I note Mr Murphy has responded here on his website and apparently to my blog, however as I am not home I cannot check blogger. When I can I will reproduce Mr Murphy’s response.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/opinion/news/article.cf...

The issue is of course I have seen the email forwarded to contributors and others on staff headed “Suggested guidelines to limit defamation proceedings” and it states very clearly it was from Sydney HQ.

If “They are not publisher instructions or editor directives” then I wonder what they actually were?

Any “mish-mash” (that Mr Murphy calls it) created therefore was directly from Sydney’s own HQ. I have reproduced the content of the email in full on my blog post with my comments under each section.

There was not 66 pages of “media law training” on that email which was why I did not produce any more of it. I have not seen such a document.

As I cannot reproduce in Scribd the two emails I have been forwarded without revealing the identity of those staffers and the other one with a narrative of what has happened, then it is a case of the reader can make up their own minds.

Added to this the attachment to one of the emails I was sent was delightfully termed “prepublication vetting.doc”. I have now just been forwarded the same email that has made its way around a PR company. Clearly news travels fast in Auckland and Wellington.

Either 3 people (2 very senior journalist figures) have lied to me and fabricated the entire story. Or Tim Murphy is spinning like Whale oil says – faster than the Indian Cricket team.

The Herald seems to be taking a backward step more in line with the old NZBC, who published only sanitised news the political masters deemed suitable.

It might be a threat to our democracy in the short term, but longer term surely this is an opportunity to find a real democracy.