130 Comments
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David Farrier's avatar

PS: It means a LOT seeing some new paying subscribers coming onboard. Your support keeps this thing running. Thank you. THANK YOU.

As I always say - the second it becomes any kind of financial burden, hit "unsub" at the bottom of an email, and pop back on the free list.

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sarah reed's avatar

Not all heroes wear capes, thank YOU David

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Dylan Reeve's avatar

Having been on the receiving end of Patterson's legalistic bullying this is indeed a shitty thing to behold. He happily acted in the interests of a man with money to prevent us telling the truth, and reinforced those lies in writing with the intention of intimidating us so that we wouldn't continue our project.

Absolute bullshit. And a great example of the totally unbalanced power of those with financial resources to silence those without those resources.

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David Farrier's avatar

This was the way we first bonded Dylan - these horrific fucking letters. I wasn't being OTT when I said I felt sick - I still feel sick about that stuff.

When you are knew to legal threats, and have no cash, it's horrific.

Booking him on this show - to talk about THIS - Jesus H Christ.

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Jacqueline's avatar

The more I hear about the toy company owners and the lawyers they have on their side, the less I ever, ever want to buy any of their products....and I see they're into other merch. So nope. Not for me!

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Stuart's avatar

Surely that's not just a coincidence that they booked him as a guest. I suspect Newshub knew your history with him and was hoping for fireworks.

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David Farrier's avatar

I honestly don't think they knew. I think they got him - as Dylan says below - by googling defamation lawyer. He's a slimeball (my honestly held opinion) so of course leapt at it.

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Dylan Reeve's avatar

He's literally the first Google result for "defamation lawyer auckland" -- make of that what you will when it comes to guest booking and research processes.

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Sander's avatar

hard to believe this is a coincidence.

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Val M's avatar

I guess they didn't bring up the case of Siouxie Wiles, who has been hideously - and openly - defamed? No-one is taking her defamers to court. But then she's a woman, she's got pink hair and she's not rich. Maybe that makes her persecution ok?

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David Farrier's avatar

Amazing how they just scrubbed those articles from the internet - the original piece, and HDPA Newstalk interview.

Just scrubbed.

No correction, no apology - just "This never existed!"

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KueenM's avatar

HDPA is the shittiest thing since Hosking. I no longer tune into that crap. But hey, they're celebrating being the "best" at radio awards...

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Downtown Brown's avatar

Allegedly

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Maryjane Francis's avatar

Of course -they think they can get away with it because they have more money, more power. Bad people protecting each other's a...s.

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Emma's avatar

That’s gross (allegedly). What an alleged dickhead. Those reviews were quite measured and included constructive criticism, no troll would go to that effort to write that way.

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David Farrier's avatar

The angle of the program blew me mind. I still don't know how this happened.

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Emma's avatar

It’s interesting that they would choose to err on the side of the billion dollar corporation.

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David Farrier's avatar

It's incredible how scared people are of legal action from the Mowbrays.

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Waldo's avatar

Not surprising unfortunately - I don't know the outlet personally as an Aussie but there's not enough journo's asking the questions that are hard to answer. Whether that's through fear, malaise, incompetence or a combination of all three, I'm not sure.

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Nicole's avatar

yeah, just watching this and it looks like a platform was given over completely to lawyerman. interviewer has not prepared to counter with anything, asks questions that assume legitimacy of dude's take, and is not really critical of any of the responses....

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Sarahsin's avatar

Alleged dickhead 😂

Love it, let’s get it on a t-shirt

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Amelia's avatar

The next webworm T 😂

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Emma's avatar

Haha I’d be so very proud

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Emma's avatar

For real though 🤣

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Jacqueline's avatar

Yes, I thought so too. This makes me very cross.

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Labradorial's avatar

Hey David - dropped you a note re: legal assistance last night. No reply needed, but help there if required - no charge :)

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David Farrier's avatar

Noted and hugely appreciated. I have your email aside.

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sarah reed's avatar

You are awesome!

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Plague Craig's avatar

Comfort the comfortable and afflict the afflicted, that's how it goes ay

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Kit's avatar

Feels like minimal editorial oversight at Newshub Nation. They saw there’s clicks in the story about Zuru, so needed to do a piece. What’s the angle? Who cares! Are we interested in the actual story and people affected? Not really. Any worries about being shills for a darling ‘NZ’ mega corp? Nope. Went to you first as a story OG - no go. Then shopped around and found a media savvy suit. Angle didn’t matter, just that there’s a video piece on t’the zuru story’ 😕

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David Farrier's avatar

This is a well researched show. Just the idea of siding with Zuru was insane to me. What?!

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Kit's avatar

If it’s well researched, then I can’t fathom how they could possibly sub in the lawyer for you? Seems like it would be a ying yang decision!

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Emma's avatar

I wonder if they had planned to have both on together to “debate”

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David Farrier's avatar

It would have been to counter me.

But yeah - you can't have that man on and not go "What about the time you were hired by a man to shut down journos work that time, and that other time"

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Kit's avatar

I ruled that out based on the thought that: a) no one would spring a debate on a guest, b) the extremely low chance of getting David to take part in a debate, particularly with some who’s threatened him (legally...) c) a debate wouldn’t make sense on this story given the (publicly available...) facts are minimal. But maybe I’m being too charitable!

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Emma's avatar

To give them the benefit of the doubt, I hope they wouldn’t spring a debate on a guess either!

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Emily's avatar

A company my husband worked with had a negative review on Glassdoor, they talked about how to handle it and came to the conclusion that a) you shouldn’t have so many disgruntled employees that you don’t know who wrote it and b) they needed to do what they could to make sure other employees weren’t feeling the same. NZ is a small enough place that if you’re dicks, people will know, you don’t need Glassdoor when there’s only two degrees of separation

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Roger Goodman's avatar

Word travels and shit sticks...!

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David Rees's avatar

Hey David, I hope you have a good antidote to the sick feeling - you have been swallowing mountains of crap lately e.g. Arise etc so I'm hoping you do something nice to wash it off your wairua. As for this latest exposure of yours it made me aware for the first time of both Glasshouse and the toy fascists. Newscrap continues to disappoint in terms of speaking truth to power and is just another sad example of the state of our MSM in Aotearoa NZ. Kia kaha as you keep on with your straight shooting on this topic 👏👍

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David Farrier's avatar

I take regular big hikes and gulp in fresh air, while trying to find nice dogs to pat. And I saw some deer run across the track the other day! So it's not all bad.

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Charlotte's avatar

NewsHub is a shadow of what Three News was. The way it platforms more and more right wing “commentators” makes me feel ill. A client of mine, who is trans, talked to NewsHub about what it’s like being trans in NZ (shit, basically). NH put it on their Facebook and then made NO effort whatsoever to moderate the horrific comments. They got my client to write a rebuttal to those comments, which they then didn’t post on their Facebook. The whole thing was disgustingly handled and I lost all faith in them.

Between them and Stuff, I have very little faith left in journalism in Aotearoa.

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David Farrier's avatar

A big part of why I won't write for other outlets is that even if you get an accurate headline and context, you will then be dumped on Facebook where ignorance just reigns down. Makes the whole exercise not worth it.

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sarah reed's avatar

100%

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rainbow brute's avatar

Oh that's awful - I feel for your friend being treated so shabbily

❤️

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Katie's avatar

I wish I could say this angle on the story surprised me, but I've gotten desensitized to these kinds of lazy "keyboard warrior" angles when it comes to anything even vaguely related to the internet. It's depressing. That's honestly the main reason I became a paid subscriber for Webworm - at least SOMEONE is still trying, and if an article here makes me sad or have an existential crisis, it's not because the research or writing was lazy and reductionist.

On a positive note, that's a very pretty crystal and I admit to getting distracted by it for a long time in the middle of reading this.

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David Farrier's avatar

It is so pretty, right? I really appreciate the support.

And yeah - anyone who says "keyboard warriors" you can pretty much just stop listening. It's like when people say "woke media".

You can kinda see where that conversation is gonna head.

I mean: POOR BILLION DOLLAR COMPANY ZURU HAVING SOME FORMER STAFF TALK BADLY ABOUT THEIR COMPANY".

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Katie's avatar

Gosh I just hope they’re able to overcome this terrible attack on their tiny local business!

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Roger Goodman's avatar

I too loved the crystal!!

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Janey's avatar

Sadly the billion dollar creeps showing off New Zealand to the world, all over the world, are the Dean Halls and his stupid gun violence filled videos( but hey he loves fast cars gotta make big money for those babies)then there’s the kiwi toy makers planting more tons of hideous plastic crap(oh sure so environmental!,)…I just wonder if the makers homes are littered with all that ugly plastic!!!?……takes guns on video screens for our youth and hideous plastic things for our babies!!! Oh yay for New Zealand!!!….sadly, the world is eating all that crap up as we drown in violence, guns and ugly plastic…

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Paula's avatar

First of all - David you're one awesome human, just want to lead with that. I actually used to enjoy watching Q&A and newshub nation every Sunday. Then trump got elected and I realised that all matter is merely energy Condensed to a slow vibration. That we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively. There is no such thing as death, life is but a dream, and we are the imagination of ourselves. Jk, that was young men on acid. Anyway I've slowly come to the realisation that there's no nuance anymore. People see a post (from a literal Russian troll) on their Facebook feed and parrot it back as TRUTH! Intelligent people have done this, there's no discrimination. I can only hope people see this shitty "journalism" on tele and dive a little deeper. I'm so tired, I honestly don't know how you do it! Rage though, that is cool, hope tiks aren't $500 😒

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David Farrier's avatar

Jack Tame does good work.

I am going to TRY and get to a RATM show at some point - but yes, I fear the cost. Seeing Nine Inch Nails next month - that will be a nice outlet for my rage :P

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Ani Tari's avatar

Stay strong

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Janey's avatar

Oops, got off on a bit of a tangent there…..that fella looks creepy to me anyway…..

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