Cameron Slater

There has been a lot of commentary about Truth and my editorship…I have been humbled by some of the comments, emails and phone calls. Thank you. But wait till you see some of the gloating too…you would think that the left wing commentators and bloggers who are gloating might have a heart for the good staff who now don’t have jobs while they dance forlornly upon my grave, so eager are they to put the boot in.

First up there is the good:

@Whaleoil you definitely made truth a lot more newsworthy and talked about during your editorship Cameron. And it’s no small thing.

— Alastair Thompson (@althecat) June 17, 2013

@Whaleoil Bummer. You did a good job personally. But the paper couldn’t live with the porn section, or without it. — Russell Brown (@publicaddress) June 17, 2013

@Whaleoil Kudos 4 giving it a go, Whale. — Mark Hubbard (@MarkHubbard33) June 17, 2013

@Whaleoil commiserations Cameron. you gave it your best shot. — Ruth Laugesen (@RuthLaugesen) June 17, 2013

Feel pretty sorry for @whaleoil. No, really. Losing Truth is a blow however you look at it. — Joshua Drummond (@cakeburger)
June 17, 2013

So it’s farewell to The Truth. http://t.co/tP2JgvpqwK Before you gloat too much, spare a thought for the staff who will be out of a job

— Imperator Fish (@ImperatorFish) June 17, 2013

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Fairfax is reporting the demise of Truth.

I have nothing to add at this point.

Some time in the future I will tell my story of  the wild ride the last 6 months have been…in the meantime I want to thank the editorial and production staff I worked with, you were great.

Bottom line is that Truth was too far gone, a legacy of the mayhem caused by David and Steve Crow. Again I will leave that story for later.

On a day that saw Mediaworks call in receivers, it emerged that tabloid newspaper The Truth may cease publishing after more than 125 years.

Staff at the national weekly have been told it will not publish a print edition on Thursday, and may never publish one again.

Truth, which first published 1887, was thought to have lost a major advertiser last week, prompting its owners to pull the plug.

Truth Weekender general manager Russell Beaumont told Fairfax Media “the owners and shareholders have said we should pause for a cup of tea”.

“We’re having a break, we’re not in receivership, we’re just pausing.”  Read more »

John Drinnan laboriously writes about bloggers and remuneration. Interesting that he didn’t bother to ring me for comment yet felt obliged to use my name to make some sort of point.

Canterbury University senior lecturer in journalism and new media Donald Matheson says bloggers risk being called hypocrites if they accuse professional media about lack of transparency while not declaring payments from other sources.

Really? …does Fran O’Sullivan declare all her other income at the bottom of every article she writes? Does Bernard Hickey? What about Russell Brown’s multiple sources of income. What a sanctimonious twat. Plenty of people in the media do multiple jobs and work on multiple contracts. They also take separate advertising revenue and perform consultancy work, not to mention the lucrative speaking circuit…why the focus on bloggers and what and how they earn money? Everyone else in the media gets paid somehow and no one digs into that.

The only people I need to declare my income to is IRD. Everyone else can get stuffed.   Read more »

It wasn’t me, I swear I didn’t do it.

Plus…I don’t even look like that.

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I seems that Andrew Little didn’t get the memo from Helen Kelly that I am irrelevant.

ANDREW LITTLE: … We know what its attitude towards unions is. It was represented by Cameron Slater . He said he was pathological about unions, he had a pathological hatred. Well, he is right about one thing. He is a sociopath, we know that, but he has a pathological hatred of unions, and he is the biggest public relations machine for the National Party.

Darien Fenton: He’s Judith Collins’ supporter.

ANDREW LITTLE: He defines them, and his biggest hero, of course, is Judith Collins, the Minister of so-called Justice. Can you believe it? Read more »

Andrea Vance has written an article about my mate Simon Lusk. Good on her for tenaciously following up where others fear to tread and actually getting an interview with Simon. It is currently upland game season so for her to have got an interview during that is some feat.

Simon Lusk is one of the most intriguing figures in politics. The arch political fixer shuns the limelight, rarely venturing from his home in Havelock North to Wellington. He maintains a strict silence about his clients – mostly wannabe National MPs.

He is said to charge $10,000 to manage an electorate election campaign, and his successes are believed to include National’s senior whip Louise Upston, and MPs Chris Tremain, Nicky Wagner and Sam Lotu-Iiga.

I’m not sure Simon discounts his fees that much.

Certainly, Labour are fixated on this Right-wing bogeyman. Last year, the party’s chief whip Chris Hipkins lodged 259 written questions of ministers, asking about their communication with Mr Lusk. According to political lore, he was behind Don Brash’s unseating of ACT leader Rodney Hide.  Read more »

Some guy called Cameron Slater has been arrested for a shooting death:

An arrest has been made in connection with a shooting on West Harper Street, Sunday night.

Police arrested 22 year old, Cameron Slater for the shooting death of 35 year old, Toby Britton. Slater was arrested by U.S. Marshals at 7:15 a.m. today.  Read more »

Labour are so well organised and so comfortable in the polls that they could blow the opportunity to grill the government during question time:

Grant Robertson: Is the Minister aware that only two businesses in the survey rated the Government’s performance on job creation as outstanding, and when will he be calling Cameron Slater and David Farrar to thank them?

Hon STEVEN JOYCE: That is a pathetic question.

http://www.tubechop.com/watch/1017630

I suppose I can feel a bit chuffed with the Sunday Star-Times article yesterday about NZ First….and Andrew Williams:

No-one too startled that the wheels are coming off the Winston Peters party juggernaut. What has been intriguing, though, is the order in which the wheel-nuts came loose.

One of the highest risk MPs is Andrew Williams.  Read more »

You will be surprised who wrote this about me in a President’s address to members in the monthly newsletter:

Some of you may have read comments on Cameron Slater’s “Whale Oil” blog prior to Christmas. Like me you probably thought – “Why such an unusual name?” Well as it happens it is an appropriate name for this blog – consider some facts about whale oil:

Whale oil is obtained from the blubber of whales. Whale oil was used as a cheap illuminant, though it gave off a strong odour when burnt and was not very popular. Until the invention of hydrogenation in the early 20th century, it was only used in industrial-grade cleansers because its foul smell and tendency to discolour made it unsuitable for cosmetic soap.

So in short, Whale Oil comes from fat; it is cheap, is unpopular, stinks, discolours and is unsuitable for anything good. An appropriate name for this blog site.

Can you guess?

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