KEY POINTS:
There's a bit of a convention among media types that they don't use their positions to slag each other off to the masses.
Of course, this convention has proved over time to be about as successful as that Swiss one about people not being nasty to each other in wartime.
So it was with no surprise that I sat on my couch on Saturday evening listening to Ian Smith (the pastry-loving former cricketer as opposed to the last Prime Minister of Rhodesia) calling for my resignation.
For the one or two of you who inexplicably weren't glued to Sky's coverage of the mighty Magpies' victory over Waikato's shadow XV, the rather hurtful basis for Smith's comments were that I know "absolutely nothing about rugby" and that I am "pathetic".
Ouch.
Smith seemed to have taken to heart the flippant comments I made in the Herald's pre-season preview some months ago about Hawkes Bay being unlikely to do overly well this season.
Clearly, I was wrong - unlike Smith and the legions of TV rugby boffins who all, of course, picked the Magpies to come fourth.
Maybe Smith has a point.
People who pass themselves off as experts in one area when their experience really lies in another can end up looking foolish.
Lucky for me then that my qualifications and experience are in journalism instead of say, cricket.
As someone who protests to know a thing or two about the media, I'm fully aware there is no future in publicly slagging off your fellow industry members.
For starters, it's boring and self-indulgent. No one really cares.
And there really isn't the time or space for it, particularly if you're talking about chronicling Sky's commentary gaffes.
Smith's status as one of New Zealand's better sports broadcasters - thanks mainly due to searching and non-parochial post match questions such as - "Jason Shoemark, may you stay fit for a long time and keep scoring those tries for the Bay" - deserves a measure of respect.
Besides, there are more seemly ways for gentlemen to settle their differences, such as cage fighting or depositing dried-up doggy doo in each other's letterboxes.
It's a comfort that, as a newspaper columnist, it's better to be read and despised than not read at all.
And I know you're reading, Ian, which is good enough for me.
You can say what you like about me, I simply refuse to be drawn into a juvenile slanging match.
Now where did I put that doggy doo?
