Extended copy of a letter sent to Marketplace for the issue published on the 22nd of October 2008:
Thank you for being the only true newspaper on the island. Your story last week on the application to the Local Government Commission (LGC) to move the Hauraki Gulf Islands from Auckland City Council to Thames-Coromandel District Council was accurate and impartial. You were careful to be the unbiased eyes and ears of the community.
Would that the island's other publications had the same integrity, and skill. You obviously are now Waiheke's pre-eminent newspaper.
It's just as well there's no referendum in this boundary-change process, because islanders have been so misled and misinformed that a free and fair election would be impossible. The real issue--that this is all about getting good local government--has been ignored and buried. So has the proof. Ditto the fact that this is a strict legal process, which must be decided under the heading of good local government, it is not a game for political idealogues and biased, shallow-minded 'journalists.'
For the application to the LGC, the other two Waiheke publications are guilty of being viewspapers not newspapers--Wicked & Weak has carried on a malignant campaign, and Gulf News' editor has run 'news' stories that were actually biased, unanalytical editorials in disguise. Neither wants to be the eyes and ears of the community; they want to be its brain, telling it what to think.
Waiheke Island, New Zealand
Waiheke from the west (the end nearest Auckland)
About Me
- Nobilangelo
- My Christian name is pronounced 'noble-arn-jillo' (i.e., both o's are long, so the first two syllables rhyme with 'noble' not 'hobble'--yes, I know that's obvious, because there's only one 'b' between the 'o' and the 'i', but some people seem to see two b's, hence the English lesson). My surname is pronounced kerra-marliss. I was born, bred and educated in New Zealand, except for an international systems-engineer's course in San Antonio, Texas. I am born-again Christian, a thinker with a very practical turn of mind, a scientist with a particular interest in planet-friendly energy and neuroscience, an engineer (mechanical, industrial and IT systems), an inventor, a Member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a writer and poet, a naturist, a designer in different fields, an arranger and composer of symphonic music, a multi-award-winning IT journalist, a photographer, and a practitioner at various times in other hands-on fields including building, metalwork, woodwork, stained-glass and landscaping.