Martin van Beynen, 61, was an investigative reporter and columnist for Fairfax NZ, now Stuff, and the man behind the widely viewed Black Hands podcast about the Bain family murders, turned into a TV mini-series last year. Other accomplishments include authoring the book Trapped: Remarkable Stories of Survival from the 2011 Canterbury Earthquake.

He announced that a piece he composed for Stuff and posted on its site last Saturday was his last, saying:

“As an opinion writer, it’s easier to identify what you oppose rather than what you support. I don’t like being told I’m to blame. I don’t like zealots and young know-nothings telling me what to do. I don’t like wokeness or virtue signalling or cancelling people for some trivial perceived infringement of current sensibilities. I don’t like being told I’m privileged or that I had it too good because of being pale and male. I don’t like tailoring my views to suit a new zeitgeist. I don’t like the implication that everything done to improve people’s lives prior to the latest orthodoxy has been a disastrous failure and that some new system will bring in a utopia.”

It seems the editor/sub-editor couldn’t resist a parting shot, describing him in the headline as a “redneck,” which for a lot of people is reason enough to read his work. We wish him well.