Psychosexual treatment of Alan Jones relies on rumours

When schools put on plays in the years when Jones was a student, boys normally took all the roles: Masters uses this to refer to Jones's "talent for putting on a skirt".

When Jones buys a new house in Chippendale near the University of Sydney, Masters, almost winking at the reader, makes the appalling observation that this is "closer, too, to some of Sydney's gay beats".

Masters seems to think that being aware of beauty in your own sex is abnormal. So Jones doesn't just look at young men, he invariably "ogles" them, spends far too much time with them and, of course, plays favourites.

Underlying all this is a constant suggestion of impropriety. But after he has recounted one salacious titbit or another, Masters is forced to admit that there is no evidence of any impropriety. On one occasion, he limits this to "physical impropriety", in another to "no clear evidence".

Nowhere does he concede that if his judgment of Jones's sexuality were correct, this abstinence would be a sign of considerable moral strength, not "psychosexual" weakness.

Masters relies too much on an "army of secret helpers" who are obviously too cowardly to let their names go forward. He provides no evidence at all about some letter allegedly found by someone in some boy's desk at King's. Nor is Masters put off by mere rumour.

An egregious example begins: "Jones, it was said, was seen in the back seat of his car kissing and cuddling" a well-known footballer, whom Masters unfairly names. Masters waits until the second paragraph after this to admit that this gossip "as best I can tell, appears baseless".

The story is obviously without foundation. So why did Masters give it credibility in the way he introduced it, in the reluctance with which he discounts it, and in using it at all?

Masters seems to think only homosexual men use public lavatories. Doesn't he know that some police were once so enthusiastic about entrapment that straight men were at times also arrested? To avoid publicity, they were often persuaded to plead guilty to a lesser charge.

In a chapter about the fact that the London police, having arrested Jones, were unable to proceed because they had no evidence whatsoever, Masters cannot resist a gratuitous observation. Jones, he says, tried to "defeat common sense by asking everyone to join him in his denial".

Jones asked nothing of the sort. Nobody is under any obligation, legal or moral, to give chapter and verse about their private lives, so why should Jones? Master doesn't. But even on this, Masters has to accuse Jones of bad faith. Rather than wanting to protect his privacy, he says Jones is more concerned about protecting "a dishonest power base".

Masters goes overboard when he declares that Jones is a "fraud at work", "hypocritical", and "exhibiting a fundamental lack of beliefs" and "emptiness". That is not the view of Jones's listeners, who see him as a living embodiment of the adage "comforting the afflicted, and afflicting the comfortable".

Any objective assessment would find that he is extraordinarily effective, and that he has strong beliefs that cannot be stereotyped as typically conservative. A true renaissance man, Jones is dedicated and generous. His great fault, in Masters' eyes, is that he is far too effective.

Masters is entitled to investigate and challenge Jones's influence and role, but he is not entitled to intrude into his private life based on purloined correspondence, amateur psychoanalysis and irresponsible journalism. No wonder the ABC board wrote off the public money poured into this vengeful project by the nomenklatura.

The result is no credit to its author, its publishers and the two newspapers that featured the most salacious bits.