I’m pleased to see that some of my work from “Queer Nation” has been chosen as part of a handful of episodes from the show’s nine-year run to be showcased at NZ On Screen, a great on-demand service for archival New Zealand film and television shows.
The Marilyn Waring episode contains part one or a two-part story I did on the Maxim Institute, a right-wing think tank which at the time was going to extraordinary lengths to conceal its connections with anti-gay groups in the US. Part two went on to examine the content of some of their submissions to Parliament against the Civil Union Act, revealing that some of their quoted sources didn’t actually exist.
Maxim’s chief researcher, Bruce Logan, retired a few months later after Paul Litterick (the spokesperson for the Rationalists interviewed in my segment) discovered that Logan had been plagiarising chunks of text from various conservative columnists and authors around the world and passing it off as his own in national newspaper columns.
It was a very embarrassing situation for the newspapers who hadn’t been more stringent with their content checks, and more embarrassing for Maxim. It was a difficult road to re-establish themselves as a credible and impartial source for media in the wake of the scandal.
Meanwhile, the Civil Union Act passed and the world didn’t end as a result (Australia take note).
My NZ On Screen profile is here.
3 Comments
May 9, 2009 at 5:24 am
That’s very good news. Congratulations!
Are you coming to Toronto for the premier of Teddy?
May 9, 2009 at 11:16 am
Hi Dev, yes I am, I’m going to be in town from 14-24 May. Looking forward to it!
May 9, 2009 at 3:11 pm
That’s great. Any chances of coming to Montreal for few days- it’s 5-6 hour drive from Toronto? It will be great to meet you if possible.