Greg King

Bryce Johns wrote me a sarcastic email describing Kathryn Powley as a “decent journalist, trained skilled” in an attempt to somehow shame me or ridicule me.

Of coure everyone knows that I am shameless and ridicule…pffft.

In today’s Herald on Sunday, you know the one re-launched with great fanfare and the one that was going to be bigger, betterer yada yada yada…they have a story about Greg King being cleared.

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We started our Saturday by paying our respects to Norman Schwarzkopf Jr., the hard-charging US Army general whose forces smashed the Iraqi army in the 1991 Gulf War.  He died aged 78.  At The Standard 2012 Worst Political Blog Mike Smith is told some home truths about long term grass-roots Labour families heading for the Greens.  A quick vid on how to put out a boat fire the Kiwi way is next, followed by a vote for Best Minister.  The winner, at 52%, is Judith Collins.  The Whale Week That Was summarised all the stories this blog covered in the previous seven days.  A quite active Saturday Debate (for the time of year especially) led a post calling for nominations for Best Political Blog.  Those who see WOBH as any sort of threat to them (and those that don’t too), should take heed of this Malcolm Tucker quote: “marshal all the media forces of Darkness to hound them to an assisted suicide”.  A CNN piece showing Teachers in Utah taking a class on gun use shows some common sense around the gun debate.  A reader has taken yesterday’s US Fiscal Cliff graphic and created one for New Zealand – great work.  As Cameron Slater predicted from the outset, the Aussie Hoax DJs will not face charges.  The NZ Herald continues to amuse – this time a car crashed into a poll.  The blog then introduces us to two sexy taxidermists showing you don’t have to look like a front row forward to deal with dead animals.  And you’d think we’re picking on an incompetent NZ Herald, and you would be right.  This time they have Jesse Ryder beating himself at Eden Park in Wellington.  Then a hilarious story about a Queensland woman who fell into the longdrop and was there for two hours before being discovered by her husband.   Turns out that during the Falklands War the French tried to send missiles to Argentinia behind Margaret Thatcher‘s back.  Commerce first eh?  The last post of the day highlights a report of a man holding up a Countdown Supermarket with a hammer.  Our readers get fired up about the idea of hammer banning.

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David Farrar has put pressure on other media after NBR all but confirmed TRUTH’s story about Greg King:

This confirms the story broken by Truth. The only other media publication to touch on this revelation is NBR. I’m amazed that Mediawatch did not deem it worthwhile to even ask the Dominion Post if their staff called Greg King just before he died. Did the Herald ask any questions of the Dominion Post such as “Is it true you had written a story on Greg King, which you pulled just before the print deadline”.

Greg King’s death is tragic and profoundly sad. It is even more tragic if the catalyst was a story about a dispute over $1,500 of legal aid hours. Would journalists at the Dominion Post accept a refuse to comment from any of the subjects of their investigations? So, why is it acceptable from the newspaper itself?

I’m not saying the Dominion Post has done anything wrong. But I am saying they should front up and explain exactly what their involvement was.

When Christine Rankin was thought to be involved with the family of a woman who killed herself, the Dominion Post and other Fairfax papers pursued the story with vigour. There was no sense of being inappropriate to comment until the Coroner’s Report. The double standards in this case are hypocritical. I can understand the double standard from the Dom Post (who naturally do not want bad publicity), but why are other media and shows that are meant to focus on the media not reporting on this?

There is more to come on this…

Yesterday the NBR followed up on the Greg King story that TRUTH broke over a week ago. New sources have come forward confirming aspects of our story.

They have confirmed the “18 hours of legal aid” details that TRUTH was aware of. There are further specific details regarding that but I shall remain silent on those until the DomPost comes clean.

It is unacceptable for the editor to issue only a short statement saying simply that the TRUTH story was “wrong”.

We stand by everything we have printed and this story is developing.

I repeat what we said in our original story.

The Dominion Post and its investigative journalist Phil Kitchin need to answer the following questions so that NZ can judge for itself whether their investigation was news worthy or just another chapter in the NZ book of chopping off tall poppies

1. What was the nature of the investigation that the Dominion Post was undertaking into Greg King and his legal practice?
2. What contact did the Dominion Post (either staff, contractors or freelancers) have with Greg King and his wife or anybody in his legal practice in the week prior to his death, including on Friday 2 November?
3. Who specifically from the Dominion Post has had contact over the last few weeks with an inmate of Rimutaka with regard to the investigation into Greg King?
4. At what time on the evening of Friday 2 November was the decision made to pull the story that was scheduled to appear in the Dominion Post on Saturday 3 November? And why?
5. When did they learn of Greg Kings death?

We are releasing the full story online about Phil Kitchin, the Dompost and Greg King.

All the while the Dompost remains silent despite feeling the need to report live from the funeral and photograph people in grief. The only thing they seem not to have done is properly answer the questions that TRUTH asked. Other media organisations are asking too..so far the editor has been obtuse.

TRUTH has uncovered that in the days leading up to the death of Greg King, the Dom Post was preparing to publish a damning article on King.

Like many New Zealanders, Truth is a huge fan of Greg King and the work he has done. We are very mindful of the profound grief his family and close friends must be feeling at this time but the information in our possession is far too important to be left untold.

Greg King was facing enormous pressure. His health was deteriorating and his workload was incredible. This was a man who just could not say no to helping people.

It is our belief that this pressure reached boiling point when King discovered that the Dominion Post was about to break a story on him and the legal aid system.

…Read the full story at Truth’s website.

David Farrar has blogged about the lame comment from the Editor of the Dompost about Truth’s cover story published yesterday about Greg King.

The story has information which could only have come (directly or indirectly) from family members.

Dominion Post editor Bernadette Courtney told NBR ONLINE the Truth story was wrong and she had no further comment.

That’s the sort of response you normally get from politicians, not media. It is called a non denial, denial.

Saying a story is wrong, and saying nothing else, means that one word could be wrong. It is not saying that the substantive allegation is incorrect. A proper denial would be “There was no investigation and there was no contact with Mr King or his family that week”. Of course you can only make a denial like that, if you are sure that no one can not prove otherwise.

Also rare to have an Editor to refuse to comment beyond a non denial, denial. If you worked for Fairfax and were doing a story on the ethical conduct of a business, would you accept such a statement from the CEO and regard it as the end of the matter?

The media are reporting that the well liked and top lawyer Greg King is dead.

High-profile lawyer Greg King has been found dead beside his car in Wellington.

King, who recently defended Ewen McDonald, accused of murdering his brother-in-law Scott Guy in 2010, was discovered lying face down at the bottom of Dungarvan Rd in Newlands, about 10.30am this morning.

Detective Inspector Paul Basham said police did not believe King’s death was suspicious and the matter had been referred to the coroner.

The Lower Hutt lawyer was involved in over 40 murder cases, including Scott Watson, John Barlow and Clayton Weatherston.

He was one of , if not the most, respected criminal defence lawyers in NZ.

His death is a huge loss to the legal fraternity, and those who knew him well. And his family most of all.

His death has been reported as non-suspicious and referred to the coroner, which is the journalistic euphemism for suicide. I personally struggle with the concept that people kill themselves for whatever reason…it is tragic.

My thoughts go out to his wife with two young daughters.