There’s a story in the New Zealand Herald this morning about the death of former King Cobras gang leader Ulaiasi “Rocky” Pulete. Carrying the byline of Herald crime reporter Jared Savage, it’s written in the reverential tones normally reserved for an esteemed community leader, business person or sporting figure. Pulete is described as “a giant of the criminal underworld” and “highly regarded across the wider criminal fraternity”.
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.
10 comments:
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 Jared 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 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. 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.
Adding to my pvs post:
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.
• “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 gang’s lounge in Manurewa. Not Westminster Abbey. Not the state. Definitely not a coronation. Kindness and royal metaphor mandatory.
I'll say. This ex-Acc staffer applauds any trouble he had with it & it was almost certainly related to undeclared earnings not qualifying for earnings-related compo, whatever other entitlements he had.
Brilliant writen follow up to to Karl's article.
Agree with Anonymous at 5.42pm.
Hi Karl. If you had edited savage’s piece, I imagine you would done the following (I would):
A giant of the criminal underworld has died after years of ill health.”
👉 Editor: Giant? You’re writing about a meth dealer, not Sir Edmund Hillary. Say “Senior King Cobra gang leader dies.”
“Better known as ‘Rocky’, Ulaiasi Pulete was one of the most senior members of the King Cobras gang in Auckland and highly regarded across the wider criminal fraternity in New Zealand.”
👉 Editor: “Highly regarded”? By whom? Other drug traffickers. This is not respect in any moral sense. Spell it out: “Feared by rivals, influential among gangs.”
“Hundreds of gang members are expected to pay their respects at Pulete’s funeral later this week…”
👉 Editor: Reads like a state funeral notice. Where are the victims? Why not mention the community bracing for intimidation, road blockades, and violence?
“With so much of his adult life spent in prison, Pulete carefully cultivated trusting relationships with other inmates and was considered one of the most well-connected criminals in the country.”
👉 Editor: This is presented like networking at a Rotary Club. Try: “He used long prison terms to expand his criminal network.”
“The following year, Pulete suffered an unfortunate accident.”
👉 Editor: “Unfortunate accident”? His ute crushed him against a wall. Spell it out. And don’t imply moral equivalence with people run down on the street by gang crossfire.
“…which Pulete described as worse than a 12-year prison sentence. ‘The first month was quite frustrating to be honest but then it turned into the most beautiful journey of my life,’ Pulete later wrote on social media.”
👉 Editor: Are we seriously platforming this as inspirational wisdom? Victims of meth won’t see it as beautiful. Cut or contextualise.
“During this period, the senior King Cobra left his criminal lifestyle behind but was visited often by friends with chequered pasts…”
👉 Editor: “Chequered pasts” = armed robbers, killers, drug traffickers. Stop laundering language. And it’s spelt ‘checkered’.
“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.”
👉 Editor: Knowledgeable about the environment? He wasn’t David Attenborough. He was a paralysed drug boss who kept influence. Use plain English.
“His death has been met with tributes on social media, where friends described him as an ‘OG’… commenting on his kindness and generosity.”
👉 Editor: Kindness? Generosity? From a man whose trade was meth and misery. Put that in perspective, don’t parrot it.
“Pulete has been lying in state at the King Cobra pad in Manurewa…”
👉 Editor: Lying in state? That term is reserved for heads of state. You’ve just elevated a gang boss to Churchill or Princess Di. Correct to “His body is in the lounge at the King Cobra headquarters.”
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Applauding too those great comments! I recall saying to one gangster's lawyer while at ACC that I was stopping his compo (he'd been exposed making meth) that his client had demonstrated a capacity to work/earn as a chemist making pharmaceuticals..go ahead & litigate if he dared.
Karl - it is blog posts like these that illustrate why you are sorely missed in NZ’s media environment. Any chance we could coax you out of retirement?
Here’s one more from the herald to ponder, Karl (by veteran reporter Ric Stevens no less):
A MAN was left without the use of his legs permanently after five gang associates attacked him in his home and stole his wallet and cellphone.
Details of the assault in 2022 have been made public in a Court of Appeal judgment after one of the attackers tried to have a lengthy jail term reduced.
The judgment said that a group of five men, including Raymond Heta, now aged 41, went to the victim’s house in Rotorua on May 28, 2022, all in disguise and some wearing gang patches.
Hmmm….
This is what happens when you churn copy without stopping to read the words back. The intro is meant to punch you in the gut. Instead, it trips over its shoelaces.
For a start, “left without the use of his legs permanently” is like saying “he drowned to death forever.”
Clunky, overstuffed, and screaming for an editor with a red pen.
It could have read:
Five gangsters storm into a man’s Rotorua home, beat him so savagely he’ll never walk again — all for a wallet and a cellphone.
Then the closing flourish: “…all in disguise and some wearing gang patches.”
So the miscreants we’re hiding who they were and advertising who they are at the same time?
That’s not reporting, that’s slapstick. Imagine a burglar creeping through your window in a ski mask — while wearing a fluorescent vest that says “PROPERTY OF THE BLACK POWER.”
A half-decent eye would have caught this contradiction in about three seconds. But no: it sailed straight past sub-editing and into print, as if “in disguise but in uniform” was a perfectly normal thing to write.
So the victim ends up in a wheelchair for life, the gangsters end up in prison, and the reporter ends up producing a sentence so daft it deserves its own Court of Appeal.
And meanwhile, Jared savage has been benched with Jamie lyth given a walk-on part to report Rocky’s funeral today. She’s stripped all the excess embellishments from savage’s copy in a brief wrap of pulete’s criminality. Savage, one suspects, has taken the day off to join in the guttural shouting and feet stamping at the end.
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