Garth George has been in journalism for 50 years. He’s a rare straight talking “old school” type of journalist and has been an opinion writer at the NZ Herald for as long as I can remember. The increasingly left wing Herald have fired him. According to Garth-

The editors decided back in October that this column does not fit in with their future plans for the opinion pages.

Although he’s not as far left as most Herald journalists, I’ve been harshly critical of Garth George in the past for his lefty stance on so many issues and his apparent failure to recognise the real cause of most of the social problems he writes about.

As he does in his final column today with his praise of the book “The Spirit Level”, widely recognised as left wing propaganda, and written by authors with a political agenda, and its been fisked so many times, I’m surprised Garth apparently doesn’t know this.

Nevertheless, even with his typically journalistic left wing blindness, George’s more traditional approach was a refreshing change from the interminable liberal or progressive whining of most other Herald opinion writers.

His firing is another example of the Herald’s obstinate refusal to allow choice. Progressive newspapers just don’t seem to get why they’re going broke. In their determination to thrust liberal/progressive political views upon us, they’re driving away many potential customers. Who knows how many, but probably more than enough to raise the operating profit to an acceptable level.

The “old school” Garth George doesn’t fit in with the Herald’s “plans”. The communist Matt McCarten does though, along with the absolutely boring and predictable Castro loving pain in the arse left liberal Kerre Woodham. We have the rambling old soviet socialist Gwynn Dyer on international issues when we could be reading Mark Steyn.

Most of the Herald’s opinion writers and its own editors (in their editorials) are what I would call New York Times Progressives, and there can only be a few in the newspaper industry who do not know the NYT is going broke at a rapid rate. Why base your business on an obviously failing model? Only the Herald managers know the answer to this question.

Even if I have previously called for his sacking, I am sorry in one way to see Garth George go, for he was at the least a colourful patch among the grey drabness. The upside is his absence will see the Herald readership fall which makes it a day or two closer to going broke. Just like The NYT is going to go broke. Whenever they do go under, I’ll be saying good riddance to the demise of two left wing propaganda sheets who, like the UK Guardian (also going broke), only pretended to be newspapers.

George identifies his most notable characteristic- he had opinions different to those of mainstream liberals:

I have been reviled and abused, generally anonymously, but that is to be expected when one writes forthrightly about religious, moral, social and political issues from a standpoint at odds with that generally accepted by the populace.

Goodbye Garth George, and good luck. You paid the price for thinking differently. In the cloistered world of the Herald progressives, an unpardonable and fatal transgression.

Garth George- Thanks for reading, and goodbye.

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