According to an editorial note, the Herald's avowedly unflinching "unauthorised biography" of John Key was the paper's move to get in "to produce a reliable account before his party might be tempted to rush out a richly sanitised biography or a detractor did a hatchet job."
"Unauthorised" as in "not actually a jack-up on the part of Key's comms staff", sure. "Unauthorised" as in "conducted without the willing participation of the subject, his colleagues, his comms staff, family and friends"? Well, hardly.
The result is certainly not a hatchet job. Indeed, it provides quite a service to Key in providing something for his supporters -- present and potential -- that there has not been before: a narrative by which to picture him.
The effort is, I think, best taken in pieces, rather than as a whole. I don't think anyone should even try and debate the fact that, as DPF points out, Key's mother was a remarkable woman.
I'm also glad for Key that his enduring marital relationship can be taken at face value; it can simply he seen and his wife love each other and have shared much together. Compare with Helen Clark, of whom even "respectable" journalists have felt permitted to repeatedly enquire whether hers is a "real" marriage.
As I have noted before, I went to school with John Key; I was a year behind him but I cannot remember him. As the Herald story notes, this isn't entirely odd given that Burnside High was the largest school in the country, with more than 2000 students. I recall other people mentioned in the story: Mike Jaspers (slim, arty type: got onto punk rock before most people; nice guy) and Paul Commons (high-achiever type, didn’t know him) and I did many of the same things as Key did -- played hooker in a Burnside club scrum, debated, spoke at the lecturn -- but I can't recall him. In this, and in the wider story, he emerges as the low-key battler; not flashy, but organised and hard-working; richer than anyone else I went to school with, and poised, somehow, for the highest office.
But quite absent from the spread is any real hint as to why people should have any doubt about Key at all; or to put it another way, anything that might explain why some people do not respond well to seeing and hearing him, and not simply for partisan political reasons.
As one blog commenter pointed out, comparing the Herald feature with the much shorter Sunday Star Times backgrounder on Key:
In the Herald article it has this quote from Gavin Walker: “John was then, and still is, a very likeable character.” In the SST article they have: one former trader describes him as “a bit of a clone”.
There is quite a contrast in the way the two articles discuss Key laying off hundreds of workers. The Herald shows it like Key was torn up inside. The SST article has:
In the past, Key has appeared proud of his ability to sack without feelings. He told Metro magazine: “They always called me the smiling assassin.”
These days he insists these were not cheerful sackings.
As one of the Herald's own editorials pointed out last month, despairing of the National's leader's public performances:
Whatever opinion may be held about Helen Clark's utterances, she seldom leaves the slightest doubt about their meaning. Off the cuff, she is quick, considered and concise. Head to head in the campaign, Mr Key will have to match her. If he has not sought some tuition already, he ought to do so. Verbal precision is not only vital in the job to which he aspires, it is a useful mental discipline too. Loose talk bespeaks muddled thought …
So Mr Key needs to concentrate more. He needs to think in clear, complete and preferably short sentences and know exactly what he will say before he begins. He can take his time. A moment's reflection on a question does Helen Clark no harm on television. The man auditioning for her job has not had half her experience in politics. He needs to get his words under control and his mind up to speed.
And yet the "warts and all" feature has him (outside a forgiveable desire to see the big picture) as focused, quick and decisive. For all its mighty length, there's something odd and unresolved about it as a consequence. We'll see how part two this Saturday ties it up.
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Further to the poo discussion, a paper delivered this month in Wellington by Massey University's Margie Comrie takes a different approach to the "Helengrad" meme, and suggests that some of the people who perpetuated both that characterisation and a particular sort of sexualisation of Clark's image -- the "dominatrix" -- were other women.
PS: Sorry for the late notice, but the __Media7__ show we're recording this evening is about Maori broadcasting and Maori perspectives in the media -- the panel is Paora Maxwell, the new GM of Maori programming at TVNZ; Sonya Haggie, the marketing and comms manager at Maori Television; and former Mai FM programme director Manu Taylor. If you'd like to come along to the recording at The Classic this evening, hit the reply button and let me now.