A Quick Sean Plunket FAQ

How did Sean Plunket respond? What's next?

Hi,

Just a quick update after yesterday’s newsletter, How Michael Organ Weaponised the Family Court... and Sean Plunket.

First up — wow. Thanks for all the support, and to all those who shared their own personal stories in the comments. And welcome to any new Webworm readers.

I just wanted to do a quick FAQ for those interested.

Why is Sean Plunket so mad at me?

Probably because of my reporting on him in the past here on Webworm, in regards to his old job on the radio.

I also just think I represent ideas that he doesn’t like.

How did Sean react to the piece?

Sean Plunket is the Tucker Carlson of New Zealand, so he reacted as you’d expect:

Let’s break it down.

It’s an unusual take on things, that’s for sure. The thing he seems to be grasping onto is that the court documents he spread were real. As in — the case existed. That is Sean’s hill to die on.

I imagine he wants his readers to assume that the facts of the case were also real: to conflate the existence of the case with the accuracy of the case. That the case got thrown out doesn’t play into this narrative.

My thoughts on this?

If Sean is proud that he took the bait from a convicted conman (Michael Organ) to spread a Family Court case around for him, then — okay?

If that is what journalism is to him — good luck I guess?

A weird place for him to land, but OK.

The replies to his tweet are largely just telling him how cooked his take is — even his passionate conspiracy crowd of normally loud followers are strangely silent.

I did like this reply in particular:

As to why I blocked him?

I did this ages ago because horrible.

Where is the defamation case I am absolutely going to take against him?

This confusion is on me. Back when I was promoting Mister Organ in New Zealand, radio host Tova O’Brien asked me if I was going to take action against Sean.

I answered along the lines of “YES!”

The issue was that we’d just been talking about the existence of the Family Court case. It was about 6am in the morning, and by the time we were talking about taking action against Sean, my brain was still thinking about the Family Court case and getting it dismissed.

My “YES” was about fighting that Family Court case. Not taking a defamation case out against Sean Plunket.

Defamation cases take time and money — time and money that I don’t have.

Sean Plunket is backed by a multi-millionaire. I am not.

Plus — he’s sort of a waste of space and I don’t need to think about him. He’s disgusting.

What happens now?

As Sue asked, “Surely Sean Plunket can be punished for breaking the Family Court suppression orders?”

Sean said “Nah”.

“Nah” isn’t exactly accurate in this case.

For one thing, Sean did break suppression orders by uploading court documents that didn’t actually have names redacted.

As I stated in my piece: “They’d been redacted with an old-school felt tip pen, and Twitter users quickly dragged them into photoshop and saw who was involved.”

It’s now up to the Ministry of Justice if they give a fuck. That is up to them, not me.

I hope this clears some things up. As always — thanks for reading!

David.