In our last post we featured a comment posted on www.brianedwardsmedia.co.nz by justice campaigner Dermot Nottingham. Amongst Nottinghams observations of the ex “Fair Go” presenter, Kevin Milne, was that he had clearly been afflicted with a narcissistic personality.
Well that certainly seems to be the case given that Kevin has now become a one man road show; adopting the belief that Dr Edwards piece was somehow all about him. Nottinghams observations, it would seem, were not that far from the truth.
Following Kev’s attack on Dr Edwards (New Zealand Herald, Friday, 8th June, 2012), he in turn has felt it necessary to rejoin with yet another post:
I return reluctantly to the topic of Fair Go and reply to a friendly critic
Posted by BE on June 8th, 2012
I hadn’t intended to return to this topic, but a response by Kevin Milne to my critique of Fair Go’s modus operandi leaves me little choice. Kevin was speaking to Herald media commentator John Drinnan. Drinnan reports him as having said:
“I don’t know if there is a word for people who attack their own babies. Brian’s comments are outrageous and criticism about the show from day one is just nuts. He started an amazing programme that has been hugely popular for 30 years and I think he knows that. My impression [of the people who commented on the Edwards blog] was that they are not the sort of people who watch Fair Go very often. It’s a major conversion on the Road to Damascus. You also need to put into focus that he makes his living – an extremely good living one would assume – advising big business how to deal with Fair Go.”
We would observe that despite Dr Edwards bending over backwards not to make it all about Kevin, Milne has other ideas. Milne having taken Dr Edwards rather adroit observations has made it very personal, launching a vitriolic attack on Edwards, but hey that has always been Kevin Milne’s style especially whilst hosting Fair Go……so why is anyone surprised?
“You also need to put into focus that he makes his living – an extremely good living one would assume – advising big business how to deal with Fair Go.”
What has Dr Edwards income or the handful of companies that he may have assisted in dealing with the recalcitrant Fair Go show got to do with his views on the shows seriously flawed investigations. Fair Go episodes that, in many cases, concealed a seriously twisted agenda…. the answer is simple absolutely nothing, Milne is as we have already said simply being “true to form” After all his “first instinct” has always been to edit the facts, if it suited his agenda.
Dr Edwards alludes to Fair Go’s use of the editing suite in his post:
‘Live’ or ‘recorded as live’ means ‘not edited’, which in turn means that the viewer is aware of everything the interviewer asked and everything the interviewee replied. Though appearing live on television is incredibly frightening for most people, the transparency which it offers is a major protection for the interviewee. As I said in my original post, ‘what you see is what you get’.
That transparency no longer exists on Fair Go. A complainee may be interviewed for half an hour or more, but the viewer will see only a fraction of the interview on air. ‘What you see’ is what the reporter or producer ‘allows you to see
Returning to our own previous post, it seems that Nottingham also noted Milne’s use of the “editing” tools at his disposal, so as to avoid looking like a complete fucking idiot:
The next week they ran still further comment about the meaning of the words“factual matrix”. The interview was shown again in the “summer series” as lead story, and Milne was so badly damaged that he included the interview in his retirement show as one of the best three stories he had been involved in. But Milne “edited it” removing all of the exchanges where he was made to look a complete fool.
Kevin Milne responded to Dr Edwards latest post with this very strange, almost delusional, comment :
Brian, you know perfectly well that the only “baby” of yours I’d accuse you of attacking is “Fair Go”. So stop being so silly, you lovely Irishman. As for your list of those who haven’t “identified a single inaccuracy” in your original post…they would know that any such response is never simply left to stand by Dr Brian Finbar Edwards. It would draw a new, maybe harsher reaction which, once again, would have to be responded to. Maybe they’re a little busier than you and me.
BE: Hi Kev.You look very comfy sitting in that armchair on your beautiful property. I don’t think I’m being particularly ‘silly’, but you made up for it with the ‘lovely Irishman’. You and I will remain friends regardless and agree to differ. But you do present me with a bit of a Catch 22 scenario: The defenders of Fair Go won’t respond because, if I disagreed with anything they said, I’d only come back at them, and they’d have to respond again. It has a certain logic. But the problem is that this isn’t a philosophical debate; it’s a simple matter of my having described the process by which Fair Go operates, as we’ve observed it consistently in several cases where people have come to us for help. We’ve seen the emails, heard the recordings, viewed the written statements and watched the programmes. So I’m uncertain how we can have got it wrong.
Anyway, why don’t I take you up on your suggestion. Whether you reply to this reply or not, I undertake not to reply again in return. Unless it’s over dinner and a bottle or two of wine. Oh and by the way, we’re having some renovations done to our house and will need to re-carpet several rooms. Seriously.
We too think that Kevin Milne should stick to selling Carpet and hope that his old mates at “Fair Go” don’t come after him for flogging rugs.
We also think that Kevins observations on just who was commenting on Brians blog are also just a little delusional:
“My impression [of the people who commented on the Edwards blog] was that they are not the sort of people who watch Fair Go very often”
Lets take a closer look at why we think that Kevin might not have even read the overwhelming majority of comments that had been posted, most clearly critical of Fair Go, some with good reason displaying a very personal loathing of Kevin Milne and his TVNZ colleagues:
“We were the unfortunate victims of Kevin Milne’s so called Fair Go Show. We never gave our side of the story as we were given only one minute of air time. My husband offered to do a live interview but this was denied by Kevin Milne himself, so our side of the story was never heard. We were stalked by the presenter. They iroared up and down our street trying to get the right shot We lived at no Ten at the end of our street that’s how small it was. The presenter practiced running to and from the door trying to make it look like we were running away from her. Then they took footage of my husband picking up my son from primary school and made it look like we were driving off. It was nothing but sensationlized crap!
Our case was going through the courts, the normal process with disputes, and we were winning! The collection agency was even trying to get the money from this woman, this infuriated her! That’s when she went to Fair Go with her bleeding heart story. What we would like to know, Is our court system so corrupt that Kevin Milne is above the law of the land? When did he become Judge Jury and Executioner! “
Related articles
- Media: Advice for Holmes – go slow (nzherald.co.nz)
- Edwards takes another swipe at Fair Go (nzherald.co.nz)
- TVNZ, Fairgo 30 years on (laudafinem.wordpress.com)
- ACC, Lazy-boy Chair decision instrumental in setting up black ops unit (laudafinem.wordpress.com)
3 Comments
Oh seriously now, you ladies do realise that talking in the third person about yourself is a sign of mental illness? Did you not get that drummed into you while you were biting the pillow back in the home?
Hey Pete why don’t you give Greg O’Connor a tinkle on the old dog n bone and let him know how you feel, he might care; but we doubt it lol. For those not in the know, Pete is an ex-cop from Gisborne New Zealand who likes to comment on our posts that inculpate his bent mates
Jesus Milne is a complete tosser, liar and a cretin. Whats with the hair lip speech impediment. In NZ can’t we have a presenter that look’s pleasant speaks pleasant and is truly a pleasant person.