The editor
John Key is becoming more Muldoonesque with each erupting scandal. His latest attack on visiting American investigative journalist, Glenn Greenwald, is simply beyond the pale.
Key says,”Now, in the fullness of time we’ll respond to Dotcom’s little henchman, but mark my words, he’s wrong. There never has been mass surveillance and there is no mass surveillance.”
Since when in a visiting journalist anybody’s “henchman”?
This is not the first time Key has abused investigative journalists who have uncovered unpleasant activities by this current government.
In May 2011,John Key derided Jon Stephenson’s research into NZ secret activities in Afghanistan by attacking the journalists’ reputation and character;
“I’ve got no reason for NZDF to be lying, and I’ve found Stephenson myself personally not to be credible.”
In September 2011, Key attacked another investigative journalist, Nicky Hager, for his expose on New Zealand’s covert military activities, in conjunction with the CIA, in Afghanistan.
John Key dismissed Hager’s book;”I don’t have time to read fiction,”
That “fiction” Key referred to contained 1,300 footnotes of referencing documentation in Hager’s book.
In August this year, Key again attacked Nicky Hager, for his expose in dirty dealings between Key’s office, a right-wing blogger, Judith Collins, and other right-wing extremists. Key was again dismissive;
“Mr Hager’s making claims he can’t back up and they’re not factually correct.”
And,
“At the end of the day we’re five weeks out from an election, people can see that Nicky Hager’s made a whole lot of things up in his book, (they) can see he can’t back a lot of them up. People can see this is a smear campaign by Nicky Hager.”
If Hager’s book was “factually incorrect” and little more than a “smear campaign” one has to ask the PM what prompted Judith Collins to resign 17 days after the launch of “Dirty Politics” and all it revealed?
John Key’s track record of transparency with the public has left much to be desired and attacking journalists who dare speak the truth says more about the PM’s character than the targets of his unwarranted attacks.
Thus far, Jon Stephenson, Nicky Hager, and Glenn Greenwald have a better track record at telling the truth than Mr Key.
Frank Macskasy
