Getting an earful

The 'Plunket Perspective'

I once purchased a house next door to me that wasn’t for sale. Why?

The inhabitants kept arguing - loudly, aggressively, endlessly - so I rang their landlord and made an offer. I held the phone aloft at the open back door and said, “listen to this”.

I owned it within 6 weeks, and never had a neighbour problem again. It’s an extreme solution to a problem, but a solution nonetheless.

The sound of one person yelling at, or over, another person, haranguing them, putting them down, calling them names, questioning their sanity - all of it - is simply unpleasant and anxiety-inducing. It is not the way to get the best out of anyone.

If any of this happens while I’m listening to media, and with monotonous regularity, I simply flick the switch. Off. Finito. Goneburger

The Platform was promising; a breath of fresh air even. The premise was excellent. Free speech. How refreshing. Until it wasn’t.

I even came out of semi-media retirement, if you will, and did a few guest spots because founder Sean Plunket asked me to. I was treated well, and it was fun even, and I believed the premise must be supported. I still do. But I’m now gonna’ leave the appearances and listening to folks with a stronger constitution for serial conflict.

Plunket seems better on air some days more than others. He can be impressive from time to time. But get him on any subject to do with those who didn’t take the vax, and he quickly turns into a rabid dog.

He cares not a jot that he is deeply and wilfully uninformed on the entire vaccine subject, and it doesn’t stop him from taking massive chunks out of people who have a different experience from him.

Even those who’ve been invited on the show get short shrift as soon as they step outside the ‘Plunket perspective’.

Think the hapless funeral director who politely passed on what he was seeing and observing - that’s called ‘science’ - regarding deaths passing through his business. Plunket ate him for breakfast - and lunch and dinner too. The poor undertaker wondered what fires of belligerent hell he’d stumbled into. As did many listeners.

And it’d be one thing if the evisceration was cleverly and fairly done with a level of journalistic skill but, no. It was clumsy, abusive and, at times, just plain mean.

So, sadly, while I totally talked Sean and The Platform up in my last Substack post, I now find myself backtracking at speed. I had high hopes for a more agreeable and intelligent forum but, thus far, Sean (and Michael Laws) have reverted to type faster than you can say “shock jock”.

Please let me know if things improve - and I really hope they do - as I won’t hear about it otherwise.

My attention is currently spent on interviewers getting info from their guests in a different way. A curious way. A respectful way. Employing these qualities does not negate a fiery debate.

And while there’s not much of it about in the media these days, if I can find it, by Christ, that’s where my ears will be.