Henry and Laws

The HoS looks at all the complaints against Paul Henry and Michael Laws:

They’re among our most controversial presenters, but Paul Henry and Michael Laws remain unrepentant about their on-air behaviour.

I suspect they actually get paid bonuses for every complaint they attract 🙂

Laws said the decision was an example of the authority stifling freedom of speech. He said defamation laws offered safeguard enough and the authority was wrong to apply news reporting standards to talkback.

“The BSA should be disbanded. There is no need for it.

“My job’s not to offer balance, it’s to offer strong opinion. I never, ever go too far. I’m not a namby-pamby left-wing liberal commie journalist.”

As a commenter said, there are some days you can really like Michael 🙂

Henry has triggered a catalogue of complaints since the start of 2008.

They include accusations of bias in an interview with John Key, describing people with obsessive compulsive disorder as “crazy freaks” and a suggestion that obese children be taken away from their parents and put in car compactors.

None were upheld.

The suggestion that obese children be put in car compactors is so Henry.

Pippa Wetzell was responsible for the only complaint against Breakfast upheld by the authority for an interview this year with Garth McVicar of the Sensible Sentencing Trust found to have breached the standard of balance.

Now that is funny. Henry gets a dozen complaints – none of which is upheld, while poor Pippa actually gets her complaint upheld.

Henry didn’t know why complaints against him were on the up but said it didn’t bother him. “I think it’s an indication that I say what I think and in television that is not overly common.” He thought there were “a lot of people that don’t have much of a sense of humour” and “a large number of people who have nothing better to do than complain”.

A lot of complaints come from the same people. I reckon they should look at limiting the number of complaints one individual can make!