Alan Seay and Willem de Lange ride roughshod over Kathryn Ryan (Oct. 23, 2013)

24 October 2013 at 11:07 am

Alan Seay and Willem de Lange ride roughshod over Kathryn Ryan
These radio “interviews” were as hopeless as it gets
National Radio, Wednesday 23 October 2013

Aficionados of crap television may recall a risible late Sunday night Prime TV special from 2008, a totally bogus “debate” about Global Warming. Two meek and exceedingly diffident scientists were on one side, i.e. the side of science, and were “opposed” by a rogue earth-scientist from Waikato University called Willem de Lange and believe it or not…. (you might want to sit down)…. NewstalkZB’s house clown, mad conspiracy theorist and science denierLeighton Smith, the closest thing this country has to Glenn Beck. The “chairman” of this travesty was Eric Young, a sports announcer.

Leighton Smith dominated the show. He did perhaps 70 per cent of the talking—or more precisely, shouting, scoffing and snarling—and continually interrupted whenever one of the two scientists tried to speak. They were obviously unprepared for anything like this; indeed, why should they have had to expect they would be confronted with anyone so deranged? Occasionally Smith’s “team mate” Willem de Lange started to speak, but Smith would almost always cut him off in order to resume ranting at the two shell-shocked scientists. Eric Young, who, remember, was supposed to be the “chairman”, looked baffled and unhappy throughout; possibly he was cursing whatever genius of a producer had landed him this gig.

It was a real low-point in New Zealand television history, right down there with Paul Holmes’s instruction to viewers to “prepare to go ballistic” at Māori [1], Helen Clark’s hopelessly inept hatchet man Brian Edwards going after Lynley Hood [2], and Andy Haden’s malignant “three darkies” allegation on Murray Deaker’s horror show. [3]

Of course, most of those involved on this late Sunday night black comedy deserved condemnation: the producers for even thinking of having Leighton Smith on to talk about something he knew nothing about; the two scientists for being so naïve as to expect Prime TV to have organized something serious; Willem de Lange for not only being a rogue scientist, but for letting himself be upstaged by a complete ignoramus; and of course Eric Young for his Joubertian failure to control a willful and cynical saboteur. Only Leighton Smith is beyond criticism; to chide him for hijacking a TV show and behaving like a halfwit would be like scolding an enraged elephant for going loco. It’s simply what he does.

So anyone who remembered that show will have been interested to learn yesterday that Kathryn Ryan’s producer had lined up Willem de Lange, the scientist who let Leighton Smith do all the talking, to comment on the Greenpeace oil spill report.[4] Before de Lange’s comments on the report, they brought on another “expert”, one Alan Seay, who is none other than the corporate affairs manager for the Texas oil giant Anadarko. Seay’s comments were possibly even more insulting and scurrilous than John Key’s were later in the day. Although de Lange was milder in tone, his mission was obviously to undermine the credibility of Greenpeace; sadly for him, he was about as authoritative and convincing as he was when he acted as understudy to Loopy Leighton five years before.

And that was that. There was no contradiction, or challenge, or demand for clarification. All that National Radio listeners were served up were two highly biased, extreme views by a rogue scientist and a savagely on-message corporate executive, both allowed to say anything they liked by an interviewer who was incapable of testing them. There are any number of credible, non-aligned, rigorous scientific commentators in this country. Instead we were subjected to Alan Seay and Willem de Lange.

The decline in quality and integrity of Radio New Zealand National is now at a critical point.

……………..
[1] Holmes’s rant was condemned at the time but was not mentioned by the likes of Brian Edwards in the eulogies for the great man earlier this year ….
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=3006313
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=3526611
[2] http://www.peterellis.org.nz/docs/2003/HoodComplaint/index.htm
[3] http://www.theroar.com.au/2010/05/28/crusaders-slam-hadens-racial-claims/
[4] http://www.greenpeace.org/new-zealand/en/reports/New-Zealand-Oil-Spill-Report/

• Rogue Trooper17.1

  24 October 2013 at 11:57 am

  Madness in great ones must not unwatched go (though this be madness, yet there be method in it) 
  • greywarbler17.1.1

    24 October 2013 at 12:32 pm

    RT
    Wot the Great One reincarnated.
    • Rogue Trooper17.1.1.1

      24 October 2013 at 3:19 pm

      Slaine
• phillip ure17.2

  24 October 2013 at 3:38 pm

  i sometimes wonder about ryan..

  ..she is on record confessing she ‘watches far too much fox’…

  ..that is the only explanation i can come up with..

  ..osmosis/seepage..?

  ..and yeah..that uncritical arse-kissing of those two oil-pimps..

  ..that you refer to..

  ..was a nadir of sorts for both ryan and nat-rad….

  ..i’m surprised ryan didn’t finish with a rousing round of:

  ..’drill baby drill!’..

  ..phillip ure..
•