Gamekeeper turned poacher

Stuff reports:

Kim Dotcom’s new Internet Party will have a couple of New Plymouth connections.

Veteran journalist and journalism tutor Jim Tucker has taken up the role of media adviser and would be writing the new party’s housing and education policies. He had already finished the environment policy.

Tucker is a very respected journalism tutor. He’s taught many of today’s journalists.

At the moment the party was polling at 2.6 per cent, he said.

So here’s my question to any of those journalists who were trained by Jim Tucker. Considering that the Internet Party hasn’t registered above 0.1% in any published poll, should a Jim Tucker trained journalist just report such an assertion without challenge, knowing that gullible members of the public may read it and assume it to be true?

Or would a Jim Tucker trained journalist ask the person making the claim to substantiate it?

Also would a Jim Tucker trained journalist upon being told they are supporting the party because Dotcom was a visionary, ask the subject of the interview how much they are being paid to take up the role of media advisor?