Like most schools, Dunmurry Primary had its resident bully. Nelson was an ugly fat boy. These days you would say that Nelson was an unhappy kid with body image issues who needed counselling. But in those days it was OK to say that Nelson was an ugly fat boy. Nelson threw his weight around – literally. He would jump on your back, then punch your lights out when you were on the ground. No one ever fought back and unless one of the teachers was around, no one ever came to the victim’s rescue. Nelson could have starred in a 50’s Western as the really bad dude who terrorises the town. Where was The Lone Ranger when you needed him?

 I was a favourite target for Nelson whose bully radar may have detected a nervous kid with pacifist tendencies. You never saw him coming. Nelson didn’t bother with foreplay. There were no threats or intimidation to warm things up. You suddenly found yourself spread-eagled beneath a mountain of pummelling lard.

 I put up with this for several months. Then, one day, something snapped. Nelson had just had his fill of beating the crap out of me and was wandering off in search of another victim when he got a sudden surprise. The wimp Edwards had appeared from nowhere and was riding on his back, his skinny arms round Nelson’s throat, kicking the living daylights out of the back of Nelson’s knees. A small crowd had gathered.

 ‘Fight! Fight! Fight!’    

 Nelson’s reputation was at stake. He had to deal with this pathetic upstart. I was on the ground again within seconds. Nelson’s right foot was advancing towards my groin. I grabbed it and heaved. Suddenly it was Nelson who was on the ground and I was up. The crowd had grown.

 ‘Fight! Fight! Fight! Nelson! Nelson! Nelson!’

 Some foolhardy kid called out, ‘Give it to him, Brian, give it to him!’

 I gave it to him. My pugilistic technique could best be described as frenzy fuelled by blind panic. I kicked, I punched, I flailed.

 ‘Fight! Fight! Fight! Nelson! Nelson! Nelson! Brian! Brian! Brian!’

 We were both on our feet now. Nelson had a bleeding lip and murder in his eyes.

 ‘You fucking little sh..’

 I would love to say I planned it, but I didn’t. It was sheer good luck that the toe of my now scuffed Anderson and McAuley right shoe connected with Nelson’s scrotum.

 ‘Oof!’

 Nelson was on the ground again, screaming in agony.

 ‘Brian, Brian, Brian!’

 Time to deliver the coup de grace. Well, it would have been if Cheeser hadn’t arrived on the scene.

 ‘What the hell is going on here? What is Nelson doing on the ground? You’re bleeding, boy? Were you fighting? Did someone hit you?’

 ‘No sir,’ said Nelson, surreptitiously clutching his genitals. ‘I just tripped.’ It was the noblest act of his young life.

 I was never bullied by Nelson again, and nor was anyone else.  The Lone Ranger had come to town.

***

I suppose the moral of the story is that what you can’t afford to do is let the bully get away with it. Passive resistance doesn’t work with bullies. Someone has to take on the role of The Lone Ranger ‘pour encourager les autres’. So even though it turned out that the kid who was filmed punching Casey Heynes in the face had been a victim of bullying himself, I think Casey did the right thing.

 And a footnote to this story. I want to send a huge bouquet of flowers to Campbell Live which has not only featured several thought-provoking items on the subject of bullying, but last Thursday devoted an entire programme to a fascinating panel discussion on the topic. That’s rare in the 7pm slot, where the programmers live in terror of boring viewers with anything longer than 6 or 7 minutes. Well done, Campbell Live. Take a bow, John. 

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For my part, I believe that my critique of his performance on this occasion was justified, but the manner in which it was expressed may not have been. Like John himself, I was angry.

This matter should now, I believe, be put to rest. Accordingly Judy and I have closed off comments on the original post. Lessons have been learned on both sides.

I have no brief for Mr Ring or his theories, but after watching your treatment of him tonight, I have considerably more respect for him as the reasonable exponent of an admittedly controversial point of view than I have for you as an interviewer.

What mattered to you in this exchange was not what he had to say, but what you had to say. And since he thought the process was meant to involve his being critically questioned on statements he had made and being given reasonable opportunity to reply, he had every right to complain when you preferred to deny him that opportunity by shouting him down. It was, quite simply, appalling.

My advice to Mr Ring would be to immediately complain to Mark Jennings, the Head of News and Current Affairs at TV3 about your mistreatment on the programme tonight, and the breach of Broadcasting Standards of fairness and balance which it contained. And, when your complaint is almost certainly rejected, to take the matter to the Broadcasting Standards Authority for their deliberation and judgement.

The microphone is a potent tool in the bullying interviewer’s hand, especially when the interview is not face-to-face and the interviewee is isolated in a remote studio location. Fortunately most interviewers do not abuse that situation. Tonight we saw what has overall been excellent television coverage of the Christchurch earthquake on both TVNZ and TV3 marred by a descent to broadcasting at the level of Jerry Springer. I have seldom been so angry.

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Close Up – Undoubtedly a major coup, though I suspect that Hotchin, or an agent on his behalf, approached the programme. However, the  production team blotted its copy book badly by totally abandoning editorial balance and showing clips damaging to Hotchin -  largely newspaper headlines – while Hotchin was speaking. An appalling lapse in editorial judgement.

Hotchin – Plausible and persuasive. I thought he was very good. His appearance has been and will be dismissed as a PR exercise and there may well be an element of truth in that. But the risks inherent in taking part in a live and predictably aggressive television interview were considerable. And, in the end, all the PR in the world will not assist the lying or dishonest television interviewee. The audience will see through him.     

Sainsbury – Handled the interview well. Asked the questions that viewers, and some at least of those who lost money in Hanover, would have wanted asked. Somewhat repetitive and it really would be good if Mark could put his questions in a less excitable way. But overall a good performance.

Campbell Live – Ended its show last night with an undignified piece of sour grapes in which John bewailed the fact that Hotchin was appearing on his competitor’s programme and re-ran old Campbell Live clips which served merely to explain why Hotchin had gone to Close Up.  John is the superior broadcaster of the two, but would he have done this particular interview better? I doubt it.

The Viewers – Will many have changed their view of Hotchin after watching the interview? Probably not.

Photo: TV3

NZ Listener

I really shouldn’t have brought my laptop to Vietnam. We intended  to do the occasional blog on our travels and leave it at that. But the temptation to check out what was happening in Godzone – there’s not much in the Hoi An Times - was too hard to resist, so I took a peep this morning at the Kiwi Sunday rags. Had the government changed? Had Herne Bay been declared a disaster zone in our absence? Had Phil Goff rocketed in the polls? Had Bainimarama invited Helen Clark to act as mediator in the NZ-Fiji standoff? Had Lockwood Smith introduced smacking for naughty MPs? You know – the really big stuff.

No, nothing much had changed since we left two weeks ago. According to the Herald on Sunday, the really big news was that John Campbell might be sacked.

I like and admire John. He’s a talented broadcaster and a really nice person. That’s the problem really, I can’t be in the same room with John because I’m a diabetic. My sugar levels go off the scale.

Anyway, apparently the chances that John will be sacked are pretty small. The new boss of TV3, Ian Audsley,  said he could give a “95% guarantee” that the show would survive another year. The reason? Well, apparently the poorish ratings for the show had greatly improved in the last couple of weeks,  “on a diet of bare breasts and big American cars” according to the Herald on Sunday. No surprises there then. Naked mud wrestling can only be round the corner.

What I found interesting was that, in the same report, the newspaper referred to Campbell Live as “the current affairs show”. This is rather like referring to baked beans as “cordon bleu cuisine”. Only “show” is appropriate in describing either Campbell Live or Close Up.

 But wait, there was more.

“Claws Out at Radio New Zealand” the headline screamed. Wow, I never knew the claws had been in. At a management level, RNZ has been a dysfunctional organisation for years.

But this really was the big stuff. An email exchange between Noelle McCarthy and Janet Wilson (both, to my personal knowledge, kindly and retiring ladies) in which they dissected the character of former Afternoons producer, Meredith McGrath, had been leaked to the media.

And, oh dear, in totally uncharacteristic fashion, they had said hurtful and unkind things.

According to Ms Wilson, Ms McGrath’s departure to take up a new job as a publicist for book publisher Hachette was “the best birthday present a girl could hope for. You saw her off, girlfriend.” Ms Wilson was later scathing about Hachette whom  she described as “cheap and cheerful publishers of this parish”. She now has a new job herself as media advisor to a cheap and cheerful candidate for the super mayoralty.

Ms McCarthy, whose success is due largely to having a lilting Irish brogue – Rob Muldoon once said the same thing about me – thought Ms Wilson had not gone far enough. Ms Meredith’s next stop, she opined, should be hell, ‘shovelling cinders with Satan’s minions.” I mistakenly took this to mean that Ms McGrath had gone to work for the Radio Network. But that would have been too kind.

I’m reluctant to take sides in this dispute, other than to say that as a regular contributor to Jim Mora’s Afternoons programme, I know Meredith McGrath fairly well. I never found her anything less than professional and absolutely charming.  I’ve also met Noelle McCarthy, who has a lilting Irish brogue. RNZ says it is standing behind her, as it did when she was revealed as having engaged in some ***minor plagiarism a couple of years ago.

So that was the big news from Godzone. I kinda miss it.

[ *** "minor" as defined by the university of Auckland, that is, not actually copying someone else's work in its entirety.]