A story in Monday morning's Dominion caused upton-on-line to spill his latte and choke on his muffin.

The headline ran, "Anti-Labour bias claim against TV's Crossfire". In it, Helen Clark and her media consultant (top-rating Radio New Zealand host) Brian Edwards expressed their outrage at TVNZ for not inviting her on to its Crossfire programme.

We suppose it would be churlish to point out that the ratings driven TVNZ would logically seek out up-beat and positive subjects, with personalities, in order to attract people to watch the show. Ratings plummeted when Kiwi comic icon-turned depressed Alliance supporter, Murray Ball moaned and grizzled for half an hour. Could they take the risk with Clark?

Helen Clark, the Dominion reports, has complained to TVNZ about what she says is anti-Labour bias. But hang on. Isn't this the programme hosted by Linda Clark and Mike Hoskings?

We live in a topsy-turvy world.

Upton-on-line actually felt sympathy for Linda Clark. What hope is there when both (should we say, all) sides feel slighted? (Quite a lot actually most media prima donnas like to believe they are above their unsavoury subjects).

Most of us in the National Party conclude TVNZ is against the government because of its habit of always leading with tales of poverty, gloom, public service scandal and health crises, but always consigning government attempts to remedy the same problems till after the second ad break, along with stories of animal heroism in Tucson, Arizona.

And yet, Labour feels itself hard-done-by. Next they'll say Morning Report is against them.

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