Morg's morgue
Morgs Hunter-Bell as been sacked. We were going to note this in a response to a commenter who asked "can it be true?!", but it's of too great an import to bury in comments.
We've had our differences, Morgs and LawsWatch, but having been described by us as a "Diva clone" he came over to Council Watch, denied the "Spawn of the Devil" tag, and explained what it is he and the Youth Council are trying to do. And in doing so, free of spin, he won our respect. He says he doesn't want to be a politician, but he did what our local politicians ought to do - he answered to the people.
The fact it took us several days to cotton on to the fact that the Youth Council's acronym, WYC'D, was meant to be pronounced "wicked", meaning good, in the same way "bad" means good... or perhaps it doesn't any more... proves LawsWatch has no place on such a Council. But Morgs's enthusiasm for the idea, and his determination to see it through, won him a few fans over here at LawsWatch, specially when he saw just how dedicated his mentor truly was:
Making the best of being treated with contempt by the Diva, when most of us would have walked out in disgust - you gotta hand it to Morgs, he gets points for resilience and determination, if not his judgment in choosing his allies.When it came to confirming the special meeting of full council concerning the formation of a Youth Council, the mayor had apparently forgotten all about it, despite it being his suggestion to begin with. Instead, the 18th became a special "preview" presentation for him to decide whether we have merit enough to present to full council. We've spent weeks working on a solid presentation which we were told would have to be an hour minimum. Shortly after I finish writing this we'll be required to give a condensed version to the same audience as always at the Community Development Committee, 15 minutes maximum.
It feels odd to me that such a marked downgrade constitutes progress, but here I am talking about delays and demotions like they're new things in bureaucracy. For now it's just a situation we have to make the most of, and I intend to.
Faced with a columnist capable of communicating with a sector of the market that's notoriously hard to get to (specially for an old medium like a newspaper) what does the Chron do? Mutilate, then finally trash, what it doesn't understand. Way to look to the future, Mr Maslin - with interactive TV and the internet nipping at your heels, alienate the people who're your future readers. By the time they're old enough to give a damn about missing roosters, they'll be following their progress via live online roostercam. Or something. But they won't be reading you.
This is reading like an obituary, and it's most certainly not. Morgs and his columns live on, over at his website www.ice.org.nz. And he's welcome here any time.
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22 comments:
I'll be a lot more impressed with this WYCD nonsense when there's some action instead of all their youthly yap-yap-yap. Understand Carla Donson has a lot to do with them and they've achieved precisely nothing with all their undergrad angsting.
Mas made the right call re Morgs, He was too earnest & boring to be a youth columnist. I guess Mitchell-Anyon will have to find a new buddy to convert.
PS Wasn't a youth committee the mayor's idea anyway?
Poor Morgs. His time in the sun was writing an unpaid youth column in a provincial newspaper. That 15 seconds of fame is sure getting shorter.
Carol baby - you tried walking out in disgust, remember? Code of Conduct hearing but no, you just had to come back into the council chambers to get humiliated again.
Noy really your fault, I'm told - you had that old duffer Moodie repping you and he's gone onto real fame as the United candidate for Rangitikei.
Well, the youth council is a truly lame suggestion of use only to wannabe pollies (like we need more of those). So I wouldn't be surprised if it were Michael's idea.
In any event, Mr. Hunter Bell leaving the Chron. is hardly going to derail Mickey's youth council, is it?
From memory, Morgs always wrote that he didn't see writing "opinion" pieces in his future anyway.
John Maslin sacked Morgs for a very simple reason. No-one read his column. The worst crime of any columnist is not to be read.
Hardly Morg's fault. The Whatever page was always a graveyard because its aimed at Wanganui's youth who just want free stuff & star gossip. He might have been tried elsewhere cos the Chron needs lively columnists. Their recent recruits arent much chop.
Perhaps Morgs can get a gig with the River City Press ;)
Well, their main spac-filling contributor is of course the Spin Fairy and Mas has the advantage there that he doesn't have to pay her because the ratepayers take care of that. And he shows his respect for her and her boss by slapping her outpourings on the front page and calling them the lead story, like last Monday's gallery bullshit.
But I'm sorry to here Morg's story and it's sad to see the Diva in here slagging him off anonymously.
Morgs in the RCP? I imagine he would have to sign a contract promising to say only nice things about the Diva and co, wouldn't he?
Mean-spirited, one could say.
The mayor is a big fan of Morgs. What a lie from anon - the people who don't like Morgs are those who got upset over his views on the Sarhjeant & SOS.
At last, something me and Laws agree on. I don't always like what Morgs has to say, but I always read it.
Still, when their final act was to print someone else's work under his byline, then email him to let him know he's fired...
classy, Mas, real classy.
...the people who don't like Morgs are those who got upset over his views on the Sarjeant & SOS
Absolutely right. Yet this blog has, on two occasions now, tipped our hat to him. And yet... and yet... the blog is a secret plot by Carol and Matt, two of the CoC/SOS folk... but... oh, of course, we're suffering bipolar disorder, that must be it.
A good friend of Wanganui and BiPolar sufferer died last week. His funeral on Friday was one of the largest in a while with friends from all over New Zealand attending and many of his past pupils also there.
Richard took his life and it was a great shock to many. He had worked long and hard to educate people about mental health issues. One in five New Zealanders are affected by mental health problems and all they want is to live normally without being insulted by people like lawswatch.
And, as a final insult, now you're putting words in your friend's mouth. Was he as keen on political correctness as you are?
Funny that. Some anonymous commenter uses the word bi-polar and someone from LawsMob jumps on them and says it's lawswatch doing the insulting.
For months on end a group of Wanganui citizens were called nutters and worse by Laws, acting in his "official" capacity and usually on the front page of his pet paper. He made frequent stupid comments about the need for them to take medication etc.
I seem to recall one complaint in the code of conduct list was about the effect a mayor using those derogatory terms to insult people would have on the mental health education efforts. I wonder what your friend Richard would have thought about the effects of Laws' infantile insults on his efforts to educate people on mental health issues.
Where was this syncophantic, sensitive LawsMob commenter then?
Anonymous said "PS Wasn't a youth committee the mayor's idea anyway?"
Well no , not initially.
I sourced all the documentation and the blueprint for the initiative back in 2001 from the Napier City Council. I presented a paper to the then council and worked with council officer Rosemary Hovey to move the idea forward. The 2001/2004 council progressed it to holding Youth Forums, without actually forming a Youth Council. Earlier this year I met with Cr Sue Pepperell, and gave her all the documents I had sourced from Napier. I think Sue has done an excellent job of moving the initiative to a new level.
"...from the Napier City Council..."
And you're sure he isn't just picking up where he left off?
(in more ways than one...)
Seems very into picking up where he left off. He seems to want to return Wanganui to his heyday of the 1970's when we had Miss Wanganui comps at Castlecliff Beach (groomed of course, the beach as well as the gals). So why stop there. Why not, when I was in Napier, when I was in Wellington etc.
What a load of crap as to why Morgs was "sacked". Not only was he read, but he was well read, as this blog will testify - or do you think you are the only ones to read the Chron? - and many appreciated his alternative and youthful view. He was neither a laws clone nor after 15 minutes minutes of fame. He was just a good writer - as good at the end as he was when he was first freelancing, before the Oct 2004 elections. He was no longer needed because the Whatever page changed direction to a teenybob giveaway - something that would make its orginators turn in their grave. Miss you Morg.
Anon said... post 1.14pm sept 12th
That is the most cynical and disgusting post by anyone on this blog. Surly even Laws supporters wouldn't condone that kind of tactic
Well, they abuse the living.
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