Written By: - Date published: 3:27 pm, March 8th, 2008 - 44 comments
On the 20th of December, John Key was reported in the Bay Report as saying “we would love to see wages drop” while talking to a Kerikeri businesswoman. The story broke nationally three weeks ago and Key offered several, conflicting explanations - he was joking, he was misquoted, he was talking about Australia. The Bay Report stood …
Written By: - Date published: 11:58 am, March 7th, 2008 - 59 comments
There is more to the John Key “we would love to see wages drop” story than you have been able to read in the blogs or the mainstream media. We’ve been in contact with a large number of people who have been connected at various levels of this story as it has developed. Unfortunately, none …
Written By: - Date published: 11:08 am, March 7th, 2008 - 21 comments
The two major dailies have been running bizarre editorial lines against the government’s intervention to block the sale of Auckland Airport, even as their letters columns fill up with people supporting the move. The Herald called it ‘xenophobia’. Of course, the Herald would know a bit about xenophobia having enthusiastically supported the anti-Asian campaigns by …
Written By: - Date published: 11:39 pm, March 6th, 2008 - 36 comments
Last night we published a tip-off saying the New Zealand Herald planned to report that its APN stable-mate the Bay Report would be correcting its story where John Key said ‘we would love to see wages drop.’ That story was published by the Herald this morning, hours before the Bay Report had even gone to …
Written By: - Date published: 9:51 pm, March 5th, 2008 - 54 comments
Today in Parliament Bill English made a very interesting comment which, if true, raises some very concerning questions about either his own honesty or the editorial integrity of APN, publishers of the New Zealand Herald. Referring to a quip from Michael Cullen about John Key’s statement that ‘we would love to see wages drop‘, English …
Written By: - Date published: 5:56 pm, March 4th, 2008 - 39 comments
Michael Cullen made an interesting remark in the House today in response to a question on John Key’s statement that he “would love to see wages drop“. Here’s what Cullen said: I think they would be appalled to learn that the Leader of the Opposition proposed that New Zealand wages should drop, then tried to …
Written By: - Date published: 11:13 am, February 29th, 2008 - 30 comments
I’m as sick of the Owen Glenn saga as the next guy, but Winston Peters’ tussle with failed National Party candidate and Close Up presenter Paul Henry last night was highly entertaining. There’s been a bit of comment about the interview around the blogs, so here it is for those who missed it:
Written By: - Date published: 11:40 am, February 28th, 2008 - 38 comments
The Herald reports that after questioning by the media, ‘Prime Minister Helen Clark says her criticisms of the New Zealand Herald bear no similarity to the ejection a newspaper publisher from Fiji by that country’s military regime.’ That the Herald believes this is in need of clarification, or is even worthy of publication in a …
Written By: - Date published: 11:28 am, February 19th, 2008 - 29 comments
The Press has a good article on the political blogs. The Standard and our mates Kiwiblogblog are referred to as “Labour with its claws out”. As has been explained before, we are not Labour: we are a loose group of Leftwing writers, some of whom are associated with the labour movement, but the image is …
Written By: - Date published: 8:33 am, February 19th, 2008 - 64 comments
John Armstrong’s opinion is that: It is inconceivable that Helen Clark would have blithely offered a wealthy donor to Labour Party coffers a seat at the Cabinet table… Anyone who knows what makes Clark tick knows she is far too clever and far too cautious ever to trap herself into making such promises of patronage. …
Written By: - Date published: 9:09 am, February 18th, 2008 - 23 comments
Mike Hutcheson has somehow made another appearance, this morning, on TV3′s Sunrise programme. This is the guy who told viewers late last year that New Zealand’s problems were caused by a “girltocracy” – presumably a reference to too many women running things for Hutch’s liking. This morning he offered up some obscure research apparently showing …
Written By: - Date published: 10:49 am, February 16th, 2008 - 48 comments
Fran O’Sullivan’s continuing her ongoing philosophical project of interrogating the notion of truth in her latest repetition of Kiwiblog talking points Herald column. In it she picks up on the Owen Glenn interview and from a few disparate facts weaves a story of intrigue and mystery. Or rather provides us with an insight into the …
Written By: - Date published: 7:10 pm, February 13th, 2008 - 27 comments
Is tax really the answer to housing affordability? The editorial in the NZ Herald today motivated a reader to send us these observations: ‘It has long been a dream for New Zealanders to own their own home and it is not a dream that we should dampen. Helping families own their own home may increase …
Written By: - Date published: 7:56 pm, February 10th, 2008 - 17 comments
The decision of TVNZ’s CloseUp to pay to assist Tame Iti to travel to Waitangi this year was the focus of Media Watch this morning. Ever ready to offer an opinion the PM stepped in with her view that: “I think it is a waste of public money.” (Dom Post, 7 Feb 2008) And the …
Written By: - Date published: 8:07 pm, February 9th, 2008 - 2 comments
From CNN earlier in the week – Jeanne Moos presents her very own Super Tuesday Political Video Awards. A good summary of some of the hottest and some of the most cringe inducing items on the download circuit. What will be our NZ equivalent? Meantime fresh controversy is set to rage with the news that …
Written By: - Date published: 3:30 pm, February 5th, 2008 - 27 comments
Jordan Carter has a great post up on the confusion evident in the Herald’s simultaneous endorsement of Republican John McCain for US President – one of the chief sponsors of the American Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 – and their opposition to New Zealand’s recently enacted Electoral Finance Act, a piece of legislation with …
Written By: - Date published: 2:46 pm, January 28th, 2008 - 33 comments
Hidden away today at the bottom of the Herald’s story on further data from the latest DigiPoll is the news that only 3.8% of those surveyed rate the Electoral Finance Act as a vote influencing issue. You can just about feel the Herald’s despair that despite an unprecedented, wholly unbalanced and misleading campaign against the …
Written By: - Date published: 3:00 pm, January 25th, 2008 - 13 comments
Jon Stewart had a good piece last night on why we shouldn’t just trust the economic and financial “experts”. People deserve better from the media than the dehumanising econo-speak about ‘soft labour markets’ and housing ‘corrections’ that dominates our Business pages, so it’s good to see Jon poking a bit of fun. Fox News also …
Written By: - Date published: 9:26 am, January 22nd, 2008 - 99 comments
Yesterday The Herald reported that: Demographia, an international survey business run by Hugh Pavletich of Christchurch and Wendell Cox of the United States, today issued its fourth annual report, showing New Zealand has slipped drastically on an international scale. Now quite aside from the shoddy methodology of the study to which the PM has already …
Written By: - Date published: 2:11 pm, January 20th, 2008 - 278 comments
Ruth Laugeson has an article in the Sunday Star Times about the increased numbers of communications staff employed by ministries. Entitled “Spinning govt yarn costs $47m”, the article is in many ways a lovely piece of spin in its own right. The basis of the article is that the number of spindoctors employed by the …
Written By: - Date published: 10:59 am, January 18th, 2008 - 31 comments
Yesterday’s supposed scandal over an email exhange between Michael Cullen and a National Party activist was an absurd piece of political activism from the Herald. Recently the paper has been running almost daily attack articles on the government, but this was surely scraping the bottom of the barrel. Nat activist John Middleton was painted as …
Written By: - Date published: 8:00 pm, January 17th, 2008 - 25 comments
Move over Mediawatch. Thesproutandthebean have outed more biased reporting in Granny Herald: the abysmal attempt at rationalising the retention of a monarchy in this herald opinion piece was made interesting by what was omitted rather than included. the authors were Sean Palmer and Simon O’Connor and this was the declaration we got of their interests: …
Written By: - Date published: 11:58 am, January 13th, 2008 - 193 comments
Well, I saw my first Farrar billboard in the real two days ago and I gotta tell you I laughed. I was with a companion who is politically aware and has a pretty good idea about the EFB and when I pointed it out to her she was baffled. When I told her the story …
Written By: - Date published: 8:58 pm, January 1st, 2008 - 78 comments
In a front-page article about New Year’s honours focussing on expatriate Kiwi Owen Glenn’s contribution to the Labour Party, Auckland University, and numerous other New Zealand charities, the Herald stated that wealthy American billionaire Julian Robertson, “who contributed to National last election”, is now banned from giving money to political parties here. Until this admission, …
Written By: - Date published: 9:59 pm, December 23rd, 2007 - 34 comments
One morning last week I stumbled upon TV3′s early morning Sunrise programme. It’s a bright and cheery little show providing an easier alternative to Paul Henry’s more acerbic version on TV One. The breezy presenters occasionally host a couple of people called the ‘All-Stars’ and on this particular morning one of the guests was Mike …
Written By: - Date published: 4:51 pm, December 19th, 2007 - 11 comments
Not content to let the media moguls over at The Herald have all the campaigning fun, it was great to finally see The Dom get in on the act this morning – and finally a newspaper campaign that I can get behind myself! This morning’s front page announces the launch of A Dominion Post campaign …
Written By: - Date published: 12:30 pm, December 14th, 2007 - 8 comments
Some interesting observations from Steven Price on DomPost editor Tim Pankhurst’s keynote address at the Jeanz conference called “The Power of Print”. His speech included this interpretation on the NZ Herald’s Electoral Finance Bill campaign: “He was a bit bemused. “Good on them,” was his attitude. But he thought it would be boring the Herald’s …
Written By: - Date published: 9:54 am, December 13th, 2007 - 3 comments
Well I might be drawing a long bow there but last night’s press gallery party was the worst I’ve ever been to and I suspect the Nats’ filibustering of the EFB might have to take the blame. Last year the do was a raucous good time with loads of drinking, gossip and chaos. This year …
Written By: - Date published: 3:58 pm, December 10th, 2007 - 13 comments
From frogblog: The New Zealand Herald has censored part of a 200 word article that the Greens were asked to submit on campaign finance reform for yesterday’s edition. It deleted the opening paragraph that was critical of the Herald’s coverage of the issue, and replaced it with its own commentary at the end of the …
Written By: - Date published: 3:30 pm, December 3rd, 2007 - 18 comments
Fran O’Sullivan is not known as a critic of our pollies from the right. So imagine my surprise when catching up on my weekend reading I spotted these somewhat acerbic comments. On Thursday night, the man who wants to be our next prime minister was nowhere to be seen. he was off touring New Zealand …
Written By: - Date published: 11:51 pm, November 29th, 2007 - 61 comments
This looks interesting. Fox Attacks: Iran is a new short film from Robert Greenwald, director of the excellent Outfoxed. The film focuses on the parallels between Fox’s drumbeat for war with Iraq and what’s being said now about Iran. It’s also a plea to other networks not to fall in behind Fox like they did …
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