because I had driven my Volkswagen into the side of a cow) and start a Diploma of Education to become a schoolteacher.

A store owner whose employee during Christmas celebrations had had too much to drink, had forced a police car off the road and had been charged with a drink-driving offence, asked me as a fellow Apexian to ''leave it out''. Initially I agreed, but got to thinking about it. I had only a matter of weeks and I would get out of this beastly business.

But was I going to do this, succumb at the very first occasion when I was asked to compromise my integrity? In the end, I published an account of the court hearing. I upset my fellow Apexian and devastated the employee. Then I took the train trip to Sydney and at the end of the journey, pulling into Central Station, I decided to drop in at Fairfax and ask for a job.

I have been at it ever since. And there have been many times when that conflict has come back. In 1977, I was assigned one afternoon to get a ''really good story'' on some school leavers who had managed to crash at Eastwood the night before and were all severely injured or killed. I rang the parents of one of the deceased. He erupted: ''Look, we've had the Mirror, the Sun, the ABC … they've all been out here. I have been misquoted. And now you.'' I apologised and hung up.