Why is the New Zealand Herald after Paul Henry?
Well, not just Paul but Michael Laws, John Key, or any other person they perceive as a right wing dog that might put a foot wrong in the eyes of the sniveling wet left and its "commentators" , bloggers and facebook groups.
They are doing it out of desperation.
In the face of bloggers from like Cameron Slater from Whaleoil, who have penchant to write from the lip from the street level of journalism, former national respected papers like the Herald are moving towards the tabloid end of town.
Cameron and his left and right mates you see are taking up a slice of the media that they want to occupy but they have found the going hard. In the race to the bottom in terms of journalistic integrity and standards the Herald and the mainstream media in general have failed to counter the immediacy and accuracy of the "alternative" media because they lack the ability for flexibility or simply don't have the balls (yet) to start ranting and raving with expletives and bad grammar that is often part of the blogosphere.
The Herald are on their Paul Henry crusade simply because it allows them the ability to get in amongst the new media and try and take some of their audience away.
They are failing though.
While Slater and his mates audiences are growing, the Herald and their mates are losing their audience and money.
Has anyone told them yet that you can blog for free through this format and others and tell people a story this way?
It doesn't take millions of dollars and hundreds of journos and all that cost.
It is a desperation bourne out of the mainstream media desperate not to lose shareholder moola or in the case of TVNZ, taxpayer moola.
Simple as that, and that dear reader is about as low as you can go.
c Darren Rickard 2010
