Ever since the publication of Hager’s second book,
Secrets and Lies: The Anatomy of an Anti-Environmental PR Campaign, he has been the sworn enemy of the powerful public relations firms which play such an important role in rendering the most distasteful government and/or corporate policies more or less palatable to the general public. The representatives of these firms – like the man who appeared on television the night
Dirty Politics was released, telling New Zealand there was “nothing in it” – have never lost an opportunity either in public, or behind the scenes, to attack both Hager’s credibility and his character.
I well remember crossing swords with a young journalist in the Green Room at TVNZ after she blithely dismissed Hager as an inveterate conspiracy theorist and looney lefty.
I asked her if she had read any of his books. She Hadn’t.
I asked her if she was aware he had won international prizes for investigative journalism. She wasn’t.
It hadn’t stopped her from casually defaming him, however.
It never does.
When John Key dismissed
Dirty Politics as the work of “a screaming left-wing conspiracy theorist”, he knew there would be many thousands of Kiwis who would accept his characterisation without experiencing the slightest pang of doubt.
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