(It’s taken me a while to get around to this one.) On October 25, on page A13 (thus squarely in the news pages, right above ‘Petrol theft gang leader jailed’), the DomPost published a profile of Valerie Morse.
Valerie Morse is heavily involved a large number of protest/activism groups in Wellington. Most recently, she appeared in the news as spokesperson for Peace Action Wellington which opposed the arms conference at Te Papa.
The title of the article is Doth she protest too much?, which signals some of what is to come. Check out sentence four in the article:
“Kia ora,” she says, answering the phone in a syrupy American accent.”
Syrupy? Syrupy? The contempt just drips off the page. But look a bit deeper – what is the reason for this sentence? Why is it there? How many other profiles quote the person answering the phone? No, clearly we are meant to draw some conclusions from this. She’s effectively American, and she answers the phone with Kia Ora – that puts her in the negative categories of ‘interfering foreigner’ and also ‘politically correct do-gooder’. These categories are invoked beneath the surface of the text and colour everything that follows.
And. incredibly, that kia ora is is the only direct quote from Morse in the entire article.*
It gets even more amazing later on:
She is what is known in the wider world as a rent-a-protester and what is known in journalism as a rent-a-quote: she will talk and be photographed every time, naked or clothed.
But last week she would not talk about how she makes a living, or whether her pay packet consists solely of payments from organisations funded by government grants.
This ties in to an earlier mention that her Masters thesis was paid for by a government grant. Clearly the intent is to put Morse in the category of “living at taxpayer’s expense”, much like the hated dole bludger.
In the whole article, headlined as it is, and with the rent-a-protestor bit given boxout treatment to draw the eye, Morse is given precisely 13 words** in which to defend herself:
Her response is that her passions are all joined by a common struggle against domination and power.
Naturally, this rather sensible explanation is buried in the second half of the article and never referred to again.
Think what you will of Morse’s causes, and her behaviour in championing them, but this article is nothing but an outright personal attack. And, I reiterate, on the news pages, right above “Petrol theft gang leader jailed’.
Incredible.
* Well, there is the sentence She would say only that she worked with a number of “community collectives”, and technically that is a direct quote. But, come on.
** By comparison, a police inspector who sees her at protests gets about three times as much space to talk about her.
