How remarkable! Both major Sunday papers carrying major stories based on interviews with Tony Veitch’s wife on the same day. All this only a week after the HoS carried the story about a former Veitch girlfriend sticking by the “shamed broadcaster”. Oh, and the SST carried the revelations of a “former flatmate and close female friend”.
Some might suggest that it would take a well-connected (and expensive) PR team to achieve that — and they’d be absolutely right.
Such touching stories. You’d almost think all this copy was written by the PR team, but I guess they just suggested the story lines when they set them up. You think I’m being a little cynical here? Here’s the “former girlfriend” in the last week’s HoS:
“This whole thing has blown me away, but I guess in a way it has given me a chance to set the record straight and talk about what sort of person Tony really is.”
And here’s the unnamed “close female friend” courtesy of the SST:
“What I want to say,” she told the Sunday Star-Times yesterday, “is enough is enough. I believe Tony was a victim of her behaviour.”
As Ethical Martini points out, the HoS story is the darker of today’s crop:
“… the curious issue of Kristin Dunne-Powell’s motive bubbles close to the surface of the text, but without ever being made explicit… the HoS stops short of suggesting anything really sinister, but a picture emerges of a young woman obsessed with a failed relationship and driven by something unhealthy.”
Martin goes a little further and puts a name to what is being implied with the detailed account in the HoS of the escalating demands made by the injured ex-girlfriend. But it’s pretty obvious. And it is a cause for concern.
It was clearly too much to expect the media to butt out of the story after Veitch resigned somewhat belatedly from his jobs with TVNZ and radio. After all, how can you rehabilitate this important media asset without the media?
That our two major Sunday papers should feature such one-sided, tendentious stories, bereft of any real news value, and so obviously part of a well-planned and brilliantly executed (it has to be admitted) PR campaign is sickening nonetheless.
They’ll probably be vying for Qantas Media Awards on the basis of this tosh come next year. However, the sad fact is that NZers have been badly let down by the fourth estate. Again.
More importantly, what chance of a fair trial now? I guess Veitch won’t be complaining about this deluge of flattering “news”. Perfectly timed too. When’s he due to be charged?
(For those who have been out of the country and not following events here closely, background on sportscaster Tony Veitch’s assault of his former girlfriend more than 2 years ago and its aftermath is here, here and here.)
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