I didn't want to write a third blog about Matthew Johns but the arrogant manner in which Four Corners has dismissed criticism of its story "The Code of Silence", and the even more arrogant way its mates at the ABC, such as Media Watch, have rallied around it without even the slightest acknowledgment that it perhaps went too far has me deeply concerned.

The current-affairs program's executive producer Sue Spencer and reporter Sarah Ferguson took the unusual step of issuing a statement online on Tuesday, which read, in part: "We stated explicitly in the story that we were not focussing [sic] on the issue of consent in relation to the incident in Christchurch. We stated simply that Clare made a complaint to police. This was investigated at the time. The players say she consented and no charges were laid. The focus of this incident was the role of group sex in rugby league culture and the consequences for the woman involved… we told [Matthew] Johns in advance of the broadcast that the young woman's testimony was moving, that she had clearly suffered after the event and had been psychologically damaged by it."

Clearly she has. But do you find the whiff of hypocrisy about this statement somewhat pungent?

First, Four Corners can deny that consent was not an issue in this story and claim they were focusing (that's how you spell it) solely on "the role of group sex in rugby league culture and the consequences for the woman involved", but no one's buying it. The portrayal of Clare's experience left viewers in no doubt what Four Corners thought of what had happened and just by stating "the players say she consented" without mentioning once again whether Clare herself consented makes the whole issue of consent the elephant in the room.

Second, can I suggest the next story for the long-running program? How about one on the issue of crummy, vexatious, ratings-hungry current-affairs shows and their role in dredging up what on all the evidence before us was a consensual sex encounter seven years after the event and wilfully destroying people's lives?

In the moral universe of the Four Corners editorial room, requisite empathy and sympathy seems to extend to Clare, who “clearly suffered after the event and had been psychologically damaged by it" but not to Johns, who has suffered greatly and been psychologically damaged too.

He just has to wear the "consequences" of his decision all those years ago, which includes losing his job, his reputation and livelihood.

It's taken a while since the story erupted last Wednesday, but the mood of public opinion appears to be trending firmly in Johns's favour and there has been no end of comment and vigorous stoushing from both sides of the debate on social media such as Facebook and Twitter.

If Four Corners and the ABC thought this story was going to go away, they need to think again. In my opinion, they need to be held accountable for it. The ABC is a taxpayer-funded institution. Your money and mine allow programs such as Four Corners to go to air. We deserve an explanation and we should expect better.

Slowly, perhaps emboldened by the clear anger in the community about Johns's treatment and suggestions he may be about to take legal action against the ABC, other media commentators, too, are starting to take a more critical view of what went to air a week ago. Notably Michael Idato, who wrote a small item for The Sydney Morning Herald on Monday and made a number of compelling points.

"There are some important questions that need to be asked of Four Corners,” he wrote.

"Why its focus on Johns, who is, by most accounts, the least worst of the league's misbehavers; why no mention of Greg Bird or the accusations of sexual assault made against players from the Wests Tigers or the Brisbane Broncos; and why such a superficial examination of the culture of women who vigorously pursue footballers?

"Even more curiously, why did Ferguson include moral editorialising in the Four Corners story by referring to group sex, an admittedly unconventional practice, as 'depraved'? Such judgments should be left to the viewer; they are not the privilege of objective journalism."

And then there was this refreshing comment from Germaine Greer, one of the great feminists of our age, who appeared on ABC Radio National this Wednesday morning.

She wouldn't bite at ABC presenter Fran Kelly's blunt suggestion that what Greer herself described as "predatory sex" by groups of sportsmen seeking an experience of "shared transgression" was intrinsically, as Kelly put it to her, "wrong".

"Oh, all sorts of things are wrong," Greer said.

"There are plenty of women who play in that arena with that sort of sex and who do it in a way that makes sure that they are limiting the damage that could be done. It's not very attractive but it’s one way of handling your sexual adventures."

Consent has been the issue in the Johns saga all along. It's what separates legal from illegal, newsworthy from un-newsworthy. Whether group sex is right or wrong is a personal view. Just as whatever behaviour you or I think is moral or immoral is a personal view.

Like Idato wrote, it is not for a taxpayer-funded TV program to tell Australian viewers that what happened at the Racecourse Hotel in 2002 was "degrading" and that the practice of group sex by sportsmen is "depraved".

If what happened in Christchurch was not consensual and a solid case can be made to that end by police and in court by a prosecutor, with a complainant willing to testify before a judge with solid physical, eyewitness or circumstantial evidence, then that, I believe, is a story well worth telling.

All "The Code of Silence" has done, by contrast, is hurt Clare even more (she has admitted as much), deeply (and perhaps permanently) damaged Johns and his family and sparked a relentless witch-hunt in the media to find the others players involved.

Perhaps the one good thing to come out of the whole sorry mess is it's abundantly clear now how much editorial standards have dropped in the Four Corners team.

Such flawed journalism should not be tolerated by the ABC ever again.