Tag: Andrea Vance

Andrea Vance makes me mad as hell, and it’s a good thing too

I have been a member of the Andrea Vance Fan Club since she became “mad as hell” about Parliamentary Services tracking her movements around Parliament and logging her telephone calls.

The surveillance of the Stuff political journalist’s movements and communications in 2013 were revealed during an enquiry into the leaking of a report on the Government Communications Security Bureau. The leak of the Kitteridge Report had been a Vance scoop and the aftermath played out like the old Mad Magazine comic strip Spy v Spy.

I am sending in my application for platinum membership after last Sunday’s recounting of the stonewalling, obfuscation, and obstruction she has encountered in following up her latest scoop. The week before, writing in the Sunday Star Times, she had broken the story of allegations that Te Pati Māori had misused personal information gathered for the last census.

The Manurewa Marae facilitated the collection of data from tangata whenua by providing a collection centre. Vance broke the story that Stats NZ was investigating claims the party used information on the census forms collected at the marae to help its local candidate’s election campaign. The party and its president John Tamihere have vociferously denied the claims of misuse.

Vance’s column in last Sunday’s edition was devoted to recounting her “Sisyphean endeavours” to find out what agencies of government were investigating the matter, and on what aspects each was focussed.

Her reference to the Greek myth of Sisyphus no doubt related to the punishment the gods imposed on him – eternally pushing a boulder up a hill only to have it roll down again. The to-and-fro she experienced with government departments must have felt exactly like that. Continue reading “Andrea Vance makes me mad as hell, and it’s a good thing too” →

Latter-day anarchists throw digital bombs at journalists

Every journalist that ‘outs’ a conspiracy theorist or extremist paints a target on their own back. 

The anti-truth brigade thrives in dark places and shining a light on it and its associates is doing a public service. Yet it comes at a cost.

The tone of abuse that it generates is even darker than the places from which it emanates. Journalists – particularly female journalists – are being subjected to taunts and threats on an unprecedented scale and in forms that are deeply disturbing.

Paula Penfold of the Stuff Circuit team that produced the documentary Fire and Fury, which unmasked many of those behind the February-March protest in Parliament grounds, revealed in the Sunday Star Times last weekend that since its appearance she has been targeted with death threats, abuse “and, unsurprisingly, conspiracy theories”. She told the newspaper: “I’ve had lots before but never as many or as ugly or as threatening than after this documentary.”

Penfold’s situation was outlined in an article about the abuse three female Stuff journalists had endured for doing their jobs. Alongside Penfold were Kirsty Johnston, who revealed MP Sam Uffindell’s record at King’s College, and Andrea Vance, currently revealing the anti- brigade’s associations with local body candidates. Continue reading “Latter-day anarchists throw digital bombs at journalists” →