Pebbles Hooper has the grace to resign from the NZ Herald

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The one good thing that has come out of Pebbles Hooper’s jaw droopingly offensive and foul comments is that she has at least shown the good grace to resign from the NZ Herald, something Rachel Glucina and Bob Jones hasn’t done.

Rachel ‘took up a job’ with TV3 after the Herald was tipped off to how badly the Press Council report would damn them and Bob Jones didn’t even apologise after he published a snuff column where he gleefully informed NZ that he had goaded a protestor into committing suicide.

What is it about the NZ Herald and hate mongering commentators who seem to delight in attacking the weakest members of society with such glee? Has the NZ Herald become such an unbalanced hate rag that they can’t even see how repugnant their views are?

 

17 COMMENTS

  1. A good book for Pebbles Hooper to catch up with would be ‘The Red Queen’ by Matt Ridley. The Red Queen theory, which is gaining traction in evolutionary theory, refers to the story in ‘Through the Looking Glass’ of the Red Queen character Alice meets in a running race. No matter how fast they all run, the landscape appears to catch up with them. Alice puzzles,” I wonder if all the things move along with us?” In this idea progress is merely relative. Applying this idea to sexual evolution, we evolved into sexual beings in order to escape parasites.
    Nothing like a good book on evolutionary theory to dispel the curious fantasies and spurious notions of social Darwinism.

    • @archonblatter: Matt Ridley’s good, isn’t he! I read him at uni, “The Origins of Virtue” first, then “The Red Queen”. We had an entertaining time arguing the toss over his theories, and picking holes in them. I think he’d be a bit of a stretch for a socialite, though.

  2. In answer to your opening question: Because it makes them feel good to denigrate others who they regard as their social inferiors. There is an old-fashioned word for such people: bullies.

  3. What is it about the NZ Herald that there is a sort of apology about Hooper’s behaviour but (as far as I know) nothing similar yet about the behaviour of Glucina?

    • @ Pete – No apology from NZH, because Glucina is on FJK’s list of phone contacts and vice versa I’d say.

      And NZH is under the control (possibly also in the pocket) of FJK!

  4. Are you sure Bob Jones did not just make up on the spot that protester suicide story? He loves to goad, and I am sure some of his other stories are invented… If the story were true, I too would be horrified. But I assumed he made it up like so much else of what he writes.

  5. Ok, she’s done the right thing… for now.

    In a part of my mind, I *shock, horror* have a small degree of wistful sympathy for Ms Hooper. (No, not for what she said – that was repugnant beyond belief.)

    My sympathy is based on the premise of youthful stupidity.

    I’ve had my own “youthful indiscretion” which caught up with me a few years ago.

    I didn’t do hard drugs (the occassional toke was about the extent of my venturing into the realm of illicit substances).

    I binge-drank until a final event around Christmas 1985 made me do some very fast growing up. (No, not drunk driving – that is one taboo I’ve had the common sense never to attempt.)

    I could do stuff with my little Mini 1100 that was later featured in the cult movie, ‘Goodbye Pork Pie’. (Hey, I was in my early twenties – and young people are indestructible to Kryptonian-level, as we believed ourselves to be.)

    I was a cad with women. (Though I loved and lost a few in the process.)

    It wasn’t until my late twenties, with the anchoring of a good woman who came into my life, that I began to settle down, mature, and realise that just ‘cos I could do or say a thing, didn’t necessary mean it was automatically a Good Idea.

    My politics changed with me as I matured into my thirties. My views softened. The world was not so much black and white (Gosman, take note), as 99% shades of grey, with a sprinkling of other rainbow colours…

    I associated with other people. More mature people. A wider cross-section of humanity.

    In short, it took a while, but I grew up. (Most of the time.)

    Ms Hooper’s life is ahead of her and whilst she has made a horrendous mistake that will be long remembered, she can (and hopefully will) learn from this experience.

    Lesson 1: How would I feel if I were in that person’s position. Think deeply about that. It’s called empathy.

    Lesson 2: Just because you can say a Thing, doesn’t mean you should. Yes, free speech exists – but others can use that same right to free speech to express their thoughts and feelings. And the feedback you get may not be pleasant. Free speech cuts both ways.

    Lesson 3: Your coffee may be black or white, but the human condition is not. Ms Hooper may not understand this now. But she will by the time she is 50 or 60. One hopes.

    Lesson 4: Shit happens. (No, I don’t like that cliche either.) In other words, people make mistakes. Only gods, cyborgs, supermen, and superwomen do not. I suspect Ms Hooper is none of these, so she herself may make the odd mistake now and then. Just like she did yesterday, on Twitter. Think twice; thrice; more times, before passing judgement. Remember, that judgementalism cuts both ways, Ms Hooper.

    Lesson 5: More like advice. Ms Hooper should surround herself with other, more diverse people. Those with the same mind-set as hers may not be good for her personal growth.

    Just as when I was a pratty, right-wing, know-it-all, teenager, who could easily have been a member of ACT On Campus – I associated with a young chap who made me question my assumptions; Mark Davies, the son of trade unionist, Sonja Davies.

    Mark was a communist (Soviet-aligned); staunch trade unionist; and anti-American, and we had the most heated, passionate arguments. Boy, he made me think. (I was grief-stricken when Sonja told me, many years later, that Mark had been killed in an industrial workplace accident.)

    This will pass, Ms Hooper. But it depends what you do with this ‘stumble’ in your life, that makes it worthwhile as a learning experience.

    I hope you make the most of it.

    • Well said, Frank. She’s done the decent thing and fallen on her sword, and she’s been very publicly skewered. She appears contrite and will hopefully file away this entire regrettable series of events as a learning experience.

      Everyone’s been an ignorant muppet at some point in their life. (God knows, I have.) All you can do is acknowledge your momentary lapse of reason, and hope to do better next time.

    • She fell on her poisonous pen. She has deleted her Twitter account. Her second apology did not appear as scripted ad her first.
      All good!

      I too feel for her. I hope she has friends & family that can demonstrate empathy. However….
      Yes, I made mistakes & some ‘interesting’ life choices in my teens. My main memory of these choices is that most of the damage & havoc wreaked was on myself. It wasn’t a repeated tirade against those less privledged.

      I am not so inclined to infanticile her behavior. Hooper is a woman in her mid twenties, not a confused teenager succumbing to peer pressure. She is not a child.

      Resigning is a mature response but actions speak louder than words. I’m sceptical. I tend to think she is taking a break & waiting for the dust to settle as opposed to being forced into some epiphany resulting in her deciding to ditch the importance of slagging other women’s dresses in favour of a more meaningful discourse.
      I hope I’m wrong.

    • Frank you are being un-realistic.

      She didn’t have the grace to leave… She would have been booted out…

      You can’t say something like that and continue to work for the herald… Its not in their interests to keep her on…

      And when you say for her to surround herself in better people… Look at who she is today… She is how she is, because of the life that she has been given… A selfish screwed up senseless shithead like her will not grow up and cannot understand or even think about someone else and what they may have to go through…

      Overall, good advice but its for no one.

  6. Here’s my ethical dilemma with this. Instinctively her comment got my back up. But on the other hand the gist of what she said was right in that leaving your car running in a close spaced attached to your house was an incredibly stupid thing to do – even criminally stupid. I have no sympathy with her resigning. But do have sympathy with her in that she wasn’t able to express the gist of what she meant in a way that was a bit more sensitive. Maybe something like “If there’s anything to learn from this tragedy, …”

  7. Our Society made these people who see problems in others but not themselves. I say society and not culture because their are protocols in culture but society rules itself. They are paid therefore they are employed…Our government promotes criminal justice not Social Justice therefore they are free to cause harm but are not accountable.
    Maybe we as citizens should choose more wisely who to spend money on, thank goodness I don’t waste a cent on main stream media.

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