John Campbell and Jenny-May Clarkson in comparison with Indira Stewart are tough, but, surprisingly, show sensitivity and tolerance toward Collins’ opinions.
I can’t believe I am saying that breathy, excitable, ponderous John Campbell has some qualities to be extolled. It takes a stark comparison (like, say, the difference between Trump and Biden’s handling of foreign policy. Too brutal?) to reveal them.
When occasionally watching Campbell, I mute it until he spits his question out, which involves lengthy editorialising and firmly establishing his position, which I don’t need to know, for the guest to bravely tackle. That is TVNZ’s (Labour’s fully paid-up propaganda machine) only approach and it takes a brave guest to oppose it.
As they tend to favour the so-called disaffected groups, they have a steady stream of worthy identity groups through their studios, with whom they largely agree so it is a mutually agreeable, if boringly predictable, interview.
With the leader of the Opposition, it is a different story. Establishing their biased position, rather than just asking questions like regular journalists, Collins is faced with an uphill battle to establish hers.
The difference between Indira Stewart and Jenny-May Clarkson and John Campbell is that Clarkson and Campbell have experience and show professionalism and, despite different points of view, keep their cool and show respect for Collins by not interrupting or making personal attacks. They generally finish the interview on a pleasant, not a volcanic, note. Well, the cool bit probably applies to Clarkson more than Campbell, for whom that is an impossibility.
Campbell, for example, last time he interviewed Collins on their opposition to parts of the banning conversion therapy bill, said he would get their justice spokesperson Simon Bridges on to discuss it further. It was just posturing by Campbell who had no intention of following it up, a bit like when you say goodbye to someone you meet at a conference with, ‘keep in touch’, but you know you won’t.
My advice to National would have been to follow that up. The invitation was made on-air and he would have been churlish to deny them; although Campbell was probably not a bit interested in hearing the view of an astute legal brain and would much rather have an emotive, mutually agreeable conversation with Green Party social justice activist, Jan Logie.
Although most of the media commentators, apart from Barry Soper, shot down Collins for sticking up for herself in the face of a series of personal attacks, parodying as serious journalism; the word is that TVNZ took down their Facebook comments which showed praise for Collins and criticism for their journalist’s mishandling of the interview.
That should be good news for Collins, who had a great day with some hard-hitting questions to the PM in the House and a funny speech targeting, ‘smug ‘sanctimonious’ Grant Robertson for their mishandling of the Covid crisis.
Her team should be proud of her, as that is what National party supporters have been asking for and I have been demanding:
For the National party leader to “get some guts”, to quote former leader Sir John Key
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