Mediacrity
July 13, 2009 17:16
The Law Plays Both Ways…
Michael Laws is a piece of shit. His thoughtless views are too often a point of controversy in national news. Most recently, Laws’ potty-mouth has focused on criticising a bunch of fire fighters, and if I’m interpreting the story correctly (and I like to think that I am), then the entire beef can be summarised like so:
In the wake of a tragic house fire, which claimed the lives of four Polynesian children in South Auckland, Fire Service Chief Larry Cocker stated that the event might have been prevented if chips had not been left unattended in a frying pan, and smoke alarms had been installed and/or operational. However, Laws claims that a statement like this “is using little dead Polynesian kiddies as a marketing tool.” Laws went on to call the firemen “dickheads in a uniform,” “idiots,” “morons,” “arseholes,” and said racism was “going on.”
Personally, I think that the Chief was well within any moral grounds for making such a remark – firemen divide their time between putting fires out, and informing the public about fire hazards and useful tools like alarms. How many “I told you so’s” will it take? Concerning Michael Laws’ statements, I might suggest that his continued manoeuvring between various forms of media, as fuel for his political career, is perhaps more “vile” than Larry Cocker’s statement.
Nevertheless, my point stands – Michael Laws is a thoughtless piece of shit whose views are, at the very least, over the top and unconstructive. However, this brings me to a very interesting second point. If Michael Laws is indeed the mayor of Wanganui, then what the fuck is he doing as a radio talkback host and writer for the Sunday Star Times? It seems a bit odd that an active politician should be heavily involved with the industry that basically tells the masses who to vote for in an election. Imagine the state of a New Zealand news media under the control of John Key! Imagine if Paul Holmes became the mayor of Dunners? Actually, that would be awesome. Imagine, instead, if Rupert Murdoch were to become the next governor of California – scary! How objective can a journalist be if he (by job description) has a political agenda? Is Michael Laws a journalist? Is Michael Laws a politician? Is Michael Laws a fascist dictator? Troubling questions indeed …
The most shocking part of all this, however, is that everyone in this country seems to be fine with Michael Laws’ playing both the politician and the media slut concurrently. Has this issue been raised previously? And, if so, why is this man still allowed to do his thing? It’s times like these that I wish Winston Peters was still around to break media balls…
By J Walter Weatherman
