This is a former bank robber who graduated to the booming methamphetamine trade and orchestrated major drug deals from his prison cell. We’re told that during his long spells in jail, “Pulete carefully cultivated trusting relationships with other inmates and was considered one of the most well-connected criminals in the country”. The admiring tone of the story is reinforced by a photo of a grinning Savage posing with Pulete in 2021.
According to the story, Pulete had stayed out of trouble since his last release from prison in 2017 and been left permanently disabled by an accident in 2018. Savage appears not to consider the possibility that these two facts might be related.
Savage writes sympathetically about Pulete’s “ordeal” following his injury and his subsequent battles with ACC. The story goes on to say that while Pulete had left his criminal lifestyle behind, he was visited often by friends “with chequered pasts” – there’s a cosy euphemism for you – and members of rival gangs. “Despite no longer taking an active role in organised crime, police and criminal sources said Pulete remained trusted in the underworld and knowledgeable about the environment”. I half-expected to see him described as “a gentle giant”, which is a familiar cliché in this type of story.
Perhaps Savage thought he was telling us a redemption tale about a career criminal turning his life around, but that’s not the impression the story conveys. There’s not a word of acknowledgment, still less of remorse or regret, for the lives destroyed by the pernicious drug trade from which Pulete profited in his active criminal years. I think both Savage and his editors were guilty of a gross failure of editorial judgment for running a story that presented him as someone worthy of our respect.
Karl du Fresne, a freelance journalist, is the
former editor of The Dominion newspaper. He occasionally blogs at karldufresne.blogspot.co.nz.
16 comments:
Very Interesting !
Jared Savage has written two books about gang activity in New Zealand. I've got those books. He does not appear to be at all approving of criminal gang activity in his books. It seems peculiar that he seems to have cosied up to Pulete to this extent.
shouldn't that be "checkered"as in black and white check fabric?
Savage is a plonker . His books on NZ gangs are utter garbage.
On the upside, it's always good to read about another dead gang banger.
No 'gentle giant' tribute, but '...friends described him as an “OG” - original gangster - and commented on his kindness and generosity.'
When the Herald was a real newspaper, that story would never got past any editor, let alone the front page.
What a rag it has become in recent years, blatantly skewed to the far left, and racist.
I have removed any reference to my years at the Herald on my CV.
I am sick to death of the front page of the Herald on line featuring heavily tattooed Maori thugs. I don't care if they have died, are in court or are reaping another serving of taxpayers money. None of them are worth the "mana" given them by headlining the newspaper .
Where are the stories of the many good, hard working decent Maori families that I have known over the years. People you admired for personal qualities, and accepted as friends, decent citizens.
I don't care that an abuser will lose his sporting career if found guilty, if any ethnicity. They are thugs and a higher profile does not bring them admiration or cudos if that is how they behave.
Any Maori I have known who suddenly sported a Moko, was honouring an elder who had passed away and they had stepped into the leadership role.
Every second tattooed chin does not represent any particular mana these days...it's as much cosplay as the carving hanging around their neck.
Agree wholeheartedly, Karl.
Phillip crump has his hands full trying to steer herald editorial in the direction of balance.
As an ex journalist, Jared savage’s piece left me aghast. Here’s my take on it.
You might think this was the moment for Savage, the NZ Herald’s crime man, to lay out the record: how the Cobras were New Zealand’s oldest Polynesian gang, founded in Ponsonby in the 1950s, inspired by US and Aussie outfits; how their motto, “Loyalty to the end,” usually meant the end came via drive-bys, bashings, and meth wars.
But no. Savage’s obituary reads like a Hallmark card dipped in maple syrup.
He calls Pulete a “respected leader” and a “much-loved family man.” Much-loved? By whom? The families of drive-by victims? The shopkeepers paying protection money? Savage even describes Pulete’s crippling injury as “an unfortunate accident,” which sounds like a spilled teacup — when in fact Rocky was bowled over by a ute. That’s not an “unfortunate accident.” That’s Newtonian physics colliding with a man who’d spent decades colliding with the law.
And… is there such a thing as a ‘fortunate’ accident. It’s savage trying to ring more sympathy out of the reader. Unfortunate? How? Because it reduced Rocky’s mobility and dented his ‘mana’ with the gang?
It’s not just what Savage writes, it’s what he doesn’t. There’s no age listed — because that might remind readers that gang life expectancy isn’t cut short by racism or “systemic injustice,” but by a lifestyle where gunfire is the background music.
No mention of the Cobras’ role in meth dealing, stabbings, or terrorising their own neighbourhoods. No sense that their so-called “community work” was just reputation laundering with a sausage sizzle.
Instead, Savage smooths the pillows. He coos over Pulete’s “commitment to his people” as if he’d run a church youth group rather than a gang with a body count. You can almost hear the violins swelling in the background.
It’s obituary as soft-porn: lots of stroking, nothing resembling reality.
And here’s the real sting: Savage isn’t doing this out of kindness to Pulete.
He’s doing it to us — to massage our guilt glands, to make us feel the “system” failed Rocky, rather than Rocky failing everyone else. This is journalism under the spell of Jacinda Ardern’s be kind mantra, extended to men whose hobby was terrorising neighbourhoods. Scrub out the blood, spray on empathy, and call it balance.
New Zealand deserves better. Report the facts. Call a gang boss a gang boss. Don’t sell us this syrup. Don’t warn us about traffic disruptions for Rocky’s funeral. Because when Savage turns a King Cobra into the Polynesian equivalent of Paddington Bear, he’s not just insulting the reader. He’s insulting the truth.
Hope you read this, Phillip Crump.
The enormity of your task confronts you:
Savage Translation Guide™
(Because in Savage-land, Jacinda’s “be kind” mantra applies even to career criminals)
• “Much-loved family man” → Had a big family, some of whom probably weren’t in court last week. Be kind, they say.
• “Respected leader” → The boys followed orders because the alternative was a hiding. Respect is tricky; kindness helps.
• “Unfortunate accident” → Bowled over by a ute. Gravity remains undefeated. But let’s be kind about it. It handicapped pulete’s role as king pin.
• “Community work” → Hosted a sausage sizzle between meth deals. Kindness counts in subtle ways.
• “Commitment to his people” → Loyalty to the end — and the end usually involved flashing lights. Be kind, don’t judge.
• “Colourful figure” → Police files thicker than a phone book. But we’ll say colourful anyway; kindness first.
• “Ill health” → Survived shootings, bashings, and a ute — but cholesterol finally got him. Kindness prevails over blunt facts.
• “Lying in state” → Rocky’s lounge in Manurewa. Not Westminster Abbey. Not the state. Definitely not a coronation. Kindness and royal metaphor mandatory.
Maybe satire is the only avenue left for journos?
How different is the article you criticise Karl to those reverential pieces on maori in general that occur endlessly in ALL media? Balance and critical judgement are very rare commodities in journalism today, and then the 'luvvies' wonder why the rest of us switch off or offer trenchant criticism which is then characterised by said 'luvvies' as racist outpourings.
Certainly this man was an evil criminal, who should have been condemned not respected by the media.
However to me one of the worst villains, and con-person we have ever had is Dame Marie Clay, who shattered the futures of many millions of children here and world wide with her fraudulent reading method that was based on methods that , have now been proved completely counterproductive to how good readers read. Her research was calculatedly dishonest and biased , and warped to fit her flawed ideology. Her opponents and critics were vilified , denied funding and cancelled in schools and universities and in all our educational institutions . However she was given the greatest honours of any citizen and treated like a sacred cow . Every word she wrote was gospel truth to our educationalists and she was given preferential treatment for all her projects with at least $ 5 million of taxpayers money spent on advertising her ideas , books , and schemes world wide. Her Reading Recovery which damaged the most vulnerable children cost multi millions per year but perversely persisted for over 40 years.
Consequently NZ. now has the worst reading scores in the English speaking world, when in 1970 ,we had the best, a large prison population who are predominantly illiterate and the longest tail of underachievement in the developed world . There are also university students who can't read whole books nor write essays and students who need remedial reading at secondary school .This woman has irreversibly damaged our entire society almost beyond repair . Marxism with CRT, has moved in to account for the enormous gap in achievement , hence income, we have and since Maori are over-represented in the tail of underachievement.
Name someone else worse than this .
I disagree, Anon.
I found his books to be very good. Well researched and well written.
Kiwi – soon to be extinct species who sticks its beak into private lives, parasitically feeds off the success of others to nurture failure.
Such coverage typical of such far leftie journo idiots, for whom the 'newspaper' is just a vehicle for co-splaying their own 'street cred'. Sadly for the 'newspaper', such effort seems likely to trigger a WTAF reaction from many of its its readers and subscribers. Maybe disorienting folk is the real purpose?
Is this tosser savage a far left loving nut job by chance? If he loves gang members so much, let's put a couple in to live with him, his daughter, kids, aunt family etc. What could go wrong?
He might not be so kind when he's the victim of crime.
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