Written By: - Date published: 6:12 pm, May 10th, 2011 - 99 comments
Categories: Environment -
Tags: john key
I was wondering why Key’s team weren’t trying to milk his upcoming hardtalk interview for PR like they have with his other international media appearances.
I guess now we know:
Hattip: Danyl
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Scoopit!
richard you are right. current afairs in NZ is pathetic and that is the way these people want it. they know they can stand up to the hair and teeth jobs shoulder tapped by TVNZ and the others so to save themselves the bother they just dont have any current affairs at all! very convenient and then they say that the public isnt interested. well they would be if there was some blood on the floor every now and again instead of the saccharine hucksterism that passes for investigative journalism these days.
You know that there’s something wrong with the MSM when, confronted with scientific research, they go and get a businessman to cast doubt on the scientists research.
That’s disgusting! Phil O’Reilly, one of the Hollow Men is he not?
Thats because in the early 21st century businessperson somehow makes you an oracle on any subject…
HA! Whilst I was listening to the interview in the above clip my 14 year old daughter was sitting on the sofa behind me mucking about on facebook or whatever and she suddenly piped up and said, ‘Why can’t he just answer the question!’
Yeah, he’s got an excellent mind and intelligent speaking abilities for photo-ops.
It is now on You Tube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfUozKMgA-Y&feature=player_embedded
Part 2
http://www.youtube.com/user/aidanleenz#p/a/u/0/_0canC4MM9I
Robert, you the man!
Re: the question whether NZ will let Crafar being bought – I can mostly hear that slurring guy trying to buy interview time while figuring out how to answer, nay, avoid the question.
This one that NZ elected as PM in 2008 shows himself to be very mediocre, nay, an embarrassment at coming up with responses when he is interviewed.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/video.cfm?c_id=1&gal_cid=1&gallery_id=118540
wow at the Herald cuts…
are they the ministry for propaganda?
Cut out the explanation of the research- cut out the journalist saying you aren’t answering the questions and end with the journalist patting Key down…
ffs
John Key should be immortalised ” Compared to other countries we are 100%” compared to sum I achieved 100% in School cert English
!!!
I only wished that JK was min of education when I was at school !!!!!
This is pure magic and should be aired many times. The unfortunate thing is that this will be lost on many. Still even so late in the day nice to have a chuckle. Pure magic
Anyone know when the full interview will be on again and where. There maybe some more gems that were missed on the 3 minute clip
The BBC site now has the audio which you can listen to worldwide:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p00ggyh3/Hardtalk_11_05_2011/
Another classic part is near the end, where Key goes on about NZers supporting the monarchy based on a poll that said 85% of people here supported bringing back knighthoods. Shortly afterwards, Sarkur points out that a poll he has seen says around 40% of NZers want a republic. Key responds by saying “There’s always some random poll that you can draw from but…”
OOOHHH I get it now! That is why they’ve been keeping him to photo ops!
Doh!
Everytime i watch Key’s answers my face meets the palms of my hands at regular intervals. I know NZ does have some decent journo’s but could you imagine Key getting that type of grilling with more regulararity. His tenure as PM would’ve been finished long ago. Since Muldoon’s over the top treatment of any journo’s not giving the Nats favourable treatment back in the early 80′s there seems to be an utter lack of consistent probing invesitgative journalism in NZ putting chancers like Key under real public scrutiny. That coupled with the severe scaling back in NZ based newsrooms.
Sackur is not known as one the BBC’s hardest interviewers. But he was doing what any investigative political journo does well. Puts his subject under pressure and see’s how they react. In Key’s case not very well. Sackur having dealt with the seasoned Westminster politico’s for years was always going to have done his research on Key and most of it was not going to be favourable. As oppossed to the Herald who have just gone to their default position of being the Nat’s propoganda leaflet. The Herald article almost seems to hint that the big old nasty BBC had no right to harrass NZ’s glorious leader. Plus going to a NZ business bloke to refute the claims of a respected scientist must surely be the Herald’s idea of a piss take.
Key must be asking himself “why can’t all international TV invites be as intellectually challenging as Letterman”?
Having watched the full interview, I actually think that your average viewer would think that Key does OK. Don’t get me wrong imho Key is evading questions, contradicting himself (most notably with the whole “academics and lawyers” and republic v monarchy statistics) etc
But he is very good at doing it while smiling without ever getting aggressive and taking the bait. Most people, when proven wrong like he is, a few times just in this interview (!), or when caught out lying, e.g. the whole Kiwirail shares thing before the 08 election, would go on the attack or get really flustered. He just sticks to some semi-evasive waffle, might even partially concede a point to conceal the fact that he is getting caught red-handed, and remains mild-mannered.
How does he get away with it? Well, in NZ, the casual mild-mannered approach is king. It’s a cultural thing. Politicians like Clark and Goff who are too serious, too intellectual, or too earnest invoke suspicion – they must be full of themselves if they aren’t constantly in self-deprecating humour mode or if they use technical vocabulary (tall poppy syndrome) – and are called “robots” “hapless ideologues” “ivory tower types” and so on. They are not “one of Us”. Key on the other hand is your “average white businessman familyman golfplaying aucklander” type who speaks the language of low-level corporate office. He ticks all the boxes for the Herald, most journalists, tv, etc. as being “one of Us” so he has significantly greater leeway on any subject anyway. He fits into what the Nats would see as the “mainstream NZer” mould quite nicely. Add to that his casual, friendly mild manners and our journos hesitate to attack him because they would be attacking a friendly one-of-us type bloke – they will be the ones seen as unreasonable aggressors. Even Sackur when he nailed him couldn’t bring himself to go all the way.
Invoking “pragmatism” also gets him off the hook. This is an anglo-saxon misnomer to conceal a dominant ideology in this case a watered down neo-liberal approach. Neoliberals can afford to be conservatives in NZ, in the literal sense of the term, because we are not that far off a neoliberal paradise anyway. And Key like many other politicians will avoid rocking the boat by any means possible. This “conservative” line is seen as both “moderate” and “reasonable”.
So the nicknames “teflon” “slippery” are all well-founded. Unless a respected journo nails him with an unrelenting line of questioning on prime time telly – and the PR boys will avoid that at all costs – he will remain our friendly PM whose policies go unnoticed and unchallenged behind the artificial veil that is his Image. If only they would show a few more vids on the news of him sneering and jeering nastily in the house, that could go a long way to undermining his “nice-guy-not-a-politician” persona. His honeymoon with a befuddled media is not even over yet and it’s almost election time so there is little hope of that happening…
It takes the BBC – a leading overseas media organisation – to show the true face of our useless “leader”. Again this proves the uselessness of most NZ media. Apart from a few exceptions the NZ media has become so useless and pre-occupied with “image” and “presentation” that no matters of substance are reported on in-depth. Like with our supermarkets we have something like a duopoly owning the newspapers, magazines and some TV and radio stations. Public broadcasting gets treated worse year by year.
So many in NZ are so brain-washed, they do not get a chance to see “real” questions being asked to our leading politicians. Many do not even bother informing themselves, because they have grown up in a society where commercials on radio and television take up a per centage of broadcasting times, so that any program gets fragmented and listeners and viewers constantly distracted and otherwise brainwashed to simply be “consumers”.
This interview should be a revelation of how useless John Key really is. He dodges questions all the time, contradicts himself, denies facts and make a total fool of himself. Sadly hardly anyone in NZ bothers watching or listening to Hard Talk!
So no wonder we get election results that make critical and informed people wonder how that came about.
At least one tv program showed a 45second extract of this – Media7 on TVNZ7
TVNZ7 the best news in the country at 8pm where they take time to interview people and get to the bottom of issues unlike the tabloid headlines prevalent on TV1 TV3 Prime.
TVNZ7 the channel discarded by our beloved national govt
no surprises there – Key and Coleman are conducting their own Glorious Cultural Revolution
with the motto “Kill Public Service Broadcasting”.