2 posts tagged “scandal”

As much as I have gone on record to express a dislike for the Hon Winston Peters, the Foreign Minister Outside Cabinet, and express an admiration for TV One talking head Paul Henry, the Foreign Minister’s interview tonight on Close-up (which I still think of as a weekly Thursday night show) was very much won by Mr Peters.
   In it, he defended himself on the Owen Glenn affair by going on the warpath, accusing journalists of cooking up falsehoods and writing stories before they had researched them.
   As I have written here and elsewhere regularly, we have seen many examples of poor journalism, and one sympathizes with Mr Peters.
   His attacking style—coupled with confidence and some might say smugness—played on emotions well, using a mixture of rose-coloured glasses (‘There was a time in New Zealand when …’) and a keen understanding of the law.
   It also exposed the inadequacy of the research that was given to Mr Henry and his colleagues, and the desire of the MSM to sometimes cook up sensationalism when there are better things to do.
   As to whether there would be an ambassadorial role in return for political donations, Mr Peters handled that matter well, too, saying that the government had left the matter over a consul to Monaco at large since 1996.
   It was a reminder that while as daft as some of Mr Peters’ arguments have been over the years—to the point of being a broken record—he is a skilful politician who seems to have rediscovered some of his former vigour.

If you thought the story of Amir Massoud Tofangsazan was embarrassing, what if something similar happened to a celebrity?
   Over the last few weeks, the Edison Chen scandal has rocked Hong Kong and even affected the Beijing Olympics.
   Chen, a Canadian-born actor about to make a big US début—already he’s a Pepsi spokesman in Hong Kong—took in his laptop for repair but forgot to take down his home-made porn, which includes 12 female celebrities.
   Just as with Laptop Guy (Thomas Sawyer) in the UK with Amir’s photos in 2006, someone at the computer shop decided they would post the 1,200-plus images and videos on to the ’net.
   If we think the Britney Spears Machine is bad, Hong Kong tabloids make that look like a old world gentlemen’s club.
   PC World offers this analogy: ‘Imagine photos of, say, Matthew McConaughey popping up on the Internet, showing him in various states of undress and sexual acts with, say, Alicia Keys, Kelly Clarkson and Kirsten Dunst.’
   One of the celebs implicated is Gillian Chung, who was supposedly going to perform at the Olympics. Not any more. Prior to this month she had a wholesome image—now she may be more associated with performing and receiving oral sex. (The logical thing now would be to revamp her image as Madonna does regularly, but whether that will go down well in the innocent Cantopop world is another matter.)
   Batgwa summarizes the other celebs:

The biggest female stars implicated were Gillian Chung (鍾欣桐) and Cecilia Cheung (張栢芝).
   Other less well known female celebrities were implicated too, including Bobo Chan (陳文媛), Rachel Ngan (顏穎思), Mandy Chen (陳育嬬), Candice Chan (陳思慧) and Edison’s current girlfriend Vincy Yeung (楊永晴).

   Chen has basically announced, at 27, his retirement from the Hong Kong scene. He might have to: some of the celebs may have Triad connections (there is some gang involvement in Hong Kong moviemaking) and he’s received death threats.
   Cops have arrested nine people so far in connection with the unlawful distribution of the images.
   While Chen is no saint, he deserved his privacy. The poster has essentially brought down the careers of several people. I suppose this is a reminder that when you are in the public eye, you need to take precautions. Putting your own porn on to a disc or a flash drive would be an idea—or simply be a role model and being less promiscuous in relationships and never fear these leaks.
   We may criticize Chen for his behaviour and we certainly should criticize the breach of trust from the shop, but the problem is wider. We need to ask ourselves just where our values are—and the way the Chinese people have reacted shows that they have not fled the free and occupied parts of China.