Lynley Hood
PO Box 2041
South Dunedin
Broadcasting Standards Complaint
Edwards at Large - 16 August 2003
[Appendix 2]
Viewers Comments on Edwards at Large
- 16 August 2003
Keith Harrison, Otago Daily Times
television reviewer (ODT 19 Aug 03):
“Edwards was openly partisan and engaged in a
very slick denigration of Hood’s book, her methods and her research. His robust
defence of maintaining the status quo was cleverly administered, picking on
aspects of her argument which were easily ridiculed and giving her, a
thoughtful woman careful in her choice of words, less than adequate time to
reply. It was, in essence, a clever piece of spin doctoring which underlined
the determination of the Minister of Justice and Cabinet to take no action. Edwards final interview with Act MP Rodney Hide was totally
different. He dropped the hectoring, sneering tone...”
Comments on nz.general
& nz.politics (16-24 Aug 03):
“After watching the Prime Minister's poisonous "media adviser" trying
to unsettle the superior Lynley Hood in his "pedestrian harassment,
suggestive comment and light chat" TV programme, this writer sat down and
penned the following epistle.....
Dear Dr Edwards,
After your zealously playing devil's advocate in your interview with Lynley
Hood tonight, will you now have the
inert Minister of Justice, Mr Goff, on your programme as well? And will you be as hostile toward him as you
were to Ms Hood?”
“Managed to watch the appallingly bad "Edwards at Large" show for the
first time last night, and even tho I expected it to be bad, I was still
surprised at how low standards have fallen at TVNZ... As for his attempted
hatchet job on Linley Hood, it made me wonder if Phil
Goff had written the script. Not caring about any of the more substantial
aspects of the case, Edwards rabbited embarrassingly on about
“Edwards need to go. Quickly.
(And not just for his appalling interview with Hood)”
“I agree. I was appalled at Edwards treatment of Linly Hood. I actually only watched it to see the joust
between Edwards and Hide. It is not hard for an experienced interviewer to
rattle an interviewee who is not used to speaking on television. Interestingly
I took Edward's book out of the library recently on what to do if you are asked
for an interview by the media. I can only say he should have read his own book
before the Hood interview. Edwards correctly pointed out in his book that there
are two types of interview, one where the interviewer is trying to solicit
information and one where the interviewer is pushing his/her own ego by
demolishing interviewees. He appears to have fallen for his own ego trap Hide
was right when he said the public might have a perception of favouritism in
granting public money to a man who is close to the prime minister and other
ministers.”
“Liny Wood might not have TV experience, and probably didn't expect to be
attacked over every little detail, but it's clear that the only one that made a
fool of themselves during the interview was Edwards himself. From the posts here about it, it's obvious
that most people feel the same.”
“Edwards wanted Linly Hood to admit on national TV
that she didn't know a thing about what Ellis did. He kept trying to push her completely away
from her own findings and beliefs about the case ... at least most of the
country doesn't think much of the fool after last night's pathetic performance.”
“Agree 100% It's
a pity Linley Hood is such a nice person she does
know how to deal to him...His stupid comment "You were not at the trials so
you can't investigate it" really riles me. Cops are not normally at the
scene of a murder, so can't investigate it??? Air accident investigators are
never at the scene of the crash, so can't investigate it??? What an Irish prat.”
“His attempts to show hood up as biased backfired, and instead made him
look biased, maybe he had been put up to
this?”