It’s absurd how the Cook Islands News can take such a significant milestone, like a female national athlete becoming the secretary general of our National Sports Organisation, and twist it to include irrelevant personal jabs. Kez earned her position on her own merits, regardless of who her father is.

It’s time to start addressing her by her full name and not the “outgoing secretary’s daughter”.

Furthermore, the continuous attacks on the current Secretary of Education’s name are becoming outrageous. Instead of focusing on petty gossip, focus on delivering quality news while Mr Lewis diligently fulfils his duties to improve our country.

The management of this paper seems like a bunch of amateurs. If you’re going to criticise others, how about we turn the spotlight on the journalists who seem to have a personal vendetta against Mr Lewis.

1. The Kata’s cartoon depicted in same CINews issue is clearly defamatory and whoever the creator is, needs to be careful of a lawsuit.

2. The “facts” that are being written are all by hearsay and are never followed up for confirmation.

3. The statements that have been received have been inserted in with quotation marks to mislead and provoke public opinion.

4. Cook Islands News uses Facebook as a reliable source for their “news” and photos used in their articles without the consent of the image owners.

Cook Islands News has descended into nothing more than a gossip column. If I wanted to sift through this nonsense, I’d just scroll through Facebook – oh wait, that’s essentially what I’m doing.

I wonder how “transparent” you all are going to be and publish this in the newspaper.

Daniel Rutene