CAREY, Peter. Top Australian writer: "If you really want to know what's happening [in] the world, you go out and get drunk with journalists and they will tell you what isn't in the papers"

Peter Philip Carey (born 7 May 1943) is an Australian novelist and short story writer. He is one of only two writers to have won the Booker Prize twice, first in 1988 for “Oscar and Lucinda”, and for the second time in 2001 with “True History of the Kelly Gang” (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Carey_%28novelist%29 ).

Peter Carey (outstanding Australian writer) on media censorship (in a panel discussion on ABC TV Q&A (2010):

“TONY JONES [ABC presenter]: All right, let's hear from Peter [re truth and lying in public life]..

PETER CAREY: I keep on thinking about the role of the medial generally in this and how the media is always so continually hysterical about people lying and not telling the truth. And if I really think there's a big problem in our society today, it's that the media is not telling the truth to people and they know what it is. If you really want to know what's happening [in] the world, you go out and get drunk with journalists and they will tell you what isn't in the papers. So they're living - these guys are living every day with the reality of a proprietor, say, or a corporation who owns them will not permit them to tell what they know to be true. So, okay, this guy lied. He's not a good person because he did it but I think the hysteria is about a bigger, bigger issue, which is we are not being honestly reported to. And if there was, you know, Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction but...

MALCOLM FRASER [former Australian PM}: But they knew he didn't.

PETER CAREY: Yeah.

TONY JONES: They knew he didn't, you say?

MALCOLM FRASER: Yes.

PETER CAREY: Yes.

TONY JONES: You mean the Howard Government knew he didn't?

MALCOLM FRASER: It should have. I think the British Government did, the American Government did and the Australian Government should have.” [1].

[1].Peter Carey in a panel discussion on ABC TV Q&A, Monday 24 May 2010: http://www.abc.net.au/tv/qanda/txt/s2901978.htm .