Photo: Stuff.co.nz

The most charitable interpretation of Protocols and Requirements Between Spiritual  Father & His Spiritual Sons, Brian Tamaki’s latest encyclical to his followers in Destiny Church, would be that he is insane. Certainly there are a number of manias that would seem to describe his mental state, egomania and megalomania being the most obvious. To those one might add the delusion of being God’s chosen emissary in Aotearoa and an incipient, if not yet full-blown messianic complex which seems to be leading Mr Tamaki to the inevitable conclusion that he is not merely an emissary of the divine, but divine himself.

The interpretation is ‘charitable’  because the insane cannot be held responsible for their beliefs or actions.

 The less charitable interpretation would be that Mr Tamaki is a charlatan, in the tradition of many such religious charlatans, particularly in the United States. His opulent  lifestyle, when compared to the relative poverty of most of his followers,  provides the most compelling argument in favour of this explanation. Read the rest of this entry »

Kev Writes

Photo: TVNZ

Feel free to stick my photo up on your site any time, Brian. Fair Go doesn’t ask permission to stick other people’s photos up on the wall and nor should you.

I think companies that deal with the public have a responsibility to front up to the public when things go wrong. That includes fronting up on television. It’s not good enough to just say, “we’ll fix it…but we refuse to talk on the telly about what happened, who was responsible, or if it’s likely to happen again.”

The Fair Go Wall is about companies not fronting up on camera when we think there are still questions to be answered. It’s not about whether they’ve decided to fix the problem or not.

Now there’s the Wall, these people know they’ll be “appearing” if they front up or not.

As for Mr Callander. He had every opportunity to front up to the camera originally but didn’t. Good on him for fronting up in the end, though.

I Reply with a Challenge

Good morning, old friend. And thanks for replying to my post. Unfortunately, that isn’t good enough. As a public figure, I don’t think just providing a written response to my complaint will do. I require you to come to my premises, so that I can cross-examine you further on this infringement. If you fail to do so, I will put a large photograph of you in the window of my offices with the inscription: Kev Milne – Wanted for Questioning! I will refuse to take it down until you yield, Further, when you get here, I will take measures to loosen your tongue, by forcing you to drink large quantities of fine wine. So there!

Read the rest of this entry »

Photo: TVNZ

On a reasonably regular basis, companies who are the subject of a complaint to Fair Go come to us for advice or training. If we think they’re ratbags, hoping to enlist our help in ripping people off, we send them packing. Otherwise our advice is the same advice we give to all our clients: be straightforward, tell the truth, admit your mistakes. And: Sort it out. Fix it. 

Recently I gave a brickbat to Fair Go for an item it did on a company called My Refund. The company undertakes for a fee to apply on your behalf to the IRD for a refund, if it discovers you are entitled to one. Two of My Refund’s clients were kept waiting an unreasonable amount of time for their refund to be sent to them. A third not only didn’t get a refund, but discovered that she now had to pay the IRD almost $1,000. She would have been better to let sleeping dogs lie. Read the rest of this entry »

Photo: Radio New Zealand

Sometime after my unceremonious sacking by Sharon Crosby as host of Top of the Morning, I was interviewed on Morning Report by Sean Plunket. I was surprised by the vehemence of Plunket’s questioning. His theme was that there had been a clear conflict of interest between my role as media advisor to the Prime Minister and my role as host of the Saturday morning programme. Had Top of the Morning been a political or current affairs show, he would have been quite right. But it wasn’t. It was a magazine show, devoid of any political content. Of the 750-odd interviews I did on the programme, only three were with politicians and in every case dealt with the guest’s life and times, not with their political views. Interestingly enough, I interviewed Jenny Shipley on the programme, but never Helen Clark. Read the rest of this entry »

A lot of time and angst can go into choosing what to wear for a television appearance.  Our basic advice is simple: your clothes should be appropriate for the occasion and the programme.  A three-piece suit will look plain silly on Country Calendar; shorts and gumboots won’t do you any favours on Close Up or Campbell Live.

The trend these days is for informality. Even John Campbell has given up wearing ties much of the time.  A suit or jacket with an open-neck shirt looks fine in most settings, unless you want to be very formal. On many programmes you can abandon the jacket.  Take a look at what your host is wearing. Read the rest of this entry »

In a recent post Judy praised Metiria Turei’s performance on last Sunday’s Q & A and had this to say about interviewer Guyon Espiner:

‘The wee fox terrier of politics produced the most appalling exhibition of interruptive interviewing in years.

‘The joy was that his guest, Metiria Turei, had him on toast. She handled the endless, non-stop, verbal diarrhea of interruptions with humour, grace and steely determination. In terms of handling interruptive interviewers, this is a master class.

‘Respect, Metiria,’

New Zealand Herald media commentator John Drinnan strongly disagreed. In his column in Friday’s Business Herald he wrote:

‘Last week this column noted Paul Henry’s solid performance on Breakfast interviewing Civil Defence spokesman Colin Feslier over preparations for a potential tsunami. And on Sunday TVNZ political editor Guyon Espiner showed a new edge interviewing Green Party leader Metiria Turei. Read the rest of this entry »

Warning! This post contains frequent and explicit use of the F-word. If you are offended by seeing this word in print, either by itself or in combination with other words, you would be best not to read on. Otherwise:   Read the rest of this entry »

OK, there are interviewers, there are interruptive interviewers and there is Guyon Espiner. This morning on Q+A  the wee fox terrier of politics produced the most appalling exhibition of interruptive interviewing in years .

 The joy was that his guest, Metiria Turei, had him on toast.  She handled the endless, non-stop, verbal diarrhoea of interruptions with humour, grace and steely determination.  She waited him out, and she finished what she was going to say. In terms of handling interruptive interviewers, this is a master class!

 Respec’, Metiria!

Let’s assume that you’re the Chief Executive of The Big Blue Bus Company in a major metropolitan centre. You’ve been in negotiation with the union over a proposed new workplace contract. The negotiations have stalled. You’re offering a 2% wage increase and the union is demanding 5.7%. A driver work-to-rule has been in operation for two weeks, causing huge inconvenience to the public, and the union is threatening a full-scale strike. There’s talk of drivers in other centres coming out in sympathy.  You believe that the rank and file members of the union want to see an end to the disruption and would accept considerably less that the 5.7% increase. Every newspaper, radio and TV station wants to talk to you. 

But who do you want to talk to and what do you want to say? Read the rest of this entry »

It had been a long day at the studio and I couldn’t face the stove, so we popped into a restaurant on the way home. Brian and I were deep in conversation, half way through a sentence, in fact, when a voice chirped: ‘Hi! How’s your week been so far?’ 

A perky young waitress waited, clearly expecting an answer, perhaps even a happy little conversation. We forced a smile, mumbled something neutral and buried our heads in the menus.

It’s all part of a new and supremely irritating form of exchange where people you’ve never met in your life ask you personal questions, and apparently it’s not acceptable to tell them to mind their own business. Read the rest of this entry »