Media Release
2 March 2004

Peters Pays Tribute To Top Journalist

Rt Hon Winston Peters has paid tribute to Warren Berryman, founding editor of “The Independent” who died in Auckland this morning, describing him as one of the few real investigative journalists in New Zealand.

Mr Peters today said that unlike the daily media, throughout the long years of the Winebox saga, Mr Berryman shone like a beacon in the darkness of corporate scandals and massive tax fraud.

“Warren was one of a handful of people prepared to take on the big boys who were taking the people of New Zealand to the cleaners. He did not buckle at the knees or run away when the going got tough like most of the other media– he told it like it was.

“Warren was a man who doggedly represented the interests of ordinary people, whatever their part in society. He was a fierce fighter for fair play and a fearsome enemy to bungling bureaucracy and corporate corruption wherever he found it.”

Mr Peters said that New Zealand journalism was poorer for the loss of Warren Berryman and young reporters could do well to look at his work to see how a master carried out his trade.

ENDS

© Scoop Media

Gordon Campbell: On the Sony cyber attack

Given the layers of meta-irony involved, the saga of the Sony cyber attack seemed at the outset more like a snarky European art film than a popcorn entry at the multiplex.

Yet now with (a) President Barack Obama weighing in on the side of artistic freedom and calling for the US to make a ‘proportionate response’quickly followed by (b) North Korea’s entire Internet service going down, and with both these events being followed by (c) Sony deciding to backtrack and release The Interview film that had made it a target for the dastardly North Koreans in the first place, then ay caramba…the whole world will now be watching how this affair pans out. More>>