Jim Mora’s snide distortion of Sue Bradford’s comments (Sept. 6, 2014)

Jim Mora’s snide distortion of Sue Bradford’s comments: The Panel is as partisan, as dishonest, as anything on NewstalkZB
Radio NZ National, Friday 5 September 2014
Jim Mora, Nevil Gibson, Denise L’Estrange-Corbet

Following Wednesday’s astonishing outbreak of independent thinking and forthright speaking by Dita Di Boni, Radio NZ’s light chat show The Panel is now firmly back on message. Yesterday (Thursday) the guests were the shallow ex-talkback host Barry Corbett and the equally shallow, pretentious newspaper columnist Joe Bennett. Corbett didn’t say anything particularly idiotic yesterday; he left it all to Bennett.

And Bennett excelled himself. At one point early in the programme, host Jim Mora asked him if he was interested in politics. Bennett paused, then intoned with Olympian disdain: “Uuuuummmmmm, n-n-n-n-nnot really.” Unfortunately, as with similarly ill informed media opinionizers (Mike Hosking, Larry “Lackwit” Williams, Kerre Woodham) this lack of interest and lack of knowledge has not stopped Bennett from broadcasting his opinions. Hilariously, he delivered the following bizarre pronouncement on the bumbling, stumbling, thuggish ACT leader Jamie “I might be ignorant” Whyte: “I’ve read a couple of his books, and he’s a VERY lucid thinker.”

Apart from the risible guests, yesterday’s show was more sinister than normal; the obligatory scoffing at and dismissal of Nicky Hager’s revelations has now become a witch hunt for “Rawshark”, the person responsible for the leaks of Blubberguts’s rancid, highly embarrassing and incriminating email correspondence. Mora seems to take seriously everything that Blubberguts says on his poisonous site, and has now taken to routinely referring to the “stolen” emails that Hager was sent. According to Mora, there is a possibility that the Facebook correspondence could all have been made up. Well, that’s what Blubberguts says, so there MUST be something to it.

Today (Friday) the National Party-friendly tone of the programme continued. Mora delivered one of the most sickeningly insincere little homilies since Barack Obama’s windy rhetoric at Mandela’s funeral. Observing that people in Ashburton have been praising the women who died violently in Ashburton. “Ah, this is the other side of what Sue Bradford said earlier in the week, ISN’T it!” he chirped.

Of course, Sue Bradford did not condemn the women who died. She condemned the vicious government measures that those women and other WINZ staff all over the country are instructed to implement. It takes a particularly stupid person or one who is deliberately engaging in politically motivated mischief to misconstrue her words like Mora did.

Today (Friday) the guests were, if possible, even more dismal than yesterday’s. One was a former Marxist fanatic turned hard right fanatic, the other one was a particularly glib, nasty and shallow fashion designer. I can’t bear the thought of sitting down and transcribing more than a brief taster of what they said. But the following rants, inspired by Mora’s quoting of a Child Poverty Action Group report, are typical….

DENISE L’ESTRANGE-CORBET: It’s like the TV programme Benefit Street. People who are on the dole, who spend their days SMOKING and DRINKING and GAMBLING and they keep on having CHILDREN. … Maybe someone needs to go in and see where the money is going. We just can’t keep on handing out MONEY! …[continues spluttering indignantly about the poor]

NEVIL GIBSON: This poll was carried out by the Child Poverty Action Group, so I’m a bit suspicious of it.

DENISE L’ESTRANGE-CORBET: It comes down to education. Don’t smoke it, don’t drink it, don’t buy Lotto tickets. I don’t believe there IS a shortage of jobs in New Zealand….[et cetera, ad nauseam…]

———————————————–

I sent the following email to the host….

Why did you misrepresent Sue Bradford’s words?

Dear Jim,

You completely misrepresented what Sue Bradford said about the Ashburton shootings. She pointed out, quite correctly, that the staff at WINZ have to carry out government policies which are often cruel and vindictive.

Why did you infer that she was criticizing the frontline WINZ staff when in fact she was criticizing government policies?

Yours sincerely,

Morrissey Breen
Northcote Point

• CnrJoe5.1

  6 September 2014 at 8:12 am

  You go you good thing. I’m having to maintain my panel appointment listening because for every Bishop or Womble (Denise LSC ) theres a Findlay or de Boni.
  But yeah, when the stoopid comes out ( DLSC – ‘ the .com should go back to America and fight for his inno…) uuurgh.
  • phillip ure5.1.1

    6 September 2014 at 8:36 am

    i think l’estrange etc wd have to be the ..(how to word this..?..)…the most unlearned of all the panelists..(and that’s saying something..she has some serious competition..)

    ..and that bishop on with her is like a superstorm of ignorance/prejudices..

    ..and yep..!..mora totally twisted/distorted bradfords’ words/message..

    ..and interesting how none in the mainstream media seem to have anything to say about all the copycat threats..up and down the country..

    ..nothing to see there..eh..?

    ..symptomatic of not very much..?..

    ..and not just confirming what bradford actually said..?
  • North5.1.2

    6 September 2014 at 1:46 pm

    Denise L’Estrange-Corbett…….demonstrably not a contender in matters cerebral.
• Dialey5.2

  6 September 2014 at 8:25 am

  I was shouting at the radio yesterday listening to Denise,”the strange” – why doesn’t she just come out and say what she really means, namely that beneficiaries don’t deserve to live. FFS they have few enough pleasures and she wants to deprive them of their smokes and sex as well! What planet do the privileged elite live on?
  • phillip ure5.2.1

    6 September 2014 at 8:40 am

    ‘denise’ ..as shown by her own words..has that potent mix of ignorance and arrogance going on..

    ..and all the self-awareness of that flawed-realty she unloads onto listeners…of a rock..

    ..she just keeps on braying them out…
• Tom Jackson5.3

  6 September 2014 at 8:31 am

  As if these useless talking donkeys care what we think.
  • CnrJoe5.3.1

    6 September 2014 at 9:01 am

    Quite
• Te Reo Putake5.4

  6 September 2014 at 9:38 am

  Nice work, Moz. The weirdest thing for me was Denise LC talking of being bought up on welfare by a single parent, but apparently learning nothing from the experience. Unintentionally, it was her own mum she was lumping in with the smoking, drinking, gambling, shagging, welfare dependent lifestyle.
  • CnrJoe5.4.1

    6 September 2014 at 10:10 am

    heh
• Marksman335.5

  6 September 2014 at 10:13 am

  Good on you Morrissey, I also was appalled at the depths yesterdays panel had plummeted,( although my email was alot more abusive than yours to Dim). In fact it ruined my Friday night. I have had a fucking gutfull of Dim and his holier than thou Fascists that he parades out every day. For Denise L/C to opine that she didn’t believe there was any unemployment in this country is one step too far even for a whiney voiced halfwit as her, she even had the audacity to get a Free plug in for her 25 years celebration food and fashion show at the Langham, all of next month, (only $89 ).
  This has got to stop RNZ, this is my tax money too. I stopped watching TV news years ago, I stopped buying the Herald and my local rightwing rag months ago, so my only source of current affairs is RNZ who I once loved and The Standard ( who I still love  Now I just want to smash my radio every day.
  Thank God for The Standard, may you live forever.
• Macro5.6

  6 September 2014 at 11:59 am

  I never listen to “the panel” anymore it is perhaps the most sickening piece of radio on RNZ. Mora is just too biased and has little comprehension of the issues.
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https://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-06092014/#comment-881331