He details how Garner \u201clost his rag\u201d with him during one incident after he asked Garner to move out of earshot while he was shooting a story with a shared cameraman. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt was classic bullying, really aggressive behaviour, and it affected me badly.\u201d<\/p>\n
But both Garner and Espiner say they are surprised by Soper\u2019s claims.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have always liked Barry, and we\u2019ve had a pile of fun on many trips,\u201d Garner told Media Insider yesterday. \u201cBarry was as abrasive as the next guy and wasn\u2019t scared of putting people in their place, and as someone very much his junior, I quite admired that. And I\u2019m not sure Barry could be bullied.\u201d<\/p>\n
Espiner told Media Insider that Soper was a \u201ctough operator\u201d. \u201cThe idea that I would be bullying Barry Soper would probably be a joke to most people. That\u2019s certainly not my code of behaviour, and I\u2019ve not engaged in that.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Afghanistan trip<\/p>\n
Soper recounts in his book, One Last Question, Prime Minister, how he, Garner, and Espiner travelled to Afghanistan in 2010, covering Key\u2019s visit.<\/p>\n
Soper, the then Newstalk ZB political editor, was also there for Prime News – Sky TV\u2019s free-to-air news show at the time.<\/p>\n
Newstalk ZB senior political correspondent Barry Soper. Photo \/ Carson Bluck<\/p>\n
Garner, for TV3, Espiner, for TVNZ, and Soper had an agreement that the three of them would share one camera operator.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe worked out of a shipping container that had been set up in a military camp,\u201d Soper writes in the book.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was pretty clear from the start that those two saw me as the old dinosaur on the trip, and they started taking the piss out of me. <\/p>\n
\u201cI had an electric toothbrush, which they seemed to find hilarious. I just wrote it off as harmless banter and didn\u2019t think it was terribly serious, even if they seemed to carry the joke on way past breaking point.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said that things turned nasty when it came to doing their jobs, and sharing the camera operator.<\/p>\n
At one stage, Soper said he asked Garner to move out of earshot as he was filming his piece. <\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t want him to be privy to my story, just as I had no intention of eavesdropping on him or Espiner when they filed their stories.<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, with that, Garner completely lost his rag at me. The invective was almost violent, the worst I had ever encountered during my career.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe told me where I could stick the sharing of the camera and informed me I would be getting no help from them for the rest of the trip.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was classic bullying, really aggressive behaviour, and it affected me badly.\u201d<\/p>\n
Former TV3 political editor Duncan Garner. Photo \/ Jason Oxenham<\/p>\n
Garner recalled a different incident yesterday. <\/p>\n
\u201cOf course it\u2019s stressful in trying circumstances, and I haven\u2019t read the book, so I don\u2019t know if Barry mentions it, but I had a passing flick at him for not helping cart the gear around the place, which is bloody heavy, and he was relying on us to do so despite all of us sharing it,\u201d Garner told Media Insider.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was over as quickly as it had begun, I am surprised it\u2019s even made the cut to be honest … in the heat of battle this sort of stuff happens regularly, and there were a number of times Barry got into situations where I either backed him or offered to help.\u201d<\/p>\n
But Soper writes that when he returned from the Afghanistan trip, he was so despondent about the state of journalism that he told his wife, Heather du Plessis-Allan, that he wanted out of the profession.<\/p>\n
\u201cI told her about how I felt I was a joke to Garner and Espiner and replayed the particular incident with Garner and how he let me know that I was an old has-been who\u2019d had his day.\u201d<\/p>\n
Soper said he told du Plessis-Allan: \u201cYou know, maybe he has a point. Maybe I should move on.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said he ultimately decided he had plenty to offer, and it was \u201cridiculous\u201d that he should \u201cfeel compelled to leave the industry I loved because of the pettiness of two men\u201d.<\/p>\n
He noted that Garner – who now has his own MediaWorks-aligned podcast and is a columnist for The Listener – had moved on from fulltime political journalism. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt was no great loss to parliamentary life if you ask me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Garner said he did not want to get into an \u201cundignified tit for tat\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cSixteen years ago [since the Afghanistan trip] is a long time, and I saw Barry many, many times after that in work and social settings and even at his house, and there was no indication at all [that] it was an issue.<\/p>\n
\u201cI enjoyed his company always; he was always generous, and I\u2019m a bit baffled as to why now it\u2019s even an issue. <\/p>\n
\u201cWorking in close-knit quarters in the press gallery and on these trips is always full on and stressful, and to be honest, Barry gave as good as he got, and I enjoyed the banter.\u201d <\/p>\n
Poll story<\/p>\n
Soper also recounts in his book another story involving Garner in Wellington.<\/p>\n
During a press conference, Garner asked Key questions in relation to a TV3 political poll that would feature on the channel\u2019s 6pm news that evening. <\/p>\n
Soper said he used information gleaned from those questions for a radio story – essentially beating Garner and TV3 to their own poll results.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m a journalist, and it was the most interesting part of the press conference, so I\u2019m not sure what Garner knew we were there for,\u201d Soper writes in his book.<\/p>\n
Garner, he said, stormed into Soper\u2019s press gallery office, \u201cslamming his fist on my desk and calling me a cheat\u201d.<\/p>\n
According to Soper, Garner told him to pay for his own poll.<\/p>\n
\u201cI explained to him that the best course to take when you have opinion polls is not to make the results known before they are made public and that if he didn\u2019t leave my office, I\u2019d call security.\u201d<\/p>\n
Soper said it was fair to say his opinion of Garner \u201cwas not a particularly high one, particularly after that trip to Afghanistan\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cAlthough he later apologised for his outburst, he did a lot of damage to me and the way I felt about not only myself but journalism as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
Garner said he couldn\u2019t recall the poll incident.<\/p>\n
\u201cI remember having a huge scrap with Guyon once over leaked polling data \u2026 but I can\u2019t recall being pissed off with Baz. <\/p>\n
\u201cOver 17 years in the gallery, I had run-ins with MPs, ministers, journos, security, I got banned from Parliament twice for breaking the rules … and I broke other rules that I got away with and honestly, I\u2019ve lost count of how many dust-ups and incidents went down.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m just glad social media wasn\u2019t around, in the 90s the parties were legendary \u2026 I should write my own book.”<\/p>\n
He said Soper had often offered him advice.<\/p>\n
\u201cBarry was a fierce competitor, as were the other 40-odd journos housed in the gallery, and to this day I still really like the guy, he\u2019s had an amazing career.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was really supportive and caring when my Dad died not long after we returned from Afghanistan, and I guess he has a book to sell, but I\u2019m not going to say nasty things about Barry because I honestly like him and wish him nothing but good health and every success with the book sales.\u201d<\/p>\n
Newstalk ZB senior political correspondent Barry Soper. Photo \/ Dean Purcell<\/p>\n
Sharing a camera<\/p>\n
Barry Soper also writes in his book that he found it \u201cextraordinary\u201d that Garner and Espiner talked with each other about the pieces they were filing for back home, while on the Afghanistan trip.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese two journalists, ostensibly competitors, were telling each other exactly what their story was and how it was going to look. <\/p>\n
\u201cI couldn\u2019t believe what I was seeing and later sought out respected NZ Herald political journalist John Armstrong to talk about it – I needed to know if it was me who was out of touch with reality.<\/p>\n
\u201cArmstrong said that he had no idea how they got away with it, because they were essentially telling the same story to New Zealand night after night. If you were watching TV3, you were effectively watching TVNZ\u2019s coverage of that trip and vice versa.\u201d<\/p>\n
But both Garner and Espiner say that they had been sharing a cameraman on the trip, which meant a degree of collaboration was needed.<\/p>\n
Espiner says he and Garner competed \u201clike bastards\u201d as political editors.<\/p>\n
\u201cI utterly, totally, and demonstrably reject any assertion that we somehow collaborated as political editors. We competed really, really strongly.\u201d<\/p>\n
Guyon Espiner with the sign that Winston Peters flashed repeatedly during a press conference in 2008. File photo \/ Mark Mitchell<\/p>\n
Espiner says he remembers the Afghanistan trip well, including the tight security and planning that went into it.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was arranged and decided that we [he and Garner] could both go if we took one camera operator,\u201d Espiner told Media Insider.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was shooting and editing for both of us. That might explain to Barry why there was a degree of collaboration on that. <\/p>\n
\u201cYou can\u2019t really shoot and edit someone\u2019s story and not know what\u2019s going on. So yes, on that trip, there was a degree of collaboration …\u201d<\/p>\n
Espiner said he filed two stories from the trip. \u201cTo extrapolate that point out from Barry to some sort of cartel-like behaviour is ridiculous. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe competed like bastards all the time we were at TV1 and TV3. We competed really, really hard. <\/p>\n
\u201cDuncan and I were close mates at that point, too, but we were incredibly strong competitors on the field. <\/p>\n
\u201cYou could talk to anyone else in the gallery – the competition was incredibly intense. And as a journalist myself, I look back on those years and think the competition was a lot stronger then than it is now. <\/p>\n
\u201cHe [Garner] would scoop me often, and I got the odd one in against him. He was an incredible operator, Duncan Garner at the gallery.\u201d<\/p>\n
Garner said: \u201cIf Barry had gone to the trouble of actually comparing the stories aired, he would likely not have included such a flaky claim, which is driven by emotion but sadly not fact. <\/p>\n
\u201cGuyon and I, over the better part of 15 years, were fiercely competitive and jealously guarded our work. We were so competitive that it almost broke both of us.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not sure about Guyon, but I think I\u2019m still recovering years later. Barry knows how competitive it is between journos in the gallery, and Barry was one of the most competitive – we all thrived on it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Espiner, meanwhile, said Soper was a tough operator in the gallery.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was certainly banter on those trips with a number of gallery staff, and I do remember a few tense moments – I can\u2019t say over Barry\u2019s toothbrush, but you know, that might not stand out when you\u2019re going into Afghanistan. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt might not be one of the memories you come away with, but I\u2019ll take his word for it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Barry Soper’s new book covers the tenures of 12 Prime Ministers.<\/p>\n
He said he could not recall anything that he did or said to Soper \u201cthat would have left a scar, what … 15, 16 years on\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m a bit surprised to hear that he was hurt by that. If he was, I\u2019m happy to say sorry. <\/p>\n
\u201cI do remember banter jokes … the gallery was a tougher environment back then. <\/p>\n
\u201cYou would have your stoushes and your set-tos, but Barry was a pretty belligerent and forceful character. I\u2019m sure he gave as good as he got, and I certainly haven\u2019t lost an iota of sleep about the way I ever behaved towards Barry Soper. I\u2019m pretty surprised all these years on that that has stuck in his mind.\u201d<\/p>\n
Soper\u2019s book recounts numerous other stories from his time in the press gallery as a political reporter, editor and senior correspondent, covering 12 prime ministers from Sir Robert Muldoon to Christopher Luxon.<\/p>\n