This is a selection of some of the tweets about the relationship between the Whaleoil blog and the Prime Minister’s Office, following revelations that one of John Key’s spin doctors, Jason Ede, has supplied content to the blog. Rumours of the blog being financed and run out of the John Key’s taxpayer parliamentary Leader’s Budget have been around for ages, but there has never been any sort of real proof. Similarly, Jason Ede - who had a starring role in Nicky Hager's Hollow Men book - has long been alleged to write for the blogsite as part of his communications work for the PM, but there’s absolutely no public evidence of this. As usual, the tweets below are in (rough) reverse chronically order – the most recent tweets are first. [Read more below]
Patrick Gower @patrickgowernz
Jason Ede got owned
@patrickgowernz reckon Ede's suffering from a spot of indigestion?
Laura McQuillan @mcquillanatorz
No words on whether Jason Ede will also apologise to the sausages, photographed at their most vulnerable
I wonder if Jason Ede found my glasses which I left behind at last night's Press Gallery party
Hamish Rutherford @oneforthedr
Jason Ede has issued an apology. This gift keeps giving.
Key staffer Jason Ede apologises for post-gallery party pic posted on Whaleoil blog
Jason Ede has apologised to the Press Gallery for the photos he took this morning, saying it was a "silly, spur of the moment thing to do."
@CTrevettNZH they obviously had to shut this down quickly
Patrick Gower @patrickgowernz
PM's office issue statement on Jason Ede. Says "Mr Ede did this off his own bat." Can't stop laughing.
So Jason Ede's schedule of Christmas Parties just all-of-a-sudden dried up.
Steve Braunias @SteveBraunias
"Jason Ede, Whaleoil’s main source for smut in the National Research Unit..." Fancy that! From 2010 http://thestandard.org.nz/sloppy/
Steve Braunias @SteveBraunias
Jason Ede! 'Secret Diary' has been waiting, patiently, for many years for someone as pathetic & lowly as Jason Ede. Bless you, Jason Ede!
Steve Braunias @SteveBraunias
Jason Ede for 'secret diary'? Or is he just some minor fuckwit who doesn't deserve the attention?
GOVT< "Jason works a lot in ,,, social media and that inc getting ... National's message to a range of bloggers & other social mediasites."
@Zagzigger Any non-Right blogs ever had any contact from Jason Ede?
@Zagzigger Who would know, deceit and subterfuge abounds, but there are as many rumours about left wing blog sources and authors. #potkettle
@PeteDGeorge absolutely - its more about whether feeding whale Oil is a taxpayer funded semi official role
@Zagzigger Yes, important especially for Government, but opposition parties too. Coms should be open and transparent, ideally.
Patrick Gower @patrickgowernz
Dear Jason Ede: come down Gallery, man up say sorry for being scumbag & admit how many cig butts you've put there in 5 years of Key Govt
Patrick Gower @patrickgowernz
Hey Jason Ede, know you are watching Twitter - you have a fake account though eh not under your real name. So sad. Just so sad.
@patrickgowernz what's the twitter name Paddy
> Patrick Gower @patrickgowernz
@Zagzigger Don't know it will be fake so Jason Ede can hide & read & monitor. Anonymouys, cowardly and sad. And pathetic. So funny!
Patrick Gower @patrickgowernz
Dear Ninth Floor, I know you are watching, please clarify if J.Ede takes his cig butts back up there each day when he works for John Key
Jason Ede was spotted butt snapping after Gallery party for Whaleoil by @audreyNZH and Labour's @phil_goff : http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11171491 …
@CTrevettNZH the pathos of Ede reduced to papping the leftover sausages of the gallery party for one more hit of right wing blog rage...
Patrick Gower @patrickgowernz
Hey Jason Ede, come down to carpark and smoke so we can take photo of you please. I won't kneel in the rubbish like you though.
Those wishing to know more of blog paparazzo Jason Ede may turn to The Hollow Men, pp 33, 76-77, 91,92,105,106 108, 143, 144, 184, 195, 260.
Matthew Hooton @MatthewHootonNZ
This is silly. Jason Ede doesn't even work for @johnkeypm. He works for the leader of @nznationalparty http://m.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?
Surely Jason Ede is too busy preparing the babies @johnkeypm eats to write blog posts for #journalist @Whaleoil http://m.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11171491 …
Morgan Godfery @MorganGodfery
I was expecting the Ede photos to reveal people hung over in the gutter. All we got were half eaten sausages. Woefully disappointed.
Is someone staying back this xmas to update the cabinet manual to cover their faithful retainer Farrar and attack dog Slater?
Why do people insinuate that Whaleoil is produced by Jason Ede from PM's Office? Is there any truth in this? Does John Key approve?
Totally ok for Jason Ede to shop photos to right-wing blogs bc after work he removes his Tory bowler hat & puts on his "all in the game" hat
@LewSOS It's long been rumoured that taxpayers pay Ede to write posts on Slater's blog.
@danylmc @publicaddress @LewSOS by whom? Firebrand Taxpayers' right advocate Jordan Williams?
@gtiso @danylmc @LewSOS There's long been a 'black ops' rumour regarding Ede: my personal suspicion involves more a dirty yellow colour.
Hey Jason Ede - I have a case of wine on offer for the most embarrassing photo from the Gallery party. You don't win.
Patrick Gower @patrickgowernz
Jason Ede ashamed of himself? Jason Ede goes through people's rubbish, you don't get any lower than that!
Patrick Gower @patrickgowernz
John Key employs Jason Ede to crouch among rubbish take photos on I-Phone of Press Gallery party and give photos to a blogger.
Does the Prime ministers communicatioms adviser Jason Ede really supply photographs to Whale Oil?
@Zagzigger or to put it another way, does he only supply photographs?
@Zagzigger @DFisherJourno of course isn't Whaleoik part of the NACT PR machine?
@Zagzigger @patrickgowernz Does it really surprise anyone that the PM's helpers has been supplying Whaleoil??
Whaleoil's photographer is PM's comms honcho Jason Ede, seen crouching among the detritus at 7.30am, iPhone clicking. http://www.whaleoil.co.nz/2013/12/press-gallery-party-aftermath/ …
> Patrick Gower @patrickgowernz
@CTrevettNZH Low moment for Prime Minister's Office. Humiliating that a taxpayer-funded member of John Key's office -Jason Ede- does this.
> Patrick Gower @patrickgowernz
@CTrevettNZH Low moment for Prime Minister's Office. Humiliating that a taxpayer-funded member of John Key's office -Jason Ede- does this.
@Zagzigger @patrickgowernz @CTrevettNZH No need for Whale's sources to be outed by court order this time.
@CTrevettNZH Surely he was picking stuff up to place in the bin or gathering DNA evidence for the GCSB or something.
> Claire Trevett @CTrevettNZH
@tmurphyNZH the new crack squad specialising in analysis of sausages, butts and broken plastic.
> Matthew Hooton @MatthewHootonNZ
@CTrevettNZH So what? It's just a photo. It's not like Jason writes copy for Whaleoil or anything like that
@MatthewHootonNZ @CTrevettNZH It's a 2 piecer.Jase on pix,The Whale on words.Theyre a partnership?Like a war correspondent and his cameraman
@MatthewHootonNZ @CTrevettNZH Is supplying The Whale with pix of an after-party, part of Jason Ede's job description?
> rebeccawright @rebeccawright
@CTrevettNZH perhaps PM doesn't new official photographer at all? Jason Ede and his iPhone already on staff!
Earlier:
Matthew Hooton (NBR): 'Latest Len Brown allegations: Slater needs to front up' (paywalled) - http://bit.ly/1d4XkHf
> spɹɐʍpǝ ǝɔʎɹq @bryce_edwards
Hooton: 'within the blogosphere and through the city's rumour mill, the Auckland left is trying to link the PM to the attacks on Brown'
> spɹɐʍpǝ ǝɔʎɹq @bryce_edwards
Hooton says 'mutterings about a staffer in Mr Key's office, Jason Ede, who is said to have links to prominent bloggers, including Mr Slater'
Who is Jason Ede? McCarten says Key's spindoctor is behind the Brown scandalmongering. Listen: http://www.radiolive.co.nz/Audio.aspx select: 14:45 today
> spɹɐʍpǝ ǝɔʎɹq @bryce_edwards
McCarten alleges Nat spindoctor Jason Ede is John Key's 'black ops' guy. Does Govt's skulduggery work. Claims he writes Whaleoil blog etc.
@bryce_edwards I have also been told all of this, presumably from the same 'National insider' that briefed McCarten. Might even be true.
> > spɹɐʍpǝ ǝɔʎɹq @bryce_edwards
@danylmc When were you told? I notice you made similar allegations about Ede some years ago. Is this stuff well known?
@bryce_edwards Told about Ede and his (possibly fictional) involvement in the Len Brown thing a couple of days ago, but . . .
@bryce_edwards Been hearing Nat staffers complain for YEARS that that Ede is actually paid for this stuff.
@danylmc @bryce_edwards I've heard for years Whaleoil complain that he is not paid for this stuff by Nats
@danylmc @bryce_edwards Ede was rumoured to be the "Steddy Eddie" who used to post on WO before the Nats moved into govt.
@danylmc @bryce_edwards it's long been said that Ede supplies dirt the Nats can't use direct to Slater, interesting if he's tied up w this
