SST on Cook vs HoS
July 5th, 2009 at 9:47 am by David FarrarI suspect the Sunday Star-Times enjoyed getting to print this article:
REPORTERS at the Herald on Sunday newspaper were instructed to steal stories out of the Sunday Star-Times in what the tabloid paper’s former assistant editor calls “industrial espionage” on an unprecedented scale.
The revelations are included in an early draft of a brief of evidence from Steve Cook, who was assistant editor at the Herald on Sunday until he was sacked following rumours of drug dealing.
Cook has taken a case to the Employment Relations Authority (ERA) claiming unjustified dismissal he was not charged by police with any offence and although the authority struck out evidence relating to the industrial espionage claims, the Star-Times has obtained a copy of the initial brief.
In it, Cook says that for a period in 2005 soon after the Herald on Sunday’s launch, reporter John Manukia would be dispatched on Saturday nights to the Fairfax presses in South Auckland to get an early copy of the Star-Times.
Manukia, later sacked for fabricating stories, would take the paper back to the Herald on Sunday offices and, acting on instructions from executive staff, “would proceed to lift stories from the SST without any attribution for publication in the following day’s Herald on Sunday”.
Cook says the practice ceased in July 2005, following a “near catastrophe”. The Star-Times had obtained exclusive extracts from a biography of All Black Justin Marshall, which its rival wanted. Manukia was dispatched to the presses to get a copy of the paper.
“That night the Fairfax presses were running late, so when Manukia eventually got his hands on a copy of the newspaper there was only time to phone through details from the book. I asked Manukia to give me the title of the book but instead he gave me the headline on the SST story.”
The Herald on Sunday went to press with the erroneous title, and when editor Shayne Currie discovered the error, “was left with no choice but to stop the presses”, Cook wrote.
Currie yesterday said the behaviour was not “standard practice”. In a statement to the Star-Times he said: “I recall this happened on two, possibly three, occasions, in 2005. It has not happened since. On one of those occasions we did a `spoiler’ story on the new Justin Marshall book, which was being extracted in the SST.”
Media commentator Jim Tully damned the practice, saying lifting stories from another media outlet without attribution was “both unethical and potentially risky as past experience has shown. It is indicative of the intense competition between the Sundays and suggests a note of desperation in not being scooped by a rival.”
I think things are less intense now, but I do know newspapers hate nothing more than missing a story their rival covers.
Cook also gave details in his early brief of “the most incredible example of industrial espionage ever seen in the newspaper industry in this country”. A Herald on Sunday reporter had rented an apartment across the road from the Star-Times offices in Auckland and had a view of the editor’s office, including a whiteboard with details of upcoming stories. Cook claims the reporter was given a telescope and told to ring through details of what the Star-Times was doing that week.
But senior Herald on Sunday reporter David Fisher put a statement on the Public Address website on Friday, saying the telescope was his, and that the so-called spying was “a joke driven by a sense of mischief”. Currie said the incident was a “silly prank” which gained nothing and he did not find out about it until later.
David Fisher’s blog on the issue is here. I trust David entirely as to this being the context to the story.
The ERA heard on Friday that Cook was dismissed from the Herald on Sunday last year after a chain of events that began with a visit to the paper by two drug squad detectives.
They told Currie that Cook and a company car had been spotted on several occasions at a property they had under surveillance.
Currie said that over the following days and weeks Cook refused to provide a satisfactory reason for being there and would not hand over notes. Cook said he wouldn’t provide the notes because he did not trust Currie, who had given his home address to the police officers.
Even I had heard about the rumoured drug involvement. But the key issue will be whether Cook was legally entitled to refuse to hand over his (alleged) notes to his editor, and also whether the HoS followed correct process in dismissing him.
Related posts:
- Stephen Cook vs Herald on Sunday
- Agenda on John Manukia
- Media reporting on Cook vs HoS
- SST editor made redundant
July 5th, 2009 at 10:32 am
What a bunch of ratbags.
And they write their damn pretentious sermonising editorials criticising politicians for perceived improper behaviour, businessmen for breaches of ethics, etc etc when they’re nothing but a cheap bunch of crooks liars and con men themselves.
The mainstream media and their so called journalists and editors are such a repugnant lot.
Vote:July 5th, 2009 at 10:45 am
Indeed RB – just today, there is a sermonising editorial about why John Key must come clean over the Worth matter – complete and utter hypocrisy when viewed against what goes on behind the scenes in their newsroom.
Vote:July 5th, 2009 at 10:47 am
All funded by people buying papers and placing ads. Don’t like it – then boycott the paper.
Vote:July 5th, 2009 at 11:44 am
When viewed in the context of the lifting of the Justin Marshall story, Fisher’s antics over the telescope certainly warrant explanation. His explanation is only just credible. Fisher seems broadly as dishonest and unethical as Currie. Cook probably reading from the same choir book as they all seem like desperadoes.
Vote:July 5th, 2009 at 11:49 am
Nice sermon about Key and Worth but I have been unable to find any mention of the chinese criminal passport scandal in todays papers. As predicted yesterday they have all ignored it after a small story about it yesterday. Oh how Cunliffe, Jones and gang must be laughing. They are truly blessed with magical teflon superpowers.
Vote:July 5th, 2009 at 12:02 pm
“just today, there is a sermonising editorial about why John Key must come clean over the Worth matter”
Right Inventory, and as Barnsley points out, they’re all right into left wing talking points while their Labour friends get practically no scrutiny at all. When did they ever ask Helen Klark to come clean on the $100, 000 diverted from Labour to NZ First?
NZ’s media are despicable partisan cowards who, along with the education sector, are the key players in the left’s scheme to convert NZ to a totalitarian Progressive “nirvana”.
Don’t ever spend any money buying their papers or advertising in them. The sooner the lying propagandising corrupt and lowlife scum go broke, the sooner we’re on the path back to freedom.
Vote:July 5th, 2009 at 1:50 pm
As I mentioned yesterday RB, you only have to ask one question about our MSM, and you get all the answers you need.
Which trade union represents journalists? Answer – the EPMU. Need we say more?
Vote:July 5th, 2009 at 5:05 pm
> They are truly blessed with magical teflon superpowers.
Just like the rest of the left wingers in the public eye.
Vote:July 5th, 2009 at 6:09 pm
If they were going to steal stories they could have chosen a better source than the SST.
Vote:July 5th, 2009 at 6:44 pm
By some bizarre coincidence I posted this this morning http://monkeyswithtypewriter.blogspot.com/2009/07/file-under-o-for-obvious.html
With Thanks – Lee – MWT
Vote:July 5th, 2009 at 6:53 pm
Lee – I like the new look
Vote:July 5th, 2009 at 8:58 pm
IMHO, the only difference between the Herald on Sunday’s methods, and internet blogs -like this one – is not attributing the stories being republished. A cardinal sin, granted.
But I find it strange that people lambast the ‘mainstream media’ for being underhanded, when they were simply applying the same information-collection model used across the blogosphere.
Vote:July 6th, 2009 at 5:20 am
Fair call, ephemera, but slightly different in intent – the aims of blogs are to inform, perhaps persuade largely, but the aim of the MSM is to ‘beat’ its competitors and to earn huge sums from advertising revenue. And blogs often as not, do hat-tip and acknowledge their sources, unless they have synthesised a wide range of sources, then it qualifies as our ‘own’ work, surely?
As at least one person has remarked here, also, the MSM employ staff, and there is an unwritten law about journalistic ethicality it could be argued a poilitical bias exists, but political bias is one thing, down right unethical is another . .
Another major difference is that blogs are not bound by editorial fiat – they have the free reign they need to call it as they see it where they are truly independent voices, rather than Party Political mouthpieces.
Tony thanks for your kind words, I like the new look too!
Vote:Lee – MWT – http://monkeyswithtypewriter.blogspot.com/
July 6th, 2009 at 5:24 am
Another major difference between MSM and most blogs has just occurred to me as even a cursory glance at my blog will attest – lots of people read the MSM!
Vote:July 6th, 2009 at 10:27 am
Lee C,
I agree with you on all you say, except the idea of newspapers being party-political mouthpieces.
I am currently working on a national newspaper in the UK, which has traditionally aligned with a political party – as every other paper in this country tends to do. That doesn’t make it a mouthpiece, it makes it engaged with a particular readership. The relationship between The Telegraph and the Conservative Party or between The Guardian and Labour is no different than that between Kiwiblog and the NZ National Party. So blogs might be more ‘independent’, but are they news organs?
Newspapers have the resources to check facts so far as to avoid legal implications, but (in this day) don’t have the budget to support teams of Woodward and Burnstein-style investigative journalists. Regarding journalistic ethicality: it’s mostly bullshit. The Herald on Sunday might have cocked up being caught stealing content from a rival wholesale. But most of the rest of the content you read in a newspaper is barely subbed press-release copy and half baked heresay. Again, this is the stock and trade of many a blog.
Vote:July 6th, 2009 at 8:25 pm
Anyone at any paper wants to know subs are trending down, give me a call. I think I may know.
Vote:July 6th, 2009 at 8:53 pm
@petal,
What do you mean ‘subs are trending down’. Do you mean the subeditors aren’t doing their jobs?
Vote: