We have a guest on the show today who's written a lovely book called “How To Walk A Dog”. It's about dogs. New Zealand dogs. It's about playing with dogs, it's about the people we meet through dogs, it's about working with dogs. It's a funny and affectionate and heart-breaking book about dogs and the human pets they keep.
It's written by a guy from Wellington called Mike White. Turns out that Mike is quite some journalist. He's covered wars like Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq. He's written another book called “Who Killed Scott Guy?”. For North and South he knows the Lundy case inside out. His story was part of international experts coming on board and forcing a second trial for Lundy.
He's not afraid to shake things up.
He covered the Ben Smart and Olivia Hope case in the Sounds and received an invitation from Scott Watson to interview him in jail. A request that the Department of Corrections denied and which Mike White then fought all the way to the High Court. After a year he won the right which he said was a win for journalism. He then brokered a meeting between Watson and Olivia Hope's Dad, which he also covered.
He's done a great job and he's had very supportive employers and supporters. Journalism is about getting all the story including the bits that some won't agree with. And he has waded though detail and sat through months of courtroom testimony and then agonised about writing the story in the right way.
To various degrees this is what journalists do. Some cover the bare facts of a story of the day and tell that story. Others cover a story until a punctuation mark. A few cover stories to the bitter and. They're all important in telling the rest of us what the full story is.
One of the more disappointing things about modern life is hearing journalists be vilified by too many people. And those people have skin in the game. There is part of the story that they are part of that they don't want told. They want to control whatever the truth is.
Politicians calling journalists liars is the richest kettle calling the pot black game there can ever be. It's got so bad some people charged with telling the story claim others telling the story are wrong. The number of people in the mainstream media dissing the mainstream media is astounding. It's a delusion for favour. No matter what Fox News tells you. They are in fact mainstream media.
Of course I say this as we stand on the brink of losing another newsroom. Say what you will about the Newshub newsroom. Newsrooms are important and the possible loss of one will only be celebrated by people who often lie for a living. To find the real truth you need as many point of views as you can get. No-one should ever think a loss of a point of view is a good thing.
But the wonderful thing about Mike White is that while wading through murders and disambiguation he still lives a normal life and loves his dog Cooper and he has written THE book on dogs. And people.
His book made me cry. I have a dog. Saffi. Named after a dragon in a kids book. We got Saffi nearly 15 years ago because we finally bought a dog friendly house. 3 weeks ago we sold that house as we downsize. The kids are moving on. Mike reminded me that soon the dog will be moving on. And it broke my heart. He is a great writer and journalist.
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