Glenn Milne’s piece in News Corporation’s Sunday tabloids about Kevin Rudd’s drunken visit to Scores nightclub in New York with News Corporation editor Col Allan, and Labor MP Warren Snowdon, is an excellent example of deliberate journalistic distortion.

There are three important facts in Milne’s story: one, Rudd was drunk; two, he went to a strip joint with the other men; three, that while there he was warned by the joint’s management “against touching the dancers”.

The first two facts are confirmed by Rudd himself, and the second fact is confirmed by Rudd and Allan. Snowdon apparently could not be reached.

The third – and by far the most serious – is not confirmed by anyone and rebutted by Rudd and Allan.

This is where the distortion occurs.

Milne relies on “some sources” and an Australian diplomat “who insisted on anonymity” for his allegation concerning Rudd’s behaviour. He baldly states in his intro that Rudd “was warned against inappropriate behaviour”.

This flatly contradicts the statement by Milne’s own corporate colleague, Col Allan, that Rudd did not misbehave.

The journalists’ code of ethics states in clause one:

Report and interpret honestly. Do not … give distorting emphasis.

It is giving distorted emphasis to present as uncontradicted fact an anonymous accusation that is later contradicted by a named source in the same article.

It is distorted emphasis because it gives more weight to an anonymous statement than to the statement of an eye witness who is prepared to be named.

Of course the so-called “warning” by the strip joint’s management against touching the dancers may have been conveyed to all patrons by signage or by conditions of entry. It may not have been directed specifically against Rudd at all.

In the bowels of his article Milne is careful not to say the warning was specifically directed to Rudd, though he imputes that this was so.

Milne, in an accompanying commentary, then says that Rudd “cavorted with strippers”. The dictionary definition of “cavort” means “to prance excitedly around”. There is no evidence for this at all.

With last week’s debacle over the Costello lunch, the Canberra press gallery is having a bad spell, ethically. As the election campaign draws on and seems likely to get dirtier, the nation would be better served if the Gallery lifted its game.

Dr Muller is a Visiting Fellow in the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics at the University of Melbourne