The weakest link

Do not adjust your hearing aid.

Watchers expecting hear the celebratory popping of corks from the direction of the LawsWatch Cave at the news of Mr Maslin's sidelining from captaining the team at the Chron haven't suddenly gone deaf.

A commenter even suggests that his standing aside makes him the first "victim" of LawsWatch and asks "is that acceptable collateral damage?"

Equally, we could ask whether he's simply yet another victim of Michael Laws, since it's only a matter of a couple of weeks ago that Maslin canned the Mayor's self-indulgent ramblings after they stepped well outside the agreed bounds.

Perhaps the apoplectic Mayoral backlash led the APN coaches to call for a substitution, or perhaps it was too little too late. Only Mr Maslin and his bosses know which, if either, scenario is correct.

There is no doubt John Maslin had to go. He was widely perceived as hopelessly compromised by having kowtowed to Michael Laws far too often. His recent burst of independence came far too late for most readers, who may well refer to the Chron as "their" paper, as APN boss Andy Jarden claimed this morning, but who've grown to doubt its credibility - and not just on Council issues - under Maslin's editorship.

And when tortuosity like this makes it into the newspaper:

"And to quieten the doubters Ms Patrick took the horse by the tail and put it firmly in front of the cart when she said this was the best practice model... but now the audience had a toe in the water and the tide turned..."

...then the Editor's hand isn't on the tiller when the ship navigates the dangerous shoals of journalism, running aground on the reef of cliché. So to speak.

Not to mention letting go entirely unchallenged statements such as "this is the best practice model" when referring to events which caused an entire trust board to resign, have seen a gallery curatorial position disestablished and have put the local arts establishment into an uproar. Whose idea of best practice? What studies or experts support this assertion? What other examples can Ms Patrick offer of an arts facility being "restructured" in this way and emerging from the process better than it was before?

A good newspaper doesn't just regurgitate the words uttered by others, marinated in cliché and boxed by Sudoku, lost animal pics and advertisements. It investigates. It questions. It takes nothing at face value - especially not statements from politicians and public servants.

Editing a newspaper - particularly a provincial daily - is a thankless task. Get it right and at best, no one complains. Get it wrong and everyone does. Unlike the editor of the NZ Herald - and quick, without looking it up, how many can even tell us who that is? - a provincial newspaper editor is recognisable and accessible to his or her readers.

Inevitably, that leads to lobbying from every lunatic with an agenda, who then invents a conspiracy to explain why their tinfoil hat theory has been "suppressed". A Watcher who's held a similar position to Mr Maslin recalls one particularly disgruntled reader endeavouring to climb through his first floor office window, presumably to lodge a complaint.

But when a lunatic with an agenda happens to become the town's First Citizen, the editor's job becomes a difficult and doubly thankless task. Mr Maslin didn't acquit himself well when facing up to the noisily public and more insidious private pressure exerted by Michael Laws - but then, to be fair, not a lot of people have in the past, either.

What the Chronicle now needs - what Wanganui now needs - is for APN to find themselves a senior journalist with not only the experience but also the strength of character that's needed to manage a newspaper in a town where Michael Laws's divisiveness means that not only does he apply unconscionable pressure to the editor, but his opponents are driven to respond in kind. Such journalists are out there, but they're in senior roles and APN aren't exactly renowned for the level of salary they're prepared to offer. And while Maslin may have been the weakest link, but the rest of the chain - a proprietor interested more in money than in quality journalism and an inexperienced, uncritical writing staff - isn't too strong either.

However, as Mr Jarden proudly notes, the Chron is New Zealand's oldest newspaper. The grand old dame surely deserves better treatment from her owners.

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Conspiracy theory

Once upon a time in an editor's office not too far away, the phone rang.

Powerful Voice From On High: What the hell are you doing, Maslin?!

Quavering Editor (quickly putting away his Bumper Book of Sudoku and pretending to edit the newspaper): Who Sir? Me Sir? Errr... I was just... you know... doing editing... stuff.

PVFOH: That'd be a first. No, I'm talking about Mickey's latest column!

QE: Ohhh... ummm... that. But he just does the usual thing; Bangs on about all his critics being whingers whiners wallies and so forth, and rips into former councillors and staff members. Apart from that cunning intro announcing his new-found common cause with old Chas won't fool anyone, it's no different to the all the other columns he's ever written, Sir.

PVFOH: Well can it. Immediately.

QE: But Sir, I thought our plan was to get Mickey re-elected? Remember, it was on your meeting agenda right between discussing how to raise the price of petrol even further and how to get your hands on TVNZ now Ralston has completely knackered it as planned.

PVFOH: That's just the point, Maslin! By giving Mickey an outlet for his inane ramblings and abusive vitriol, you're helping demonstrate just how much of a one-note fruit loop he is! How many times must we explain it?! The plan is to get your minions to write flattering stories about him, quoting selectively from press releases only those sentences which make a modicum of sense and which don't totally contradict something he said the day before. It's one thing if he puts it on that damned website nobody visits, but when it gets in the Chron it frightens the natives, understand?

QE: Yes Sir, sorry Sir.

PVFOH: Look, we've got our work cut out making sure Winston stays out of the country opening craft shows in Bora Bora and whatnot without having to worry whether Mickey's stuff is getting out there before someone else reads and edits it. At this rate the town will be sobbing into their hankies in sympathy with that ex-council staffer he's been busy slagging off. I mean for heaven's sake, when the woman signed on with Mickey what did she think she was in for?! A supportive working environment, being treated with respect and being spoken to, and about, in a reasonable manner?! This is Mickey, for chrissakes!

QE: Errrr... righto Sir I'll get straight onto it.

PVFOH: No more bloody columns, right? And have a word to that Bryan woman, will you? Has she forgotten the agenda?

QE: You mean the Hidden Agenda, Sir? The one where you get complete idiots put in charge of important assets and let them run them into the ground, then step in and take them over for next-to-nothing? Thank goodness that doesn't apply to the Chronicle!

PVFOH (sighs): Yes, Maslin, that one. The one we've been through several times already. Are you sure you wouldn't prefer a job editing the Coromandel Semi-Weekly Depending On If We Can Be Bothered? It's a great little paper, and the weather's much better...

QE: Oh no Sir, I have an important job to do here.

PVFOH (sighing even more deeply): Thank goodness we still have the River City Press. Now there's a newspaper which knows how to stick to the agenda.

*click*

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Just click your heels together and say "patsy"

Dorothy Dixer: name given to a simple question asked of a minister by a backbencher from their own party. Often the question has been written by the minister or their staff, rather than by the questioner. Such a question is often referred to as a "Dorothy Dixer" and is used to give the minister a chance to promote themselves or the work that the government is doing in their area, or to criticise the opposition party's policies, or to raise the profile of the backbench member asking the question (named for Dorothy Dix, an advice columnist suspected of often writing the questions she then answered).

Alan "Dorothy" Taylor did sterling work asking the first patsy question of Mickey in today's e-coli e-column. Taylor's status as a paid-up diVisionary and member of the Community Board was not, of course, revealed.

Just as his connections to Vision weren't revealed when the Chron published his letter, headed "Chilling" on May 17, asking precisely the same question about forestry investments. Obviously he wasn't happy with Rob Vinsen's response three days later which asked whether Taylor himself did not in fact know about falling forestry returns. But Dorothy is in the business of asking questions, not answering them. We'd be interested, for instance, in answers to questions such as who provided the loan he admitted had funded his campaign expenses, despite his self-described success as a farmer? How much was it? When is it due for repayment? Will it, in fact, ever be repaid? Or is it being repaid in kind in some way?

Then on May 23 Alan Taylor of Westmere (could they be related? - Ed) and his wife Bronwen pen a lovely letter thanking the organisers of the Mayoral Mile (who could they mean? - Ed), as they have just returned from a very enjoyable weekend in Sydney that they won there.

Obviously, to perpetrate such a transparent deception upon his readers for his own self-aggrandisement isn't in Michael Laws's nature. No, in keeping with tradition, if he merely wanted to make himself look good he'd have done away with truth altogether and simply invented an entirely fictitious person (a la Antoinette Beck and many other correspondents to the Chron who, upon investigation, appear in neither the electoral roll nor the phone book), with which to launch the e-coli upon the brown waters of the Chron's editorial page.

That can only mean one thing: when it became known that his weekly wafflings were to grace that fearlessly independent though somewhat withered organ of Mr Maslin's, the diVisionaries' hands shot skyward and cries of "pick me, pick me!" echoed round the secret "caucus" meeting.

Those readers who've ever had their offspring come home with an excruciatingly badly drawn picture looking like week-old roadkill, lovingly crafted by a somewhat simple child who clearly has about as much aptitude with a crayon as Dotty has with a dictionary, will sympathise with Mickey as he metaphorically pins the diVision children's embarrassing efforts to his very public refrigerator door.

So, dear readers, we'd like to enlist your help. We're making up not one but two lists of questions for Michael Laws to use in future columns.

List One: Questions he can expect to receive in future from adoring members of diVision.
List Two: Questions you've always wanted to ask, but just couldn't be bothered because... well, basically because you knew the answer would just be a plate full of distortion, obfuscation and deception, sprinkled with a dusting of vitriolic abuse.

We've come up with a few from the first list to help you out:

Likely future questions from diVisionaries

Don McGregor: Look here, old chap. Much as I completely admire and respect everything you do, Michael, I really must have a straight answer. This question is simply too crucial to be dealt with by your usual tactics of avoidance, attacking the questioner, randomly abusing the nearest staffer, and so on. In fact it's a question that I am quite certain is on the lips of every resident; a question that they have long wanted an answer on, not just from this administration but for many many years. A question that is critical to the very essence of democracy in Wanganui. And that question is: when the hell is the Mayor going to put me forward for the Queens Birthday honours list?

Muzza Hughes: There's nothing that can't be made better with discount whiteware, just remember that, Michael. I don't really have a question, since you said after that last Councillor Comment I wrote, that if I ever wrote anything again you'd take my pen and shove it... oh, my wife made me rub out that bit. Which is bloody hard. I keep telling her, crayons just smudge, they don't rub out.

Rangi Wills: Michael, I really hope you can help me out here. There's a rumour going round I might be Maori. Surely that isn't true?

Sue Pepperell: Hi Michael. Look, here's a picture of me and Sam in front of Te Papa. Ooo look, that's us going into the Michael Fowler Centre. And this is us outside Parliament. This is the lovely new home we have in Wellington. Here's my new office. And this is Sam's new office in Police HQ. Hopefully I'll see you in a month or so, if I can find time to pop up for the full Council meeting. Thanks for understanding why I can't make it any other time. So anyway, my question is: Why do the people of Wanganui doubt my commitment?

Nicki Higgie: Hello Michael. Ummm... just wondering if you remember me, actually? Small, blond woman? Very quiet? Bit dim? Hello...?

Dot McKinnon: Look, Michael. We had a deal. Sure, I was prepared to let you have your fun. You know I don't give a damn what you do with art galleries and museums and things because as long as the library is open so I can borrow the latest Jackie Collins, I'm quite happy with that and watching "Dancing with the Stars"... oops, sorry, I forgot, I won't mention it again... but anyway, the deal didn't say anything about leaving Wanganui with millions of dollars of debt, with an infrastructure wrecked almost beyond repair. It's not going to do much for my chances of taking over, is it? It's nothing short of an absolute betrayal of me personally and Wanganui as a whole. It's unprincipled, dishonest and dangerous. So my question is... oh wait... just give me a minute and I'll think of one... it was right on the tip of my tongue... oh never mind, just don't forget to tell me what you want me to do this week, and I'll follow it to the letter, as always.

Over to you, Watchers...

Don't forget to scroll down to the next post - the "Mickey for Manukau" poll is still open for votes!!