New Zealand Herald tries to cover its butt; gets shit on its hands
Further to my earlier post on the complete fiasco with the new Donghua Liu statement this morning. Here’s the Herald’s take on the new revelations that all Liu’s earlier statements were entirely inaccurate, and that he is counting money spent on his staff and on some rowers as donations to Labour:
His confirmation of the total sum of $100,000 will still leave Labour with a headache as it searches records for donations and the links between senior MPs and the wealthy businessman which emerged last week.
Well I don’t swear a lot on this blog, but the Herald can fuck right off with that claim.
The only people with headaches are the Herald’s journalists.
They have been suckered, by a confirmed National party donor, to running an entirely false smear against Labour with absolutely no hard evidence to back it up.
Worse, they have allowed themselves to be suckered just before en election campaign. I’m guessing here, but I reckon this 1-2 weeks of saturation conspiracy theories has cost Labour around 2% in the polls, likely to National.
The Herald claims to be a paper of record in this country, but after a performance like this they should consider printing in two-ply.
I understand there are complaints in the pipes over this, and Tim Murphy’s flippant attitude to them so far won’t help him at all.