Bomber over at Tumeke has pointed out a stupid news story about the blogosphere from the Granny Herald. It either shows a selective bias, or someone reporting on something that they don’t understand at more than a superficial level.
From the Herald staff…
The Blogosphere has made much of the “popular Westie” Paula Bennett’s new job in its initial analysis of John Key’s cabinet announced yesterday.
From bomber..
I love this ‘story’ by the Herald, they do a story about the ‘blogosphere’ reaction to Paula Bennett to my shock they didn’t look at Tumeke…
…instead the Herald goes to the two most right wing blogs on the blogosphere, the Fox news online Kiwiblogh and the appalling whale oil…
Ok, so I thought that bomber was probably over-reacting. But no he isn’t, the blogs looked at were Colin Espiners blog, Kiwiblog (yeah – dog-whistles for the nat’s), and Whaleoil (aka national’s smear unit). The latter two are so associated with National that it is difficult to see them as anything more than sock-puppets for National PR. You’d have thought that a balanced report on the blogosphere reaction would have included some reaction from a range of blogs. Like the lefty or green blogs for instance – just for a bit of balance.
I don’t have time to read many blogs, but the reaction on most blogs has not that favourable about the cabinet lineup. We haven’t done explicit posts on the details of the micro-fauna of NACT + MP cabinet. However there is a lot of comment both in the posts and inside the comments. For instance a lot of the 100+ comments on this post were not exactly complimentary about the cabinet choices. Bomber of course did Paula Bennett the perfect patsy which probably accurately sums up the reaction of the left to putting a first time minister in charge of the social welfare budget. There are certainly enough links to it.
But hey, the “NZ Herald Staff” probably read Kiwiblog and watch Fox news. Fed exclusively on a PR drip-feed, they probably consider that ill-considered knee-jerk reactions are ‘analysis’. More likely they’re too damn lazy to read below the headlines of posts of the blogosphere.
Personally, I’d suggest that people simply stop buying the Herald. It is becoming a rag with low value news content and the reporters are starting to look like they’re dribbling on their bibs.
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