Cameron Slater as the 4th Journalist of the Apocalypse - why I resigned from Truth

"Dare I say it, Bomber has resigned from The Truth = Slater has improved the MSM already"

That was Jane Clifton's tweet yesterday. For all those years on top of Murray McCully, I would have expected something funnier.

When Joe Lose and I first spoke in April about doing a left wing-right wing column in the revamp of The Truth once he became editor, I first suggested to him getting Slater on board. My hope was that some honest money in Slater's pocket would end his reliance on evil PR spin doctors that saw him breach so many ethical standards when he published the personal work employment history of a wharf worker who had the temerity to protest against his employer.

Slater's email response to me on April 13th to the idea was his usual caustic self...

When I say get fucked, I mean get fucked.

...charmer isn't he? As I understand it, Slater went on to make veiled threats to the editor about going over his head to the owner to have me dumped in preference of himself.

Looks like he has kept his word.

I shouldn't have been surprised I suppose, Slater had one month earlier sent me a slightly bizarre email making all sorts of threats about line crossing based on some self created hysterical reading of his depression in words of mine critical of his delusion to use his condition as an excuse while attacking people.

I had called him the wolf that cries boy when he does that. Apparently that was enough to have 'crossed the line'.

Working alongside Cam is one thing, working for him requires far too many decontamination showers. I couldn't work for a man who purposely promoted an interview with Jim Anderton that was edited on purpose to look like Jim had said an earthquake would be the only thing that could cost him the election. I couldn't work for a man who was calling for Cornelius Arie Smith to be gut shot for looting before his Aspergers was made public. I couldn't work for a man with such a hysterical hatred of Unions that he willingly published the personal details of an employee to point score.

Oh and let's not forget his claim that Chris Carter's decade old dead mother was using a taxpayer funded cell phone.

No, I couldn't work for Christian Family man and gun fetishist Cameron Slater. He's not a journalist, he's a far right hate merchant whose blog borders on hate speech. He fluffs his page view numbers with biblical quotes and gun porn while waving his proGay marriage flag around to hold the high ground on an issue more to confound and blunt his opponents attacks on him than any real personal values of equality.

So once I heard he had gerrymandered his ascension to editor, I decided to leave. So did Ross Meurant.

That's a personal choice, no reflection on what Joe Lose had tried to do to restart the paper. As one of NZs only independent newspapers for 125 years, The Truth's overwhelmingly blue collar male 30+ audience are the exact readers Labour and the left should be appealing to. Joe was doing an amazing job of bringing some real issues to the table for his readers during his time as editor. His desire to appeal to his readers better angels was admirable, but apparently not enough, which leads to Slater as editor.

Will it work?

It'll be more popular than Mary Poppins musical tickets for single women in their 30s. What many of the detractors on the Standard fail to appreciate is that Slater is one of the best propagandists in NZ today. His ability to twist issues and appeal to people's worst natures while pretending to be their best nature is an art that he is the undisputed king of.

He will make the Truth relevant again, he'll slice through the MSM with a laser. He'll make them look tired and irrelevant, Slater will weaponize that newspaper and start a very unique movement.

You have to hand it to the Crows, those boys like to make money and in Slater they have found an editor who will manage to whip the NZ public up with all the speed of a Don Brash Orewa speech. He will take their 16 000 circulation and boost that with a 24 hour online news presence to dizzying heights.

He will have an impact as corrosive as Satan's sperm and it will surprise many how successful he will be. Expect vicious personalized attacks, union bashing, Maori bashing, leftie bashing, pro gun nonsense, worship of Judith Collins, climate change denial, etc etc etc, he will inject a toxin into the public discourse that will be as addictive as it is destructive.

When Mike Hosking can get away with such blatant racism on ZB to an educated audience, imagine what Slater can do with an uneducated one?

The only thing that could trip Slater up is the fine line of defamation. Online bloggers can get away with a lot, in a newspaper the law is far more crushing. If Slater can manage to remain as editor until 2014, you would have to say Key had a better chance of winning. By then, Slater will have generated a reader base both vast and ugly. If he can't control himself however, he will end the Truth in one hell of a defamation case.

The Standard write Slater off as a joke, I think that is a terrible under-appraisal of the rampage he can now cause. Fascinating times ahead.

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