1 00:00:00,040 --> 00:00:01,880 Speaker 1: Well, the long and waited book on your Cindra Doing 2 00:00:01,960 --> 00:00:04,320 Speaker 1: by David Cohen is about to be available, a lot 3 00:00:04,320 --> 00:00:06,040 Speaker 1: of interviews, a lot of insight, and perhaps of you 4 00:00:06,160 --> 00:00:08,520 Speaker 1: that isn't quite as tarnished as the various efforts that 5 00:00:08,600 --> 00:00:11,720 Speaker 1: have been produced so far. Anyway, author David Cohen is 6 00:00:11,760 --> 00:00:13,000 Speaker 1: with us. Very good morning to you. 7 00:00:14,160 --> 00:00:15,960 Speaker 2: Okay, Mike, how are you very well? 8 00:00:16,000 --> 00:00:17,760 Speaker 1: As an exercise, did you enjoy it? 9 00:00:20,760 --> 00:00:30,160 Speaker 2: No? I didn't. I was trepidacious. It was a difficult subject. 10 00:00:30,360 --> 00:00:36,280 Speaker 2: I'm familiar with doing cookbooks or books about music. This 11 00:00:36,320 --> 00:00:38,720 Speaker 2: is the sort of area where you one tends to 12 00:00:38,760 --> 00:00:43,600 Speaker 2: get very good notices. People like what you do. Politics 13 00:00:43,640 --> 00:00:48,519 Speaker 2: is the mine field. So when I say I didn't 14 00:00:48,640 --> 00:00:51,879 Speaker 2: enjoy it, what I meant to say, obviously is that 15 00:00:52,280 --> 00:00:54,280 Speaker 2: this was more challenging. 16 00:00:54,760 --> 00:00:59,279 Speaker 1: The seed of an idea came from where why tackle it? 17 00:00:59,280 --> 00:01:04,039 Speaker 2: It came about fourteen years ago. That was the first 18 00:01:04,040 --> 00:01:06,800 Speaker 2: time I met, in fact, the last time I met, 19 00:01:06,880 --> 00:01:10,360 Speaker 2: Just Cinder. We shared a stage at the Auckland War 20 00:01:10,560 --> 00:01:15,120 Speaker 2: Memorial Museum and we went back and forth. That was 21 00:01:15,160 --> 00:01:20,880 Speaker 2: with my old sparring part Russell Brown. We bickered about 22 00:01:20,959 --> 00:01:24,319 Speaker 2: things her a little to the left me a little 23 00:01:24,360 --> 00:01:28,840 Speaker 2: to the other side, and I came away intrigued by 24 00:01:29,280 --> 00:01:33,360 Speaker 2: this young politician. She was thirty or thirty one at 25 00:01:33,360 --> 00:01:39,560 Speaker 2: the time, and so I began tracking her movements, and then, 26 00:01:39,600 --> 00:01:45,039 Speaker 2: of course about five million of us followed suit. In 27 00:01:45,120 --> 00:01:48,600 Speaker 2: terms of the writing an actual book. Probably about two 28 00:01:48,680 --> 00:01:54,200 Speaker 2: years ago, I thought, you have to the ancient Greek said, 29 00:01:54,360 --> 00:01:57,720 Speaker 2: count no man lest to be dead. Just cinder our 30 00:01:57,800 --> 00:02:02,000 Speaker 2: journe isn't dead, of course, but political career in New Zealand, 31 00:02:02,480 --> 00:02:07,640 Speaker 2: not internationally, is over. So we can start to assess 32 00:02:07,920 --> 00:02:09,679 Speaker 2: what went wrong and what went right? 33 00:02:09,960 --> 00:02:13,520 Speaker 1: Have you assessed in your mind, hand on heart fairly 34 00:02:13,840 --> 00:02:18,000 Speaker 1: or did you enter this project a fan or an adversary. 35 00:02:19,680 --> 00:02:23,680 Speaker 2: I entered the project as someone who was Can we 36 00:02:23,800 --> 00:02:27,200 Speaker 2: use the term non binary? And I mean that politically. 37 00:02:29,120 --> 00:02:33,280 Speaker 2: I think one of the great tragedies of recent years 38 00:02:34,400 --> 00:02:38,840 Speaker 2: is that we live in an era of the politics 39 00:02:38,840 --> 00:02:44,640 Speaker 2: of emotion. You either love someone or you hate them, 40 00:02:45,600 --> 00:02:49,720 Speaker 2: and Jacinta played into that with her politics of kindness. 41 00:02:49,800 --> 00:02:55,079 Speaker 2: To some degree. I'm an old fashioned journalist. I started 42 00:02:55,080 --> 00:02:58,720 Speaker 2: out in this trade when back when dinosaurs were in 43 00:02:58,760 --> 00:03:05,040 Speaker 2: the earth. One of our guiding ideas and junctions was 44 00:03:05,680 --> 00:03:09,800 Speaker 2: to tell the other side. So it's actually not a 45 00:03:09,840 --> 00:03:13,079 Speaker 2: matter of whether I like her or I don't. But 46 00:03:13,600 --> 00:03:18,480 Speaker 2: the truth is I could say yes to both questions 47 00:03:18,560 --> 00:03:22,680 Speaker 2: and no to both questions. Journalistically, it was important to 48 00:03:22,680 --> 00:03:23,040 Speaker 2: do this. 49 00:03:23,960 --> 00:03:28,400 Speaker 1: The one hundred interviews just before women clarity Sake, I 50 00:03:28,480 --> 00:03:31,320 Speaker 1: took part, including you. Yes, I took part. And so 51 00:03:31,480 --> 00:03:34,240 Speaker 1: what interested me is I set aside forty five minutes. 52 00:03:34,240 --> 00:03:36,280 Speaker 1: I stuck to my forty five minutes, and she was keen. 53 00:03:36,320 --> 00:03:39,440 Speaker 1: Your researcher, Rebecca Keeler, was king to go longer. So 54 00:03:39,480 --> 00:03:41,440 Speaker 1: by the time you do me a hundred times over, 55 00:03:42,200 --> 00:03:45,240 Speaker 1: raud knows how much material you had. How'd you edit it? 56 00:03:46,280 --> 00:03:49,920 Speaker 2: We had about four hundred thousand words worth of transcripts, 57 00:03:51,080 --> 00:03:56,960 Speaker 2: So that's the Bible a number of times over. I imagine. 58 00:03:57,440 --> 00:04:03,280 Speaker 2: I looked for broad themes. One of the important things 59 00:04:03,440 --> 00:04:09,680 Speaker 2: was balance. There's a very intelligent review in the latest Listener. 60 00:04:09,760 --> 00:04:16,320 Speaker 2: It's not entirely complementary, but it's not condemnatory either, bemoaning 61 00:04:16,400 --> 00:04:23,479 Speaker 2: the absence of a number of left of center voices 62 00:04:24,200 --> 00:04:26,800 Speaker 2: in people. But God knows, we tried. 63 00:04:27,240 --> 00:04:29,480 Speaker 1: Right, and so what was the problem there? They didn't 64 00:04:29,480 --> 00:04:32,359 Speaker 1: want to say anything, or they the anonymity or what 65 00:04:32,520 --> 00:04:35,400 Speaker 1: was it. 66 00:04:35,800 --> 00:04:38,719 Speaker 2: Some of them had works in progress, like Grant Robertson, 67 00:04:40,640 --> 00:04:45,760 Speaker 2: So there was that there were probably a number who 68 00:04:46,279 --> 00:04:49,040 Speaker 2: were not sold on the idea of a project that 69 00:04:49,200 --> 00:04:54,120 Speaker 2: could be anything less than glittering in its estimation of 70 00:04:54,160 --> 00:04:59,919 Speaker 2: the subject. And then there were I suppose labor party 71 00:05:00,040 --> 00:05:05,520 Speaker 2: comrades can we still use that word, who just were 72 00:05:05,560 --> 00:05:10,640 Speaker 2: a little tremulous when it went going there that said, 73 00:05:12,360 --> 00:05:15,080 Speaker 2: it's not as if the exercise lacks for such. 74 00:05:14,960 --> 00:05:17,880 Speaker 1: Pot for no, indeed not. But could I also sueduce 75 00:05:17,960 --> 00:05:19,440 Speaker 1: part of it might be that a lot of people 76 00:05:19,480 --> 00:05:21,120 Speaker 1: woke up, a lot of people who were, to put 77 00:05:21,120 --> 00:05:22,840 Speaker 1: it bluntly, and you know my view as part of 78 00:05:22,880 --> 00:05:25,280 Speaker 1: the book, a lot of people who bluntly got sucked 79 00:05:25,279 --> 00:05:28,320 Speaker 1: in at the time have worked out the cold, hard reality. 80 00:05:28,440 --> 00:05:30,960 Speaker 1: So what they might have once said, they no longer say, 81 00:05:30,960 --> 00:05:33,600 Speaker 1: and therefore don't want to deal with the embarrassment of 82 00:05:33,640 --> 00:05:33,880 Speaker 1: it all. 83 00:05:35,279 --> 00:05:38,560 Speaker 2: I suppose there could be something in that. I haven't 84 00:05:38,600 --> 00:05:44,880 Speaker 2: really thought that one through sufficiently, But yeah, it's extraordinarily 85 00:05:44,920 --> 00:05:47,440 Speaker 2: difficult for any of us to admit that we got 86 00:05:47,440 --> 00:05:53,520 Speaker 2: something so fundamentally wrong. We'd be like an epidemiologists jumping 87 00:05:53,600 --> 00:05:56,359 Speaker 2: up today and saying, you know, all the stuff about 88 00:05:56,440 --> 00:05:59,840 Speaker 2: COVID from surfaces, we completely blew that one. 89 00:06:00,560 --> 00:06:02,960 Speaker 1: Yeah, well, maybe that's the next book actually does what 90 00:06:03,440 --> 00:06:06,479 Speaker 1: you can explain, because you already suggested you're the old 91 00:06:06,520 --> 00:06:09,160 Speaker 1: style journalist, you're a journalist of many years standing. Explain 92 00:06:09,279 --> 00:06:12,760 Speaker 1: to me in the best way you can what happened 93 00:06:12,800 --> 00:06:16,279 Speaker 1: to the media during the Don years, the AI thing 94 00:06:16,320 --> 00:06:20,160 Speaker 1: on stuff, stories, the favorability, the coverage, et cetera. Explain 95 00:06:20,320 --> 00:06:23,440 Speaker 1: how so many people got so sucked. 96 00:06:23,160 --> 00:06:30,640 Speaker 2: In I think the industry. There were honorable exceptions, but 97 00:06:30,720 --> 00:06:33,719 Speaker 2: if they were to use a cliche, it was following 98 00:06:33,760 --> 00:06:39,840 Speaker 2: the money at that point. It was government largess, which 99 00:06:39,880 --> 00:06:42,520 Speaker 2: I think was called for. You and I probably would 100 00:06:42,520 --> 00:06:48,520 Speaker 2: disagree on that, but possibly we would agree on the 101 00:06:48,640 --> 00:06:52,279 Speaker 2: fact that a lot of that support the Journalism Fund 102 00:06:52,320 --> 00:06:59,080 Speaker 2: Public Interests Journalism Fund was predicated on signing off on 103 00:07:00,080 --> 00:07:09,159 Speaker 2: in favor of an extraordinarily controversial government policy, and that 104 00:07:09,560 --> 00:07:14,960 Speaker 2: the seeds of undoing were embedded in that it did 105 00:07:15,000 --> 00:07:18,360 Speaker 2: not serve the industry, well, it didn't serve journalism. Well, 106 00:07:18,400 --> 00:07:22,920 Speaker 2: it certainly didn't serve the consumers of journalism. 107 00:07:22,960 --> 00:07:26,880 Speaker 1: Well, and I would argue that the media, and this 108 00:07:26,960 --> 00:07:28,920 Speaker 1: is also global, not there's got anything to do with 109 00:07:29,080 --> 00:07:31,360 Speaker 1: yindrod In specifically, but I would also argue the media 110 00:07:31,400 --> 00:07:33,400 Speaker 1: has never recovered in terms of credibility in the eyes 111 00:07:33,400 --> 00:07:34,600 Speaker 1: of the public. Would that be fair? 112 00:07:35,880 --> 00:07:40,840 Speaker 2: According to the Massi University Worlds of Journalism survey, the 113 00:07:40,960 --> 00:07:45,040 Speaker 2: latest one, the fall in New Zealand is more has 114 00:07:45,120 --> 00:07:52,120 Speaker 2: been more precipitous than most other comparable countries. So something 115 00:07:52,720 --> 00:07:56,920 Speaker 2: in addition to technology, social media and all the rest 116 00:07:57,000 --> 00:08:01,080 Speaker 2: of it has taking place here. Think that it was 117 00:08:01,240 --> 00:08:07,520 Speaker 2: the the the the bad fit, the corrosive effect of 118 00:08:08,160 --> 00:08:12,320 Speaker 2: what ostensibly was a good idea, but it was terribly 119 00:08:12,360 --> 00:08:16,960 Speaker 2: administered or artfully administered, and it did our business. 120 00:08:17,040 --> 00:08:21,760 Speaker 1: Note so here's here's the key, Here's here's the question. 121 00:08:21,880 --> 00:08:24,240 Speaker 1: I came to a conclusion eventually, but for a lot 122 00:08:24,280 --> 00:08:26,800 Speaker 1: of the period I would ask myself and I asked 123 00:08:26,800 --> 00:08:28,920 Speaker 1: it on here a number of times. I can't work 124 00:08:28,960 --> 00:08:32,200 Speaker 1: out couldn't work out whether Adourn was naive and a 125 00:08:32,200 --> 00:08:34,760 Speaker 1: lot of this stuff was just her being elevated beyond 126 00:08:34,760 --> 00:08:37,040 Speaker 1: to capability and she was trying desperately to work out 127 00:08:37,080 --> 00:08:39,360 Speaker 1: what was going on, or it was Macavellian and she 128 00:08:39,480 --> 00:08:43,000 Speaker 1: I concluded eventually it was there was. She was Macavelian, 129 00:08:43,320 --> 00:08:46,320 Speaker 1: She had a plan, she was deliberate, she was overt 130 00:08:46,760 --> 00:08:50,040 Speaker 1: pulpit of truth, et cetera. And that's who she is. 131 00:08:50,040 --> 00:08:50,920 Speaker 1: Is that unfair or not? 132 00:08:52,120 --> 00:08:56,760 Speaker 2: Uh? That's one of as hopefully many of your listeners 133 00:08:56,800 --> 00:08:58,959 Speaker 2: will discover when they go into the shop and buy 134 00:08:59,040 --> 00:09:03,199 Speaker 2: a copy this week. That's one of the great watt 135 00:09:03,200 --> 00:09:07,160 Speaker 2: ifs about her, isn't it? Uh? What was she carried 136 00:09:07,240 --> 00:09:13,319 Speaker 2: along on a tide? Was she simply adjacent to to 137 00:09:13,320 --> 00:09:17,360 Speaker 2: to to something or was she did she, for lack 138 00:09:17,400 --> 00:09:21,680 Speaker 2: of a better word, engineer it herself? You see? I 139 00:09:21,840 --> 00:09:26,480 Speaker 2: come more on the adjacent side of that. I think 140 00:09:26,760 --> 00:09:31,120 Speaker 2: she was someone with missionary zeal that was not entirely 141 00:09:31,280 --> 00:09:33,640 Speaker 2: to do with politics. It was to do with her 142 00:09:33,679 --> 00:09:40,200 Speaker 2: formative principles and experience. And you know, in the ethnic 143 00:09:40,240 --> 00:09:46,960 Speaker 2: affairs area, for instance, she had a very significant Mary 144 00:09:47,040 --> 00:09:53,359 Speaker 2: caucus that certainly knew where it wanted to go. That 145 00:09:53,360 --> 00:09:57,320 Speaker 2: that is an example of that. That was an example 146 00:09:57,760 --> 00:10:01,840 Speaker 2: of engineering or pushing the country in a certain direction. 147 00:10:02,520 --> 00:10:06,160 Speaker 2: I don't think your heart was as entirely interpared. 148 00:10:07,400 --> 00:10:09,840 Speaker 1: Interesting, Dad, I've enjoyed reading it, and I appreciate the 149 00:10:09,840 --> 00:10:14,199 Speaker 1: time one hundred plus interviews involved in the book. In anyone, 150 00:10:14,240 --> 00:10:18,200 Speaker 1: who's anyone, seemingly is in there the untold stories, just 151 00:10:18,240 --> 00:10:21,200 Speaker 1: into the untold stories. It's out now. David Pohen is 152 00:10:21,360 --> 00:10:21,840 Speaker 1: the author. 153 00:10:22,480 --> 00:10:25,319 Speaker 2: For more from The Mic Asking Breakfast, listen live to 154 00:10:25,480 --> 00:10:28,559 Speaker 2: news talks it'd be from six am weekdays, or follow 155 00:10:28,600 --> 00:10:30,160 Speaker 2: the podcast on iHeartRadio.