Bennett Spam

It’s the story that won’t die – or, rather, won’t be allowed to die. For the fourth week in a row the Herald has run the non-story of Paula Bennett’s Daughter’s Partner’s gang-connections. Sorry, I almost broke out laughing as I was typing that. There is a scene in the Mel Brook’s sci-fi send up Spaceballs, where Dark Helmet (Darth Vader-like villain) says “I am your father’s mother’s brother’s cousin’s nephew’s college roommate!”. Lone Star (Hero-type) asks “What does that make us?”. Dark Helmet: “Absolutely nothing, which is what you are about to become”.

Just thought I’d share that. It is marginally more interesting than the Herald article.

A couple of posts ago, I was talking about Prison Fellowship. This story is the moral equivalent of hounding a Prison Fellowship volunteer because he is trying to help out a gang member. It has no news value. After all, we expected that Halaholo, a suspected member of a gang called “Thugs of Canal street”, will be a thug. And as far as a chance of rehabilitation goes, I would have thought there was no better place to be than Paula Bennett’s house. 

Stories like these are the spam of newsprint. Cheap sensationalist headlines (VIAGRA! CIALIS! YOU HAVE WON $10 MILLION DOLLARS!) followed by unmitigated crap. Only you can’t filter them. They are like the cat – always lying across the place where you want to read.

Oh – and a quick word to the Herald copyist, writer of spam headlines. There is no BENNETT CASE. There never was a Bennett case except in your fevered imagination.

Additional:

And, yes, the HoS carries another article, or rather the same article  - just redressed.

Spam, spam, spam, spam, Spaaaam, lovely spam, wonderful spam…

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