Kim Hill slurred James K. Baxter at the end of her program today RNZ National, Saturday 11 April 2020, 11:59 a.m.
Kim Hill can be excellent. One of the highlights of recent New Zealand broadcasting history is her 2004 confrontation with an unspeakably vile shill for the destruction of Iraq.[1] However, she has also proved to be alarmingly susceptible to sleazy propagandists. In 2013 she listened without demur to Alex Gibney pouring filth on the reputation of Julian Assange. [2] Along with the likes of John Campbell, Jesse Mulligan and Bernard Hickey, she has been one of this country's leading conduits of the Russiagate nonsense, repeatedly (and respectfully) interviewing the discredited Grauniad hack Luke Harding, even after the exposure of his lie about Paul Manafort having secret talks with Julian Assange. [3] She is, for all her talent, likely to at any time recycle the most egregious neocon talking points. [4]
This susceptibility to orthodox narratives, otherwise known as "groupthink", reared its head again this morning right at the end of her brief talk about poetry with Greg O'Brien. She mentioned Allen Curnow and James K. Baxter, and then added that they were "not noted for their enlightened attitudes to women." The program had finished, so Greg O'Brien had no time to respond to this absurd and unfair provocation.
So James K. Baxter is now a target of vilification from RNZ National's woke gliberati, along with certain American pop singers. [5] Kim Hill has a reputation, not entirely deserved, of being a voracious reader. It seems that she has not read much, or any, of James K. Baxter's beautiful, humane and compassionate poetry.