Entirely reasonable. Close Up evidently thought the Brooke item of such interest and merit that they extended it to a length which it really couldn’t bear.

Difficult to be a media consultant and commentator without watching the programmes that most Kiwis watch. Unlike you, I have no trouble finding things to interest me on the 50 or more channels I can access on Sky.

The difference is that the Herald is the only metropolitan daily in Auckland. It has no competition. So that argument seems to me to fail. There are certainly tabloid elements in the paper, as I’ve claimed, and its Monday layout suggests that strongly. The interesting thing is that the Herald on Sunday is not only tabloid in format but tabloid in content and very little different in that regard from the Sunday News. Reason? Sunday is the one day the Herald has competition. I’ve said elsewhere that, despite its flaws, the Herald is probably our best paper. Certainly no other metropolitan devotes so much space to significant issues or runs investigative campaigns, such as the leaky house campaign, which have a significant impact in bringing about social and legislative change. The P campaign is another good example and there are many others.

Your third para might have some validity if I were a rugby fan. I can’t stand the game and my opinion of the intellectual and moral standards of most All Blacks is best not put in print. My view of Brooke’s performance on Close Up has nothing to do with our media training or crisis management activities. I’d agree that he should have ‘fessed up and apologised right away. Someone gave him very bad advice. But I believed him because that is what my instinct, intuition and perception told me.

Finally Brooke behaved appallingly in Fiji. He was pissed. Not, as my wife would say, an excuse for his behaviour, but certainly a likely explanation for his loss of memory. That’s why I say this is a booze issue. Thousands of Kiwi men and women wake up every morning with no memory of what happened the night before. We live in a booze-sodden culture.

But I understand one thing: a faded All Black’s sexual misdemeanours — and thuggish aggression — takes precedence over any other issue, on any TV current affairs programme, on any day of the week.

I can appreciate your interest (being in the business of “damage control”), but your positive take on Brooke’s mea culpa bears testimony to the fact — that, when it comes to an All Black (past and present), we should be ready to “forgive and forget”. And then we wonder why our judges hand out Suppression Orders, like confetti.

“What happened in Fiji”, says more about how we are as a nation — so enamoured with the All Blacks — and less about our binge-drinking culture. All very good in re-seating fallen ABs on their pedestals, should they topple off. But, do we need to hand them silk cushions to sit on, as well? Brooke wasn’t as nearly as inebriated as he made himself out to be. He demonstrated sufficient presence of mind to do what he did — to the girl and to the boy who came to her defense. He wasn’t in a horizontal position, choking on his vomit (that was reserved for last night’s “bravura” performance). Sainsbury lacked the necessary verve and incisiveness, when “tackling” Brooke. He reverted to type — being the avuncular, jolly Santa Claus incarnate, he is renown for. Mercifully, we were spared the “Ho-ho-ho”.

As for Brooke; well we all do bloody stupid things in our lives. Is public humiliation before an audience that 200 years ago would have been slavering in fron of the guillotine, really necessary? The human race does not advance very much, in spite of our veneer of so called civilisation.

Oh really? Brian might have some more direct insight into this than me, but I can’t imagine Helen Clark was ever fond of having her time wasted (or would blow off anyone else without a much better reason than “Oh, I got a better offer”).

I’d have bumped another story and run both. And if Brooke’s PR flacks had cut up rough, I’d have not at all politely told them to eff off and try their luck with Campbell Live.

Or is it also part of the new reality that TVNZ’s “news priorities” are ultimately determined by spin doctors? If so, TVNZ should at least be honest about it.

The first is a typo, the second extraordinary. See my reply to Bill Forster.