Flattie Scott sent me this link about Sean Plunket being suspended from National Radio's Morning Report after a "confrontational" interview with Green Party co-leader Jeanette Fitzsimons.
National Radio have been accused many times of having an anti-National bias. I heard the interview in question, and while I thought it was kinda arse, it wasn't that much different from the way that Plunket usually interviews Don Brash.
I wonder if the real issue is that Plunket unreasonably tried to savage someone from a political party who wouldn't cut Nat Radio's funding, for a change?
After writing that I checked nzpundit.com to see if that was their theory - and yes it is! Finger me as a right-wing think-alike.
They also provided this handy link to a mp3 of the interview.
Update:
Listening to it again, yeah I do think that Plunket was kinda harsh on Fitzsimons and kinda easy on Brownlee, but no more than he's been harsh on Don Brash and then easy on Helen Clark in the past. It's just Sean Plunket being Sean Plunket.
Unless he was already in the poo for doing this kind of thing in the past, and this was him finally getting his slap on the wrist, then this all seems a bit suspect.
Posted by pearce at September 8, 2005 10:28 AMRadio NZ are also refusing to say wether he has been sent home or not...
http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3404060a11,00.html
Posted by: Scott C at September 8, 2005 1:26 PMMy only thought after listening to those two interviews yesterday morning was to wonder why Plunkett hadn't asked an obvious question of Brownlee. Brownlee had compared the involvement of the Exclusive Brethren in politics with the involvement of trade unions.
Ok, fair point.
But I would've like to have known why when unions publish a pamphlet it contains such stuff as "Produced by the so-and-so Union of New Zealand." But when the Brethern did it, they used personal names, not organisation names.
And the answer is NOT that the publishers were acting independent of the Brethren, because that is NOT how the Brethren work.
Exclusive Brethren have broken their own rules by distributing these pamphlets, by the by.
It's worth pointing out that Exclusive Brethren are not quite the same as Open Brethren.
Posted by: Pearce at September 8, 2005 2:27 PM