Fed: Rudd says he's lifted his game on media relations

AAP General News (Australia)
04-17-2007
Fed: Rudd says he's lifted his game on media relations

CANBERRA, April 17 AAP - Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd has promised to improve his relations
with the media after a series of damaging spats in which he's telephoned and remonstrated
with reporters and their editors.

Mr Rudd said he was the first to admit he had got it wrong in recent times in his dealings
with the media, particularly The Sunday Telegraph over the so-called fake dawn Anzac Day
service.

"We have got to get it right," he told the National Press Club in his first national
address since becoming leader.

"When it came to the particular exchange with the Sunday Tele, that could have been
handled better as well.

"And the whole question of what's right or what's wrong, what's accurate, what's inaccurate
can be handled differently.

"I am confident we can do that and we have had a long discussion internally within
the office about that and I am responsible for it and for executing that change and I
intend to do so."

Nine Network correspondent Laurie Oakes had asked Mr Rudd whether he really thought
he could get away with heavying the media and just what he intended to do about his glass
jaw.

Mr Oakes quoted Sydney Sunday Telegraph editor Neil Breen on Melbourne radio today
describing how Mr Rudd "went bananas" over a report of his involvement in a plan by the
Seven Network's Sunrise program to stage a fake Anzac service in Vietnam.

"He just went crazy, that it never happened, and the phone calls started from him and
they went to the highest powers at News Ltd," Mr Breen said.

"It was the heaviest situation I have been in in my journalistic career."

That related to the Sunrise plan to broadcast an Anzac Day dawn service live from Long
Tan, Vietnam, at which Mr Rudd was to have been a special guest.

But to ensure the telecast coincided with peak viewing time of 7.15am in Australia,
the "dawn" service would have had to be held an hour before dawn.

When details of the stunt appeared in newspapers, war veterans expressed outrage but
both Sunrise and Mr Rudd denied any such plans.

News Ltd later published emails revealing that a member of Mr Rudd's staff was aware of this.

Another incident late last month related to a report in Sydney Sun Herald questioning
his account of being evicted from his home after his father's death.

He denied pressuring the newspaper in a bid to halt publication.

AAP mb/jb/mfh/it/bwl

KEYWORD: ANZAC RUDD

2007 AAP Information Services Pty Limited (AAP) or its Licensors.