It doesn't look as though there is going to be a reconciliation between Paul Henry and TVNZ any time soon - the Herald reports:
Former Breakfast host Paul Henry says TVNZ encouraged him to be provocative - but then treated him unreasonably when his on-air comments sparked a public backlash and led to his resignation.
Henry, breaking his silence to New Idea magazine, says he was "appalled" that New Zealand officially apologised after he ridiculed the name of senior Indian Government minister Sheila Dikshit.
He said he had nothing to be sorry about, despite the public uproar over that incident and another in which he questioned whether Governor-General Sir Anand Satyanand was "even a New Zealander". He felt TVNZ management had routinely encouraged him. "There was an acceptance of the entertainment value derived from the way I performed. They did capitalise on me.
"I was the performing snake with the sting in its tail. The better the performance, the greater the encouragement. And then when I turned around and bit someone's head off, they were happy to see the demise of the snake.
Henry is right about the speed with which TVNZ washed its corporate hands of him. The tide of media opinion became something of a tsunami, and faced with the prospect of a loss of advertising revenue, TVNZ enticed Henry to leave. As the ratings for the Henryless Beakfast continue to trend downwards, TVNZ must be wondering whether throwing Henry to the wolves was the right thing to do.
Given Henry's bitterness towards his former employer, it seems highly unlikely that he will return to the TVNZ fold any time soon, if ever. That is TVNZ's loss.
And as an aside, does anyone else see the irony in some of the media outlets who called for Paul Henry's head over the Dikshit Crisis speculating as to whether Pansy could see the difference between right and Wong?
4 comments:
Also irony in TVNZ apparently desirous to insert Paul "cheeky darkie" Holmes as a replacement!
They've slaughtered, plucked and cooked the goose who lay golden eggs for them. Love him or loathe him, Paul Henry was a revenue-generating machine, and TVNZ should have had more foresight on fiscal reasons alone, not to cave in so easily.
Pansy was brought up in shanghai moved to Hong Kong as a kid and went to university in Auckland. I wouldn't consider her a Kiwi I doubt she would too.
@ Jeremy - the closing comment was not intended to question whether or not Pansy is a Kiwi; it's more an observation as to the double standards of some media outlets who thouight that it was ok to parody her name, but that Paul Henry's similar parody was a hanging offence.
The word you are looking for in comparing Paul Henry's wordplay with the media's is not irony, it is hypocrisy.
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