Oops, I did it again.

I briefly engaged in a Twitter conversation with ‘Whale Oil’ right wing attack blogger Cameron Slater, provoked by his stream of increasingly hysterical and accusatory rants against the Herald on Sunday about the bugged cup of tea …

Statesmen. Cameron Slater would prefer this image to be seen as reality

Starting about 9.40 this morning the National Party’s [avowedly] unguided missile, lap blogger (to borrow his phrase) and John Banks supporter started railing against the Herald on Sunday with bold masterpieces rabid blog posts like:

     

  • HoS should name secret taper
  • Is this the sneaky bugger?
  • Why they keep using ‘unintentional’
  • Intentional or Unintentional?
  • Intentional or Unintentional? Ctd
  • Outrageous spin


… throwing epithets like ‘sneaky’, ‘weasel’, at the HoS staff, questioning their ethics, accusing them of ‘not caring’ whether their actions were legal or not, and saying

Its editors should now be facing the blowtorch and the camera operator’s character will have to be scrutinised. If the public are being asked to take their word for it – we need to know whose word it is we’re taking.

Well, it made me chuckle. So I tweeted:

Outrage at HoS emoted by @whaleoil seems ludicrous coming from someone a judge described as giving ‘naive + evasive’ explanations for his crimes

Which drew a quick response accusing me of dishonesty (see conversation).

Conversation with Cameron Slater (click to enlarge)

oh good oh…a reporter for Radio Live now puts the words of a lawyer into my mouth…dishonest much?

Well, having just reported the Thai Sex Tour trial verdict on Friday morning — before going on to cover the ‘cup of tea‘ — a trial at which I naturally respected the court ordered name suppression (the convicted man ‘W’ faces another trial next year) I guess my tolerance for my honesty being questioned by convicted name suppression law breacher Cameron Slater was low.

So I cited the source of my earlier quote: ‘a judge described [Cameron Slater] as giving ‘naive + evasive’ explanations for his crimes‘ to show I hadn’t distorted it:

Nothing to do with radio or lawyers. Refer DECISION OF JUDGE DAVID J HARVEY 14 Sept 2010 para 192: “hearing the interview as it progressed and of observing Mr. Slater as he gave his explanations. I found them naive and evasive.”

[Read the full judgement in which Cameron was convicted for yourself here: Police-v-Slater.pdf – 570KB]

Well, Cameron didn’t like that. It appears Cameron Slater wants to be able to call for people working in the news media to have their character and actions ‘scrutinized’ and to be able to loudly criticize them and call their practices into question … but his own actions, and his own track record (and criminal record!) are somehow unmentionable?

Does that seem two-faced to you?
As I told him:

The judgement seems relevant to your allegations against Fisher & HoS IMO. Own it.

Somehow I don’t think we’re Twitter friends anymore…

Funny, until today we were Twitter buddies. Not any more. Self-proclaimed champion of free speech, National Party attack blogger Cameron Slater does NOT like to be criticised when he's busy smearing the news media, it seems. (Pic: Peter Aranyi)

– P