Ralston on Veitch

There are around 20 stories and columns on Veitch today, and frankly it is getting overkill. I’m not even going to attempt to summarise them, except I do want to quote from Ralston a bit:

A hosed-off One News reporter covering the story appeared in a “live cross” in the 6pm bulletin, denouncing Flannery for failing to respond to her questions and dismissing Rick Ellis’ short press statement on the affair as “bland”. In a wonderfully timed act of rebellion the newsroom then served its TVNZ masters with an Official Information Act request for details of the company’s involvement in the matter and comment from Flannery and Ellis.

This was Lisa Owen and if there is a journalism award for sheer guts, she should get it.  Filing an OIA on your own employer and dissing your own Head of News and Current Affairs plus the CEO is just priceless. In one sense Owen is just treating TVNZ no different to any other organisation – as she should – but still there were ways in which she could be more subtle and she chose not to.

The story has got murkier today. We now know that now only did TVNZ and Radio Sport know for over a year, so have the Police. And also the $170,000 or so wasn’t negotiated at the time but asked for some months later.