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Lachlan Murdoch’s security guard approached to acknowledge – but also limit – the role of the fourth estate.

We were standing on the footpath outside the media mogul’s mansion, chronicling the confluence of power, money, culture, sport and celebrity – otherwise known as Lachlan and Sarah Murdoch’s Christmas party.

Seven Group Holdings chief executive Ryan Stokes – and your crack CBD team – at the Murdochs’ Christmas party.Credit: Oscar Colman

“You have your job to do,” the well-turned-out security chap said, fittingly for a bloke whose boss has a net worth of $3 billion – in no small part due to profits from intrusive journalism.

Mr Security also had a job to do, pointing out where the public footpath ended, and the off-limits private roadway leading to the Murdochs’ Bellevue Hill trophy mansion, Le Manoir, began. It was at this point, filing under a tree in the Sydney street, that we realised we had become gutter journalists.

Some of our more critical readers certainly thought so: “Court jester”, The Age’s “gossip girl”, “No one likes a bitchy queen Stephen”, “What a pitiful, pathetic loser”.

And: “The literary equivalent of a bloke drawing something obscene on the back of a toilet door.”

These are a few of the delightful feedback comments your columnists have received … in the past week.