Now for the real story, the uncensored version Prone to rage: Ray Hadley. So here's why I have been critical of the Australian Story program on Ray Hadley that the ABC put to air last Monday evening. It's a matter of standing up to a bully. I know several of the young men who were tormented by this man. I know about Hadley's rages, the torrents of foul-mouthed abuse. I know he savaged these kids at their most vulnerable, when they were barely out of university and finding their way in the daily hustle of a radio newsroom. For the smallest slips or mistakes, real or imagined, he would threaten to end their careers. He reduced them to tears and blighted their lives. Two of them actually made it. One now has a successful career as a political and corporate adviser. Another is a popular ABC sports broadcaster. But I know also that they still carry the mental scars of what Hadley did to them. The ABC will say it approached some of these people but found them unwilling to appear. Fancy that. For some, the memories are too painful to recall. Others who still have media jobs fear Hadley's reach and power if they speak out. So I said it for them, in the interview I gave to Australian Story. None of it made the cut. Instead, coats of gloss were splashed around. Nine of the 10 people interviewed for the show were in Hadley's corner. He was portrayed as a knockabout, likeable bloke - yes, with a few anger problems but all quite understandable in the light of his teenage troubles. Oh please. That was 40 years ago. Most extraordinary was the time granted to John Singleton who, as the owner of 2GB, quite literally has tens of millions of dollars riding on his star's ratings success. Naturally, Singo went for it like a man snatching the last cold beer in the Esky. The ABC allowed him - a broadcast competitor, for heaven's sake - to push his personal, commercial and financial interests unchallenged, a whopping corporate PR coup. Then there was the matter of Hadley's aggressive on-air style. They asked about that too. "His job is basically to read out the Daily Telegraph very loudly and agree with it," I said. He erects a daily temple of hatred and invites the punters to worship there. I particularly mentioned his on-air fatwa against the independent federal MP Rob Oakeshott, who cops a daily tirade of insults. And so on. None of that made it either. There was an ancient clip of Hadley bellowing at Alexander Downer and that was that. Oakeshott, a rather more relevant figure these days, was not contacted by the Australian Story team. I was the only critic, briefly allowed a few largely anodyne remarks. The next day I was bombarded with emails and tweets wondering why I had "gone soft," as several put it. So the program was unbalanced and biased, a chocolate box portrait. I guess Australian Story's producers will argue that it's not hard-edged current affairs; that it tells its stories through the eyes of its subjects. Maybe. But that does not absolve it from the ABC code of practice, which requires the "hallmarks of impartiality: a balance that follows the weight of evidence; fair treatment; open-mindedness." This program failed that test. One more thing. Whenever I dare to criticise Hadley or his 2GB colleague Alan Jones, they invariably accuse me of being an embittered failure, jealous of their success. Hadley was at it again on Wednesday. "The most hateful and vengeful broadcaster I've ever encountered," he huffed. This from the man who monstered Lisa Wilkinson when she was signed to host Channel Nine's Today show, apparently on the sole grounds that she is Peter FitzSimons' wife. Ho hum. Hadley's bile costs me not a wink of sleep; I've been shot at by the Viet Cong, a more serious business. But I would rather lose a limb than do what those two do. I had a long and happy radio career for some 30 years on four stations in Sydney, and four years at London's LBC Newstalk 97.3. Funny, but it's 20 years to the month that I won the British Radio Academy Award for Britain's best talk breakfast show, against everything the BBC could throw up. He said, preening immodestly. But by 2009, I was hating that 3am alarm clock. I was stale and bored, in dread of announcing, for the umpteen-zillionth time, that "the transport minister's on the line." With a newborn son and a working wife, I decided to pull the pin. Fairfax, 2UE's owner, generously paid out my contract on the condition that I would write for the Herald again. Here I am. The other stick they whack me with is my remark that I would go the funeral of the broadcaster Stan Zemanek only to check that he was dead. Yes, I did say that. Zemanek was a racist redneck. We loathed each other. But at the time I was also one of the few people aware of a well-kept secret: that Zemanek had defrauded 2UE of more than $200,000 in advertising revenue. It was money he owed the station for the sale of commercials in his show but had never paid. 2UE was about to take legal action to get it when he contracted the cancer that killed him. So the station backed off and dropped the case, not wanting to further upset his bereaved family. It's not something I'm proud of. But that's how it happened. It's a wonderful, dog-eat-dog world in Sydney radio. On reflection, though, how petty and grubby it all seems. All of the above, that is. As I was thinking about writing this column, the news came through that Ford is killing off the Falcon and shutting down its production lines at Broadmeadows and Geelong. The official guess is that 1200 jobs will go, although I bet it's more when you count the suppliers and others along the chain. It's a planet light years from pampered millionaire media performers with their strings of racehorses, their harbourside apartments, the chauffeured Roller ticking over in the garage, the butler who serves the fluffy little crab tartlets at the tinkle of a silvery bell. Those will be real jobs lost by real people, and it will be tough. Twitter: @MikeCarlton01