And he will be in deep dodah if/when the interest rates increase by a couple of % and or the properties drop in value.
The way the article reads 10 of the properties were bought with 100% mortgage based on increased valuations.
Ed, it could also be related to fear, especially for those who think the social contract between government and the public has been broken. They don’t want to be left vulnerable to life’s unknowables, and tax, investment and housing policy has all contributed to housing being a proven investment for those with capital.
We shouldn’t blame individuals when policy decisions are incentivising such behaviour.
Interestingly the Herald chooses not to be precise about the amount the rich boy got off his parents.
A key detail without which the story is utterly meaningless.
If always stalls at this time of year because houses always look nicer when the sun is shining. The prime time for selling is after Labour weekend so people who want to sell and can wait, will wait till then.
We are seeing evidence of catastrophic climate change across the planet.
We are seeing rampant inequality in the world.
And yet helipads and the Haka is what the Herald decides is news.
The media is a significant part of the media/military/industrial complex which will see life extinguished on this Earth rather than abandon capitalism.
@Gosman
Rampant inequality looks a lot like this…
Statistics New Zealand, this report is from 2007, and as we all know this social obscenity has mushroomed since, especially under the government of John Key.
“Wealth disparity persists in New Zealand, as in other societies. Disparity in wealth holdings is of significant interest in respect of its implications for health outcomes, economic and social well being, opportunities for social participation, ability to withstand life-shocks, and so on.” http://archive.stats.govt.nz/browse_for_stats/people_and_communities/Families/wealth-and-disparities-in-new-zealand.aspx
We are very clearly in a better position to weather the economic storm now appearing with a Labour lead Government with us than having another “sell all to the lowest bidder “John -Key-ism” capitalist carpetbagger government as they would give the whole country to China at the blink of the eye.
Best we keep a socialist government in power at this ‘transitional time’ as the US did in the last depression under FDR.
you really are a heartless scoundrel. Only a real scumbag would reflect on the level of homelessness in NZ, look at the mansions and empty houses, and decide that the pressing issue is whether the correct description of the level of inequality is “rampant”, or maybe “rife”, or simply “intolerable”.
Boo hoo. Given inequality is “rampant” it is obviously the number one priority of the current left leaning Government. What policies are they implementing that will immediately address this problem?
Only national promise magic wand solutions. In the real world, repairing the damage caused by people like you takes longer than you take to damage it in the first place. And so many problems are rampant, in any normal human use of the word.
People sleep in the goddamned street in NZ. Not just a few, either (as if that would make it any better). Not only do you not care, your “boo hoo” and party-political point-scoring suggest that you don’t even think you should care about anyone else’s misery.
Hell is a myth invented in the dim hope that unregenerate fuckwits like you would at least pretend to act like normal, caring human beings, on the off-chance that it’s real.
It’s a start.
What does the government do with the cash?
How do you judge “taxable income” vs “wealth”?
How do you close loopholes like corporate or trust beneficiaries/expenses?
How do we know that what might be a magic want now will be less applicable in, say, a highly automated society with high unemployment?
Jeez, even your trite solution becomes less simple very quickly. Maybe we should have some sort of working party look at it with official advice for all the various options. I think that’s already started.
What does the Government do with the cash?!? I can’t believe I read that comment from a lefty. I thought there was a huge list of areas of under investment that was crying out for funding.
How about instead of a working group you propose actual policies.
Because of pricks like you trying to point score and derail every goddamn conversation about inequality for literally years – even a decade in your individual case. If the search engine were running I’d bring up some debates we had back when the nats were a young and fresh government and you reckoned everything was fine. Now that it’s someone else’s problem, you’re happy to provide half-arsed suggestions on how to fix the damage.
Are you claiming my arguments are somehow powerful enough that they have the ability to slow the implementation of urgently needed policies to tackle inequality?
Just you and pricks like you. As Marx basically said, the mediocrities who manage to thrive better then most under capitalism will fight to preserve what little advantage they have, thereby serving the interests of the true profiteers of the system.
You, Gosman, are an excellent example of the alienation that capitalism causes, a fracturing of the natural human connections within society. But you are merely one amongst thousands, if not millions.
Fractured, alienated, individual small-mindedness. Hordes of nasty little egoists convinced that they’re better than most other people, little realising that they’ll always just be the expendable pawns of capitalists, thrown just enough crumbs to keep them ravenous.
People like Donald Brash & John Key were the ultimate magician’s, they could just wave their magic wands around and everything was fixed in a jiffy, it was like watching everyone being sprinkled with pixie shit.
Of course it would to you.
Maybe you should read a bit more widely.
Did you see Bill’s post the other day?
Beyond that, I am not doing the research for you.
So you do really think that climate change can extinguish life on earth? So i say again, where is your evidence? What is your argument? That position is certainly not supported by Bill’s last post and that is the only thing you have referenced.
You do understand that it was the processes of life that put the carbon in the ground in the first place?
Climate Change is a serious issue, talking nonsense is not helpful.
Albert Town Community Association chairman Jim Cowie.
I think this gentleman is about to offer to personally put up some of the people in this camping ground about which he is expressing distaste. And he is going to reach out to the community to share space in their back yard and use of facilities so that those suffering from lust for money and lack of kindness and good planning will be able to remedy their faults in a practical and helpful manner.
/Not
Indupitably old bean. The answer lies in the soil.
I just got me broccoli and cauliflower in, the fruit trees are blossoming and little Zealandia birdies are paying their regular visit.
Email to RNZ this morning re; under reporting on Yemen…this should make their day.
Fairness and balance in reporting Yemen and Kim Griggs defending RNZ’s racial bias
Good morning
In an bizarre email exchange earlier this year with the producer of morning report Kim Griggs on this very subject, that producer actually told me at the end of that debate, that people preferred to see/hear stories on people in USA or Europe, to which I replied (in effect) that how would she know what NZ citizens want or not want to hear/see, because she has has never let a balanced world news cycle to exist, so there was nothing for RNZ listeners to compare it too…..
BTW if you know and understand that this is a serious problem of fairness and balance in reporting at RNZ..then change it!
anyway here are some excepts from that exchange….
Kim Griggs
“And no, we’re not racist but there are differences in news values
about deaths during annual monsoons, difficult as these are, versus
unexpected and catastrophic flooding of a large city not used to
flooding.
There are also issues about news production from one area versus the
other which is part and parcel of being part of the Western news
media.”
Adrian Thornton
Thanks for your reply, however Huston has had major floods over the
last three years, so this is not a completely unusual event there of
late, where as the floods in India, Bangladesh and Nepal are the worst
in 30 years, so are in fact an unusual event.
I of course understand your (RNZ) dilemma with being a ‘western’ media
source, however RNZ is the one place where this seemingly natural news
bias should be at it’s lest obvious, which I have to say it is often
not.
Kim Griggs,
“Adrian, we’ll have to agree to disagree on this.
Thirty years of experience in news tells me most people don’t care
about Bangladesh, more people care about Houston.
Right or wrong, it’s happened like that for years. For instance If you
can, without googling, name the ship involved in the deadliest
peacetime maritime disaster in history (and a hint – it’s not the
Titanic), I’ll listen to your arguments harder”.
Adrian Thornton.
I can’t remember it’s name off the top of my head, but I know that a
German troop ship carrying civilians sunk at the end of WW2 by a
Russian submarine is often cited as having the worst causality rate of
a ship lost at sea….no google involved.
I am sad to hear that you have succumbed to just answering the call of
essentially reinforcing the lowest common denominator in human
instinct, instead of helping to fellow citizens to look up higher,
which as I mentioned earlier, is what I thought high level public
funded news and reporting was all about…so I might just as well
listen to Mike Hosking’s then?
Kim Griggs,
“Not at all, it was a ferry in the Philippines. You probably don’t
recall because here in NZ no one took any notice of the fact four
thousand Filipinos had died – then or ever since.
And going back to the original message a) we are not racist and b) we
are not an educational service, we are a news service. As such we
follow the usual news values, which at the moment mean more people
care about Paris over Kenya, Houston over Bangladesh. It may be a sad
fact for you but it’s true.”
Adrian Thornton.
That’s a very strange analogy that you have used, surely you have just reinforced my position? isn’t this is the exact reason why RNZ should cover non european news in a more balanced way…I didn’t remember this tragedy probably because it was covered quite lightly considering it’s epic proportions at the time, whereas if this had happened in a western country I surely would have remembered it from the amount of coverage and human context you would have given it over a long time?
People can only care about what they are informed about (you don’t know what you don’t know), if you took time to humanize and contextualize a human from Bangladesh most other humans would relate to that person just as much as they would if the person was from France, but you never do so they never will have that chance…but that is your production choice not ours.
It is not sad for me personally because I try to take the time to stay informed, but it is sad for the citizens of NZ who trust you as their main news source.
BTW news and education are the same thing, well should be.
So there you have it..RNZ’s racial bias apparently explained.
Best
Adrian Thornton
Adrian T
You have taken this further than I have been able to. I have contacted RNZ
about this and received no answer,
When you get met with the sort of pomposity, complacency, calls to authority, history and precedent it is obvious as to how the recipients of complaints and requests for change view them.l
It is interesting to hear this media person quote that they are not concerned with being educative. In a world where every previoly held idea is being hung by its heels over a long drop, it is obvious that this is so far away from acceptable that one can’t touch wuch ideas with a continent-wide barge pole.
And going back to the original message a) we are not racist and b) we are not an educational service, we are a news service.
This bit about being a news service being totally self-explanatory is similar to the old idea in sociological research that they were completely scientific without bias. Except when women surveyed their modus operandi and choice of subject, they were pronounced thoroughly sexist and women were considered second-rate. So long-held myths confuse from all sides in every centre of thought and choice.
Interesting – Colin Peacock had a bit of a different take on things in Mediawatch (shame he isn’t Editor in Chief)
TRP (below) may be correct if you subscribe to the idea that a public service broadcaster should only be concerned with what’s popular.
It’s no wonder that some of NZ’s best (and others from that ‘Western media’) fuck off and join Aljazeera
I agree Ed, and well done Adrian. I’ve had a global view since I was a teenager in the sixties and often noticed the relative discounting of news from afar.
Dunno if you’d call this bias Eurocentric or pakeha-centric? A residue of colonialism? I give the RNZ producer credit for honesty though. Unusual, that.
@ Ed, I would be happy to put the whole exchange on a post if there was any interest, never done one before, so don’t know how to go about it, and I am not to tech savvy.
Hey, Adrian. If you’re keen, send the email exchange and your thoughts on it to me and I’ll turn it into a guest post. I’ll send you back a draft for your approval before publishing.
Reporting reflects readership (or in this case, listenership). For an item to be newsworthy it has to meet several tests, such as its impact on the audience (does it directly affect them), proximity (a plane crash in Norway vs a plane crash in Normanby), timeliness and currency (is it fresh, is it engaging?), are people we know or recognise involved (Johnny Depp snapped wearing an AB jersey vs 2nd division Romanian rugby team has bus accident).
There are quite a few principles or rules of newsworthiness that you could look up. They’ll help you understand why and how RNZ (and every other news service in the world) prioritises news. Hint, it’s not the news organisations’ ‘racism’, it’s the practical need to provide news that has value and engagement to the reader or listener.
Even better, enrol in a journalism 101 course. You’ll learn a lot about how the media works in quick time and you’ll be less likely in the future to fall in to Morrissey shaped holes when critiquing media output.
btw, there’s an old newspaper joke headline that goes something like this:
Thousands Killed in Indian Earthquake; One Briton Bruises Toe.
Correct. Only the successful ones share RNZ’s trajectory (and have been doing for hundreds of years).
News values are not exactly a secret; as I wrote, they are taught at beginner level in media studies. If you don’t understand the process, you’ll never be able to successfully critique it.
And, as an aside, there’s nothing racist in this approach. Media in Africa, or Asia, or the Americas all use the exact same principles. You’ll be hard pressed to find regular mention of NZ in overseas news outlets for exactly the same reason.
Racism? No; relevancy.
ps agree about Morrissey’s luminous qualities, and I’ll refrain from cheap jokes about the wattage of his bulb 😉
Er, I illustrated the actual process used for centuries in media, Ed. It’s nothing to do with university (though you can learn about it there). The guiding principles for media reporting are fundamentally unchanged over the years and if you understand them, you can understand why the responses from Kim Griggs are actually correct.
No need for uni, just google ‘newsworthy’. There’s a ton of guidance available. And once you’ve got your head around it, you’ll be able to contextualise media reporting from around the world a hell of a lot easier.
And once you know what the media are doing and why, then you have a basis for quality criticism.
Do they actually teach that Neoliberalism Bullshit at University, I did an Economics Degree at Lincoln University under Professor Bruce Ross, he subsequently joined the OECD and became one of the world’s leading agricultural economists.
We did papers on production economics, international economics & trading, farm management & production systems, financial & management accounting, so what is neoliberal economics ?
“News values are not exactly a secret; as I wrote, they are taught at beginner level in media studies………..”
They certainly are, as are other ideas (such as the news agenda, and gate-keeping) in the hope there’d be some critical thought.
Then there’s a Public Sphere in which people are exposed to other ideas and viewpoints, NOT solely those that an individual might solicit. When we only ever expose ourselves to that which we solicit, we end up living in our own little bubble.
Of course, given that much of what is taught in the (now) BUSINESS of education, where boxes are ticked, and it doesn’t matter if the Media 101 student has plagiarised, or not even written their own assignments, some have reason to worry about the state of our public media.
What I find most interesting in the Adrian Thornton/Kim Griggs exchange is the bit about “thirty years experience………..etc”. She must undoubtably know best.
As I said before, it’s no wonder why many of our best are fucking off to join the likes of Aljazeera.
But then I defer to you TRP – you’re the voice of reason.
@TRP,
I would expect nothing less from you……and here I was thinking that one of the key objectives of the progressive project was helping fellow citizens and one’s self to slowly progress toward evolving to something higher…you know a place where we can care as much about people in Africa as in the USA, as much about someone’s plight in South East Asia as we do about someone in the UK or NZ….maybe not in our life times, but through us standing up to and calling out blatant racism/sexism etc in whatever way we can, we try to make a difference…at lest that is what I think part of being a progressive means.
Obviously you think different, and that’s OK..in the words of Kim Griggs….
“we’ll have to agree to disagree on this.
” … here I was thinking that one of the key objectives of the progressive project was helping fellow citizens and one’s self to slowly progress toward evolving to something higher… ”
And that has precisiely nothing to do with RNZ. They don’t exist as part of a ‘progressive project’. They’re a state owned news outlet, broadly based on the BBC model, and utilising the common news gathering and broadcast methods of all other news outlets.
My take was that TRP wasn’t defending the status quo, merely describing it. Identifying the relevant teaching in media 1.01 explains why journos operate accordingly. Well to a large extent. Obviously supervision of those in the media organisation hierarchy reinforces adherence.
Most commentators believe leftists control & perpetuate education curricula according to the antique formula `those who can, do; those who can’t, teach’. Institutionalisation of the problem is the problem. A progressive agenda would include an education regime fit for purpose.
Then there’s the problem created by those calling out blatant racism/sexism: collateral damage caused by callers who get it wrong…
you know a place where we can care as much about people in Africa as in the USA
I do. I don’t really care about either. Their life and death have no effect upon me.
As TRP said – it’s all about relevancy.
Now, if the African states banded together and started wars the same way that the US does then I’d be interested. If African deaths were caused by US actions or vice versa I’d be interested.
These types of things are interesting as they require a country to respond to them in some way.
Bias can be shown in the MSM but not because they don’t report natural disasters. It’s because they’ll report a single Israeli death to Hamas missiles while the thousands of Palestinians killed by the IDF and Israeli settlers on Palestinian land either doesn’t get mentioned at all or its not more than a line or two.
It is not about relevance it is about balance, I get it that of course we would never have or maybe even want a 50/50 news balance re; west and the rest, but at the moment RNZ would be running on something like 90/10 or worse…I don’t know what the right balance is but it ain’t what it is now, that much is for sure.
No, it really is about relevance. They don’t have a lot of time to put things in and so things need to be prioritised and the simple fact is that things like death outside of the local is of no relevance whatsoever.
Hint, it’s not the news organisations’ ‘racism’, it’s the practical need to provide news that has value and engagement to the reader or listener.
As the way that media operate and have condensed is a change, so the way that media is taught and views itself has to change. It is no use repeating what has been the meme for years. Particularly as change is being thrust upon us because of our ineptitude of understanding received news in the past, and what has been chosen as suitable for us. (Patronising, even authoritarian.) And then there are the enormous number of things we don’t know that we don’t know.
I am interested in expanding my knowledge. It is facile to argue that news should be just about what is popular. Also that it is not educative. People read news to learn – at a populist level just what is going on in their everyday thought playpen, then those who want to be citizens read it to go further, and ask why is this going on and what ramifications does it have. When others choose the information to be presented people are being cheated of the opportunity to be informed people. Then you get bunches of prejudiced stuff flowing round in society that is all artificially flavoured but few will know what the reality looks and smells like.
I like Slavoj Zizek who presents constant clashes between what one thinks is known and his latest perception. He commented on a well-known speech from 2002 by then United States Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld
Rumsfeld stated:
Reports that say that something hasn’t happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns – the ones we don’t know we don’t know. And if one looks throughout the history of our country and other free countries, it is the latter category that tend to be the difficult ones…..
(But there was more).
Psychoanalytic philosopher Slavoj Žižek says that beyond these three categories there is a fourth, the unknown known, that which we intentionally refuse to acknowledge that we know: “If *Rumsfeld thinks that the main dangers in the confrontation with Iraq were the ‘unknown unknowns’, that is, the threats from Saddam whose nature we cannot even suspect, then the Abu Ghraib scandal shows that the main dangers lie in the “unknown knowns”—the disavowed beliefs, suppositions and obscene practices we pretend not to know about, even though they form the background of our public values.”[12] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There_are_known_knowns
Ever heard of a Johari window? No. Oh that will be because some newsman decided it wasn’t new news that was fit to print.
For a Public Service Broadcaster, in an out-of-the-way place like NZ, not to be delivering a pathway to world news leads to our ignorance, our backwardness and our cringe mentality to ‘clever sophisticated people from overseas'[ which seems fairly well-embedded in us. FGS get off your cliche’s of merely following historical trends that don’t supply what we need in a fraught, taut, endangered and not well-informed nation – that has to change.
And those rules may have made sense in the 1950s where NZ was connected to England … and that was it. But NZ has Bangladeshis living here, it has Africans living here, we tend to be well travelled especially to south east Asia.
I was pretty shocked to hear (on media report on RNZ) that 1,000,000 Yemeni’s are likely to get cholera and that the Saudi’s have bombed the port that medical supplies come through. I had no idea the conflict was at that kind of scale.
The silence isn’t because it’s in part of the world that we are not interested in – it’s silence around who are doing the attacking and who are supplying the millitary equipment … and it’s not Russia.
I concur !! rnz seems to do a good job of giving us a very broad selection of music from around the world , and we get current affairs etc etc but the news as such is a few minutes of msm talking points WTF ??just the same as the crap on tv Does the rnz newsroom not contain any actual journalists ?To make a food analogy its like a constant diet of luncheon sausage and boiled veges and like a row of blackbirds with gaping beaks we,re expected to swallow the spoon fed proffering !!Im sure TRP,s explanation is accurate but it still feels patronising or in this case matronising !!
I too appreciate you sharing your exchange Adrian, thanks, it is an interesting subject.
I’m not fond of the picket up my bum but I find myself on the fence. When I strip down my personal take on newsworthiness I am more inclined to want to hear more about my neighbour that got struck with lightning than 1000 drowning in Dunedin. Ideally, like you Adrian, I feel that an insight into both events is both attainable and desirable.
In the media smorgasbord we live in I feel a handle on the world view I’m after is attainable but it’s all down to my searching and clicking. Read 3 lines in a Herald World News round-up and go searching for an English spoken Bangladesh TV report.
Wallace talking to Bill Bailey about everything. Wonderful humorous thoughtful intelligent and with interesting comment on England. Bill talks about going round some areas of England and the sad state of boarding up they show wth nothing much to notice except some tech shop. And the government obsessed in trying to make sense over Brexist with things being on hold there which the country needs to attend to. The place sounds in a state of paralysis, and the mind boggles about what will happen when final dates arrive and some areas will just close down.
https://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/sunday/audio/2018657732/bill-bailey-comic-stand-up-who-loves-sup
Bill Bailey’s a man of many talents. As well as making people laugh, he’s an enthusiastic stand-up paddle boarder, passionate conservationist, accomplished musician and an author. He’s back in New Zealand in September with his Earl of Whimsy show which features tales of Britain’s fortunes past and present. He shares his thoughts on many things from Brexit to the best places in the world to paddle board.
Is Jeremy Corbyn’s “anti-Semitism Crisis” a Smear Campaign?
‘UK Opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn is accused of presiding over a surge of anti-Semitism inside the Labour Party. Author Norman Finkelstein and British scholar Jamie Stern-Weiner say that Corbyn’s foes have cynically concocted a fake scandal to sabotage his progressive agenda and support for Palestinian rights’
Too bad Finkelstein’s microphone/acoustics rendered him mostly incomprehensible, but you get the general picture. Seems worse than a smear campaign when you factor in some of the other reports from recent times. Anybody interested in the extent to which the Israel lobby is operated like a gutting knife in the body of the British Labour Party ought to read this expert commentary & analysis: https://www.jonathan-cook.net/blog/2018-08-08/labour-crisis-israel-anti-semitism/
The party exec committee is looking like a robot with a ray-gun having taken a hit to its control system, gone rogue & now zapping its members with random bursts. Now jews are subdividing themselves into good jews & bad jews!!
Corbyn can support Israel as a whole (including all the Druze and Arabs who are such significant minorities), if he opposes the destructive Netanyahu-affiliated parties and government, and finds common cause engaging with Israel’s own Labor Party and its own potential coalition.
Depends on Winston. As usual. Trotter has to maintain industry to get his columns published in our dwindling newspaper pool. That requires constant conjuring up of new angles from which to view stuff.
13.5% wage drop. Such great times we live in, the greedy got get their fix, and workers are where they getting it, by keeping wages low. How about you just stop. STOP. it’s a simple message, no fighting, no struggle, just stop engaging with this system built on greed and exploitation.
“I know multiple people who have applied to work in the mines, myself included, and get rejected, so it’s not that Aussies don’t want them, it’s that the mining company’s don’t want Aussies,” Stuart Lightman added.
As more migrant workers are flown in to pick up mining jobs, conditions and pay have also begun to deteriorate.
According to Ryan, he and his friends were only out there for the money, which isn’t what it used to be.
Are we truly surprised that big business is lying so as to lower wages and conditions?
The first step in tackling a problem is identifying it. That’s the thinking behind a new effort from the Ad Council and the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence designed to promote gun safety in the home.
The organizations today are introducing a new term: “family fire,” aimed at preventing shootings that result from improperly stored weapons or misuse of firearms in households.
The idea for “family fire” takes inspiration from now familiar terms that have helped to address other epidemics in our country: secondhand smoke, designated driver, friendly fire. “Our goal is to make ‘family fire’ a part of the vernacular in an attempt to change behavior and save lives,” says Lisa Sherman, president and CEO of the Ad Council
Turkey’s financial troubles started off as currency issues, and now they’re afflicted with the same woes that sank Greece, debt and liquidity.
The most immediate issue for Turkish policy makers is the financial system, which is exposed to interest- and exchange-rate shocks. Four people with knowledge of the matter said the banking regulator had scheduled calls with some banks on Saturday after asking them to study the potential impact. The regulator, known as BDDK in Turkish, said there was no meeting scheduled for Saturday and that the reviews were routine.
“This is a textbook currency crisis that’s morphing into a debt and liquidity crisis due to policy mistakes,” said Win Thin, a strategist at Brown Brothers Harriman & Co. in New York. “The way things are going, markets need to be prepared for a hard landing in the economy, corporate defaults on foreign currency debt, and possible bank failures.”
“It’s well known that the racist news website wizard and former Trump confidante Steve Bannon, currently planning a pan-global far-right resurgence called The Motion, was inspired by Jean Raspail’s controversial 1973 French science-fiction novel The Camp of the Saints, which uses an invasion of western Europe by disenchanted brown people from below the equator as a satire of white European privilege and colonial guilt.
But is it possible that Bannon’s current championing of the sunbed magnate and mortgage fraudster Tommy Robinson as “the backbone” of the UK has been inspired by his acquaintance with a less well-known piece of fascist-flavoured fiction?
The Canadian alcoholic Richard Allen is thought to have written 290 novels in his lifetime, and between 1970 and 1980 he penned 18 violent books set in the milieu of Britain’s fractious youth culture, such as Skinhead, Skinhead Escapes, Skinhead Returns, and the martial arts-themed Taekwondo Skinhead…
… Indeed, Steve Bannon seems to be carrying vast sections of dialogue from The Right Honourable Skinhead around in his head, which spill unbidden from his careless face. Bannon said, off-air, to the LBC presenter Theo Usherwood, who had queried his support for Tommy Robinson, “Fuck you. Don’t you fucking say you’re calling me out. You fucking liberal elite. Tommy Robinson is the backbone of this country.”
And on page 103 of The Right Honourable Skinhead, the news magnate Steve Mannon, Robbie Tomlinson’s chief cheerleader, who differs only from Steve Bannon in that he is a Welsh born-again Christian, addresses radio presenter Leo Isherwood thus, “Flip you, boyo! Don’t you flipping say you’re calling me out. You flipping liberal elite. Robbie Tomlinson is the backbone of this country, by which I mean the whole UK not just Wales.””
Not much on how women are faring, but anyhoo, read it and weep.
The decimation of Syria’s male population represents, arguably, the most fundamental shift in the country’s social fabric. As a generation of men has been pared down by death, disability, forced displacement and disappearance, those who remain have largely been sucked into a violent and corrupting system centered around armed factions.
An Alawi family in a coastal village provides a window into the ravaged state of Syria’s male population, even in territory that has remained firmly under government control. Of three brothers, one was killed in battle, a second paralyzed by a bullet to the spine, and a third—an underpaid, 30-year-old civil servant—lives in fear of conscription. Their mother summed up her plight:
We’re tired of war. I gave one martyr, and another son is half-dead. The youngest might be drafted at any moment. I hope for god to end this war; the graveyards are filled with young men.
Good Morning The Am Show Duncan good interview with the science professor John about round up weed killer the owners of that prouduct were cheating and manipulating the data we can not trust there prouduct use all chemicals with causation ban the stuff and come up with some kiwi innovation was to control weed’s
Why did the council not have people on the ground check farms for environmental breaches because shonky backed the GDP money over the enviroment we leave for the mokopuna’s future I could see that happening right before my eyes .
This is letting everyone know how Great tangata whenua O Atearoa Culture really is around Papatuanuku ka pai to who stirred this subject of OUR Haka UP.
Ka kite ano
This is what I say about research data follow the mone and you will be able to see if the subject’s data is being manipulated to suit the mone men’s goal of selling more lie’s to us. The link is below
Huge alcohol clinical trial collapses. ka kite ano
Good morning Newshub Ana to kai national
Aretha Franklin is a exceptional musician one of the best condolences to her whano/family.
Is that evedince for you 2 Europeen boys running Dairy farms were are the tangata whenua farm managers they are younger my sons.????????????? Am I imagineing it all. That it’s 10x harder for tangata whenua to get good well paying jobs.
P.S we served our apprenticeship time in the Dairy industry. Its good that the council are going to check dairy farms effluent systems. You know how it is the many make sure they abide buy the rule and respect the environment and a small % don’t give a toss about the environment those are the idiots that ruin it for the majority OF of farmers. Aotearoa dollar is one of the most trusted traded dollar on Papatuanukue trump won’t shake the Papatuanukue to much his rich M8 will lose to much mone.
I’M a big Cliff Curtis and Jason stratham Fan I liked The Dark Horse.
Is Koepka a tangata whenua of America great golfing. Alex We hope we get some warm weather soon Ka kite ano
Good evening The Crowd goes Wild James and Mulls look like Wendy and her team m8 had a bit of fun after winning the net ball competition.
I tryed to find out Brook Koepka culture can’t find any thing on that subject. The Warriors are doing fine
Ka kite ano P.S the sandflys are grasping at straws of – – – lol
If one stubbornly clings to the Elimination strategy (I don’t support it, but that will have to wait for another occasion) then try to get it right. You need secure borders. We have attempted this with a very large measure of success. It has not been perfect as the Covid-19 Response ...
Diaspora: perception departs from reality In this collection of articles are two papers currently captivating the attention of people following the science and emergence of climate change, especially the rapid variety we've accidentally unleashed and which is now unfolding around us. The synthesis and review article Earth's Ice Imbalance by Slater ...
The ultra-rich have done very, very well out of the pandemic. Globally, the wealth of the ten richest people rose by US$540 billion last year, enough money to pay for the pandemic in its entirity. And in New Zealand, local billionaire Graeme Hart saw his wealth increase by almost NZ$3.5 ...
Postmodernism has long been looked upon as an indecipherable ideology and a source of amusement. In 1996 Alan Sokal, a physics professor at New York University, had a hoax article published in ‘Social Text’ an academic journal of postmodern cultural studies. In ‘Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections Anew study in Nature Sustainability incorporates the damages that climate change does to healthy ecosystems into standard climate-economics models. The key finding in the study by Bernardo Bastien-Olvera and Frances Moore from the University of California at Davis: The models have been underestimating the ...
In a recent interview with RNZ (14th of January), NZ Council of Civil Liberties Chair Thomas Beagle, in response to Simon Bridges condemnation of the post-Trump Twitter purge of local far Right and other accounts, said the following: “Cos the thing about freedom of expression is that it’s not just ...
Let’s be clear: if Trump is not politically killed off once and for all, he will become a MAGA Dracula, rising from the dead to haunt US politics for years to come and giving inspiration to his wretched family of grifters and thousands of deplorables well into the next decade. ...
Since its demise as an imperial power, and especially its deindustrialisation under Thatcher, the UK's primary economic engine has been its role as a money laundry, using its network of overseas territories as tax havens to enable rich people around the world to steal from the societies they live in. ...
Last month OMV quit the Great South Basin and surrendered its offshore exploration permits outside of Taranaki. This month, Australian-owned Beach Energy has done the same: Beach Energy Resources New Zealand has decided to abandon all of its oil and gas exploration permits off the South Island coast, including ...
The new Northland case has been linked to the South African strain of Covid-19, one of a number of new, more contagious Covid variants. Here’s how they emerge and why. Let’s start with the basics. The genetic material of the SARS-CoV-2 virus responsible for Covid-19 is a strand of RNA ...
MARVIN HUBBARD, US citizen by birth, New Zealand citizen by choice, Quaker and left-wing activist, has been broadcasting his show, "Community or Chaos", on Otago Access Radio for the best part of 30 years. On 24 November last year, I spoke with him about the outcome of the 2020 General ...
This is a guest blog post by Daniel Tamberg, Potsdam, co-founder and director of SCIARA GmbH. The non-profit organisation SCIARA is developing and operating a flexible software platform for scientific simulation games that allows thousands of players to explore, design and understand possible climate futures together. Decision-makers in politics, business, ...
Yesterday's Gone: Cold shivers are running up and down the spines of conservatives everywhere. Donald Trump may have gone, but all the signs point to there being something much more momentous in the wind-shift than a simple return to the status quo ante. A change is gonna come. ONE COULD ...
Is it possible to live and let live in the post-Trump era? The online campaign to vilify Christopher Liddell, ex-White House Deputy Chief of Staff and Assistant to Trump, makes for an interesting case study. Liddell is a New Zealander whose illustrious career in corporate America once earned him plaudits ...
A chronological listing of news articles linked to on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week: Sun, Jan 17, 2021 through Sat, Jan 23, 2021Editor's Choice12 new books explore fresh approaches to act on climate changeAuthors explore scientific, economic, and political avenues for climate action ...
This discussion is from a Twitter thread by Martin Kulldorff on 20 December 2020. He is a Professor at Harvard Medical School specialising in disease surveillance methods, infectious disease outbreaks and vaccine safety. His Twitter handle is @MartinKulldorff #1 Public health is about all health outcomes, not just a single ...
The Treasury forecasts suggest the economy is doing better than expected after the Covid Shock. John Kenneth Galbraith was wont to say that economic forecasting was designed to make astrology look good. Unfair, but it raises the question of the purpose of economic forecasts. Certainly the public may treat them ...
Q: Will the COVID-19 vaccines prevent the transmission of the coronavirus and bring about community immunity (aka herd immunity)? A: Jury not in yet but vaccines do not have to be perfect to thwart the spread of infection. While vaccines induce protection against illness, they do not always stop actual ...
Joe Biden seems to be everything that Donald Trump was not – decent, straightforward, considerate of others, mindful of his responsibilities – but none of that means that he has an easy path ahead of him. The pandemic still rages, American standing in the world is grievously low, and the ...
Keana VirmaniFrom healthcare robots to data privacy, to sea level rise and Antarctica under the ice: in the four years since its establishment, the Aotearoa New Zealand Science Journalism Fund has supported over 30 projects.Rebecca Priestley, receiving the PM Science Communication Prize (Photo by Mark Tantrum) Associate Professor ...
Nothing more from me today - I'm off to Wellington, to participate in the city's annual roleplaying convention (which has also eaten my time for the whole week, limiting blogging despite there being interesting things happening). Normal bloggage will resume Tuesday. ...
The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weaponscame into force today, making the development, possession, use or threat of use of nuclear weapons illegal in international law. Every nuclear-armed state is now a criminal regime. The corporations and scientists who design, build and maintain their illegal weapons are now ...
"Come The Revolution!" The key objective of Bernard Hickey’s revolutionary solution to the housing crisis is a 50 percent reduction in the price of the average family home. This will be achieved by the introduction of Capital Gains, Land, and Wealth taxes, and by the opening up of currently RMA-protected ...
by Daphna Whitmore Twitter and Facebook shutting down Trump’s accounts after his supporters stormed Capitol Hill is old news now but the debates continue over whether the actions against Trump are a good thing or not. Those in favour of banning Trump say Twitter and Facebook are private companies and ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections Democrats now control the White House, Senate, and House of Representatives for the first time in a decade, albeit with razor thin Congressional majorities. The last time, in the 111th Congress (2009-2011), House Democrats passed a carbon cap and trade bill, but it died ...
Session thirty-three was highly abbreviated, via having to move house in a short space of time. Oh well. The party decided to ignore the tree-monster and continue the attack on the Giant Troll. Tarsin – flying on a giant summoned bat – dumped some high-grade oil over the ...
Last night I stayed up till 3am just to see then-President Donald Trump leave the White House, get on a plane, and fly off to Florida, hopefully never to return. And when I woke up this morning, America was different. Not perfect, because it never was. Probably not even good, ...
Watching today’s inauguration of Joe Biden as the United States’ 46th president, there’s not a lot in common with the inauguration of Donald Trump just four destructive years ago. Where Trump warned of carnage, Biden dared to hope for unity and decency. But the one place they converge is that ...
Dan FalkBritons who switched on their TVs to “Good Morning Britain” on the morning of Sept. 15, 2020, were greeted by news not from our own troubled world, but from neighboring Venus. Piers Morgan, one of the hosts, was talking about a major science story that had surfaced the ...
Sara LutermanGrowing up autistic in a non-autistic world can be very isolating. We are often strange and out of sync with peers, despite our best efforts. Autistic adults have, until very recently, been largely absent from media and the public sphere. Finding role models is difficult. Finding useful advice ...
Doug JohnsonThe alien-like blooms and putrid stench of Amorphophallus titanum, better known as the corpse flower, draw big crowds and media coverage to botanical gardens each year. In 2015, for instance, around 75,000 people visited the Chicago Botanic Garden to see one of their corpse flowers bloom. More than ...
Getting to Browser Tab Zero so I can reboot the computer is awfully hard when the one open tab is a Table of Contents for the Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, and every issue has more stuff I want to read. A few highlights: Gugler et al demonstrating ...
Michael Cowling, CQUniversity AustraliaWe’ve probably all been there. We buy some new smart gadget and when we plug it in for the first time it requires an update to work. So we end up spending hours downloading and updating before we can even play with our new toy. But ...
Timothy Ford, University of Massachusetts Lowell and Charles M. Schweik, University of Massachusetts AmherstTo mitigate health inequities and promote social justice, coronavirus vaccines need to get to underserved populations and hard-to-reach communities. There are few places in the U.S. that are unreachable by road, but other factors – many ...
Israel chose to pay a bit over the odds for the Pfizer vaccine to get earlier access. Here’s The Times of Israel from 16 November. American government will be charged $39 for each two-shot dose, and the European bloc even less, but Jerusalem said to agree to pay $56. Israel ...
Orla is a gender critical Marxist in Ireland. She gave a presentation on 15 January 2021 on the connection between postmodern/transgender identity politics and the current attacks on democratic and free speech rights. Orla has been active previously in the Irish Socialist Workers Party and the People Before Profit electoral ...
. . America: The Empire Strikes Back (at itself) Further to my comments in the first part of 2020: The History That Was, the following should be considered regarding the current state of the US. They most likely will be by future historians pondering the critical decades of ...
Nathaniel ScharpingIn March, as the Covid-19 pandemic began to shut down major cities in the U.S., researchers were thinking about blood. In particular, they were worried about the U.S. blood supply — the millions of donations every year that help keep hospital patients alive when they need a transfusion. ...
Sarah L Caddy, University of CambridgeVaccines are a marvel of medicine. Few interventions can claim to have saved as many lives. But it may surprise you to know that not all vaccines provide the same level of protection. Some vaccines stop you getting symptomatic disease, but others stop you ...
Back in 2016, the Portuguese government announced plans to stop burning coal by 2030. But progress has come much quicker, and they're now scheduled to close their last coal plant by the end of this year: The Sines coal plant in Portugal went offline at midnight yesterday evening (14 ...
The Sincerest Form Of Flattery: As anybody with the intestinal fortitude to brave the commentary threads of local news-sites, large and small, will attest, the number of Trump-supporting New Zealanders is really quite astounding. IT’S SO DIFFICULT to resist the temptation to be smug. From the distant perspective of New Zealand, ...
RNZ reports on continued arbitrariness on decisions at the border. British comedian Russell Howard is about to tour New Zealand and other acts allowed in through managed isolation this summer include drag queen RuPaul and musicians at Northern Bass in Mangawhai and the Bay Dreams festival. The vice-president of the ...
As families around the world mourn more than two million people dead from Covid-19, the Plan B academics and their PR industry collaborator continue to argue that the New Zealand government should stop focusing on our managed isolation and quarantine system and instead protect the elderly so that they can ...
A chronological listing of news articles linked to on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week: Sun, Jan 10, 2021 through Sat, Jan 16, 2021Editor's ChoiceNASA says 2020 tied for hottest year on record — here’s what you can do to helpPhoto by Michael Held on Unsplash ...
Health authorities in Norway are reporting some concerns about deaths in frail elderly after receiving their COVID-19 vaccine. Is this causally related to the vaccine? Probably not but here are the things to consider. According to the news there have been 23 deaths in Norway shortly after vaccine administration and ...
Happy New Year! No, experts are not concerned that “…one of New Zealand’s COIVD-1( vaccines will fail to protect the country” Here is why. But first I wish to issue an expletive about this journalism (First in Australia and then in NZ). It exhibits utter failure to actually truly consult ...
All nations have shadows; some acknowledge them. For others they shape their image in uncomfortable ways.The staunch Labour supporter was in despair at what her Rogernomics Government was doing. But she finished ‘at least, we got rid of Muldoon’, a response which tells us that then, and today, one’s views ...
Grigori GuitchountsIn November, Springer Nature, one of the world’s largest publishers of scientific journals, made an attention-grabbing announcement: More than 30 of its most prestigious journals, including the flagship Nature, will now allow authors to pay a fee of US$11,390 to make their papers freely available for anyone to read ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Gary Yohe, Henry Jacoby, Richard Richels, and Benjamin Santer Imagine a major climate change law passing the U.S. Congress unanimously? Don’t bother. It turns out that you don’t need to imagine it. Get this: The Global Change Research Act of 1990 was passed ...
“They’re here already! You’re next! You’re next! You’re next!”WHO CAN FORGET the penultimate scene of the 1956 movie classic, Invasion of the Body Snatchers? The wild-eyed doctor, stumbling down the highway, trying desperately to warn his fellow citizens: “They’re here already! You’re next! You’re next! You’re next!”Ostensibly science-fiction, the movie ...
TheOneRing.Net has got its paws on the official synopsis of the upcoming Amazon Tolkien TV series. It’s a development that brings to mind the line about Sauron deliberately releasing Gollum from the dungeons of Barad-dûr. Amazon knew exactly what they were doing here, in terms of drumming up publicity: ...
Since Dwight Eisenhower’s inauguration in 1953, US presidents have joined an informal club intended to provide support - and occasionally rivalry - between those few who have been ‘leaders of the free world’. Donald Trump, elected on a promise to ‘drain the swamp’ and a constant mocker of his predecessors, ...
For over a decade commentators have noted the rise of a new brand of explicitly ideological politics throughout the world. By this they usually refer to the re-emergence of national populism and avowedly illiberal approaches to governance throughout the “advanced” democratic community, but they also extend the thought to the ...
The US House of Representatives has just impeached Donald Trump, giving him the dubious honour of being the only US President to be impeached twice. Ten Republicans voted for impeachement, making it the most bipartisan impeachment ever. The question now is whether the Senate will rise to the occasion, and ...
Kieren Mitchell; Alice Mouton, Université de Liège; Angela Perri, Durham University, and Laurent Frantz, Ludwig Maximilian University of MunichThanks to the hit television series Game of Thrones, the dire wolf has gained a near-mythical status. But it was a real animal that roamed the Americas for at least 250,000 ...
Tide of tidal data rises Having cast our own fate to include rising sea level, there's a degree of urgency in learning the history of mean sea level in any given spot, beyond idle curiosity. Sea level rise (SLR) isn't equal from one place to another and even at a particular ...
Well, some of those chickens sure came home bigly, didn’t they… and proceeded to shit all over the nice carpet in the Capitol. What we were seeing here are societal forces that have long had difficulty trying to reconcile people to the “idea” of America and the reality of ...
In the wake of Donald Trump's incitement of an assault on the US capitol, Twitter finally enforced its terms of service and suspended his account. They've since followed that up with action against prominent QAnon accounts and Trumpers, including in New Zealand. I'm not unhappy with this: Trump regularly violated ...
A growing public housing waiting list and continued increase of house prices must be urgently addressed by Government, Green Party Co-leader Marama Davidson said today. ...
A Waitomo-based Jobs for Nature project will keep up to ten people employed in the village as the tourism sector recovers post Covid-19 Conservation Minister Kiri Allan says. “This $500,000 project will save ten local jobs by deploying workers from Discover Waitomo into nature-based jobs. They will be undertaking local ...
Minister for Climate Change, James Shaw spoke yesterday with President Biden’s Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry. “I was delighted to have the opportunity to speak with Mr. Kerry this morning about the urgency with which our governments must confront the climate emergency. I am grateful to him and ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Hon Nanaia Mahuta today announced three diplomatic appointments: Alana Hudson as Ambassador to Poland John Riley as Consul-General to Hong Kong Stephen Wong as Consul-General to Shanghai Poland “New Zealand’s relationship with Poland is built on enduring personal, economic and historical connections. Poland is also an important ...
Work begins today at Wainuiomata High School to ensure buildings and teaching spaces are fit for purpose, Education Minister Chris Hipkins says. The Minister joined principal Janette Melrose and board chair Lynda Koia to kick off demolition for the project, which is worth close to $40 million, as the site ...
A skilled and experienced group of people have been named as the newly established Oranga Tamariki Ministerial Advisory Board by Children’s Minister Kelvin Davis today. The Board will provide independent advice and assurance to the Minister for Children across three key areas of Oranga Tamariki: relationships with families, whānau, and ...
The green light for New Zealand’s first COVID-19 vaccine could be granted in just over a week, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said today. “We’re making swift progress towards vaccinating New Zealanders against the virus, but we’re also absolutely committed to ensuring the vaccines are safe and effective,” Jacinda Ardern said. ...
The Minister for ACC is pleased to announce the appointment of three new members to join the Board of ACC on 1 February 2021. “All three bring diverse skills and experience to provide strong governance oversight to lead the direction of ACC” said Hon Carmel Sepuloni. Bella Takiari-Brame from Hamilton ...
The Government is investing $9 million to upgrade a significant community facility in Invercargill, creating economic stimulus and jobs, Infrastructure Minister Grant Robertson and Te Tai Tonga MP Rino Tirikatene have announced. The grant for Waihōpai Rūnaka Inc to make improvements to Murihiku Marae comes from the $3 billion set ...
[Opening comments, welcome and thank you to Auckland University etc] It is a great pleasure to be here this afternoon to celebrate such an historic occasion - the entry into force of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. This is a moment many feared would never come, but ...
The Government is providing $3 million in one-off seed funding to help disabled people around New Zealand stay connected and access support in their communities, Minister for Disability Issues, Carmel Sepuloni announced today. The funding will allow disability service providers to develop digital and community-based solutions over the next two ...
Border workers in quarantine facilities will be offered voluntary daily COVID-19 saliva tests in addition to their regular weekly testing, COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins said today. This additional option will be rolled out at the Jet Park Quarantine facility in Auckland starting on Monday 25 January, and then to ...
The next steps in the Government’s ambitious firearms reform programme to include a three-month buy-back have been announced by Police Minister Poto Williams today. “The last buy-back and amnesty was unprecedented for New Zealand and was successful in collecting 60,297 firearms, modifying a further 5,630 firearms, and collecting 299,837 prohibited ...
Upscaling work already underway to restore two iconic ecosystems will deliver jobs and a lasting legacy, Conservation Minister Kiri Allan says. “The Jobs for Nature programme provides $1.25 billion over four years to offer employment opportunities for people whose livelihoods have been impacted by the COVID-19 recession. “Two new projects ...
The Government has released its Public Housing Plan 2021-2024 which outlines the intention of where 8,000 additional public and transitional housing places announced in Budget 2020, will go. “The Government is committed to continuing its public house build programme at pace and scale. The extra 8,000 homes – 6000 public ...
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has congratulated President Joe Biden on his inauguration as the 46th President of the United States of America. “I look forward to building a close relationship with President Biden and working with him on issues that matter to both our countries,” Jacinda Ardern said. “New Zealand ...
A major investment to tackle wilding pines in Mt Richmond will create jobs and help protect the area’s unique ecosystems, Biosecurity Minister Damien O’Connor says. The Mt Richmond Forest Park has unique ecosystems developed on mineral-rich geology, including taonga plant species found nowhere else in the country. “These special plant ...
To further protect New Zealand from COVID-19, the Government is extending pre-departure testing to all passengers to New Zealand except from Australia, Antarctica and most Pacific Islands, COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins said today. “The change will come into force for all flights arriving in New Zealand after 11:59pm (NZT) on Monday ...
Bay Conservation Cadets launched with first intake Supported with $3.5 million grant Part of $1.245b Jobs for Nature programme to accelerate recover from Covid Cadets will learn skills to protect and enhance environment Environment Minister David Parker today welcomed the first intake of cadets at the launch of the Bay ...
The Prime Minister of New Zealand Jacinda Ardern and the Prime Minister of the Cook Islands Mark Brown have announced passengers from the Cook Islands can resume quarantine-free travel into New Zealand from 21 January, enabling access to essential services such as health. “Following confirmation of the Cook Islands’ COVID ...
Jobs for Nature funding is being made available to conservation groups and landowners to employ staff and contractors in a move aimed at boosting local biodiversity-focused projects, Conservation Minister Kiritapu Allan has announced. It is estimated some 400-plus jobs will be created with employment opportunities in ecology, restoration, trapping, ...
The Government has approved an exception class for 1000 international tertiary students, degree level and above, who began their study in New Zealand but were caught offshore when border restrictions began. The exception will allow students to return to New Zealand in stages from April 2021. “Our top priority continues ...
Today’s deal between Meridian and Rio Tinto for the Tiwai smelter to remain open another four years provides time for a managed transition for Southland. “The deal provides welcome certainty to the Southland community by protecting jobs and incomes as the region plans for the future. The Government is committed ...
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has appointed Anna Curzon to the APEC Business Advisory Council (ABAC). The leader of each APEC economy appoints three private sector representatives to ABAC. ABAC provides advice to leaders annually on business priorities. “ABAC helps ensure that APEC’s work programme is informed by business community perspectives ...
The Government’s prudent fiscal management and strong policy programme in the face of the COVID-19 global pandemic have been acknowledged by the credit rating agency Fitch. Fitch has today affirmed New Zealand’s local currency rating at AA+ with a stable outlook and foreign currency rating at AA with a positive ...
The Government is putting in place a suite of additional actions to protect New Zealand from COVID-19, including new emerging variants, COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins said today. “Given the high rates of infection in many countries and evidence of the global spread of more transmissible variants, it’s clear that ...
$36 million of Government funding alongside councils and others for 19 projects Investment will clean up and protect waterways and create local jobs Boots on the ground expected in Q2 of 2021 Funding part of the Jobs for Nature policy package A package of 19 projects will help clean up ...
Today, for the second time in two months Dunedin climate protectors have locked themselves to the railway tracks outside the Dunedin Railway station to stop the KiwiRail coal train from Bathurst Resources’ Takitimu mine in Southland to Fonterra’s ...
KiwiRail STOP Hauling COAL Today, for the second time in two months Dunedin climate protectors have locked themselves to the railway tracks outside the Dunedin Railway station to stop the KiwiRail coal train from Bathurst Resources’ Takitimu mine ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adam Dunn, Associate professor, University of Sydney The government is rolling out a new public information campaign this week to reassure the public about the safety of COVID-19 vaccines, which one expert has said “couldn’t be more crucial” to people actually getting ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Therese O’Sullivan, Associate Professor, Edith Cowan University The COVID vaccine rollout has placed the issue of vaccination firmly in the spotlight. A successful rollout will depend on a variety of factors, one of which is vaccine acceptance. One potential hurdle to vaccine ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Bernard Walker, Associate Professor in Organisations and Leadership, University of Canterbury Kiwis know what it’s like when life throws curveballs. We’ve had major quakes, floods, fires, an eruption, a terrorist attack and now a pandemic. In those situations, it’s the ability to ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Irwin, Emeritus professor, Murdoch University While we continue to be occupied with the COVID pandemic, another life-threatening disease has emerged in northern Australia, one that’s cause for considerable alarm for the millions of dog owners around the country. This disease — ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Cath Ferguson, Academic, Edith Cowan University Almost half of Australian adults struggle with reading. Similar levels of struggling readers are reported in the United Kingdom and United States. This does not mean all struggling readers are illiterate. It means they often struggle ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Abbas Shieh, Assistant Professor of Urban Planning and Design, Islamic Azad University The industrial revolution transformed cities, resulting in places of residence and work becoming more distant than ever before. This spatial segregation is still largely embedded in the design of our ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ari Mattes, Lecturer in Communications and Media, University of Notre Dame Australia Review: Occupation: Rainfall, written and directed by Luke Sparke Historically, when a sequel to a film was greenlit, you could rest assured this was because the first film made a ...
Welcome to The Spinoff’s live updates for January 28, keeping you up to date with the latest local and international news. Reach me on stewart@thespinoff.co.nzOur members make The Spinoff happen! Every dollar contributed directly funds our editorial team – click here to learn more about how you can support us ...
Good morning and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Tourism suffers in the shadow of Covid-19, two new positive cases in Auckland confirmed, and National will contest the Māori electorates.The front page of the January 4 Greymouth Star carried grim tidings for several of the glacier towns on the ...
*This article first appeared on RNZ and is republished with permission. Two people who left managed isolation on January 15 have been confirmed as positive Covid-19 cases, with the Ministry of Health urging anyone who visited the same locations during the same time period as the infected pair in Auckland to ...
The watchlist of 'offensive or unreasonable' babies' names is to be reviewed, to include more names from other languages. Generations of the Īhaka family have played a meaningful role in bringing Te Reo and stories of Māori to our wider community. Archdeacon Sir Kīngi Matutaera Īhaka (Te Aupōuri, 1921-93) was known as the orator of ...
After Morocco’s flagrant violation of the terms of the ceasefire in Western Sahara on Friday 13 November 2020 war broke out between the two sides. In the midst of this war Tauranga based Ballance Agri-Nutrients has decided to carry on importing phosphate ...
A young girl who once sent $5 to an embattled America's Cup team is now among the women on the water helping run the contest for the Auld Mug. As an eager and generous nine-year-old, Melanie Roberts posted a letter, with a $5 note, to OneAustralia’s America’s Cup team. It was 1995, ...
Nicholas Agar suggests that our handling of the pandemic could be partly down to our distinctive Treaty of Waitangi relationship, and Māori ideas that enabled us to make it through without tens of thousands of deaths A mission for universities in the coming decade will be a deep understanding of the meaning ...
At 5am today, cock’s crow, the embargo lifted on the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards longlist. Here are the books in the race, followed by thoughts from poetry editor Chris Tse and books editor Catherine Woulfe. A shortlist of four books in each category will be announced March 3, with ...
Ignoring those QR codes when you drop into the supermarket? Can’t be bothered when you grab a coffee? The people serving you notice, and you’re freaking them out.So far, New Zealanders’ use of the Covid-19 Tracer app has been notably woeful. Food industry workers who’ve watched streams of customers walk ...
Steve Braunias reveals the longlist of the 2021 Ockham New Zealand book awards Apart from one or two unfortunate omissions which cast doubt on the sanity and intellectual acumen of judges, especially the nobodies who judged this year's non-fiction, the longlist for the 2021 Ockham New Zealand book awards is ...
By Lulu Mark in Port Moresby Papua New Guinea’s biggest hospital is straining to provide medical services to the growing population of the capital Port Moresby – with an estimated growth rate of 3 percent annually, a medical executive says. Port Moresby General Hospital chief executive officer Dr Paki Molumi ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Nationals who attend Thursday’s memorial service in Tweed Heads for Doug Anthony, who died last month aged 90, may muse on the contrast between the state of their party when he led it and now. ...
Returning to quarantine-free travel in 2021 doesn't just need a vaccine, but a way to check whether arriving passengers are actually immune to the virus. A smart Kiwi science start-up is working with a global biometrics giant to make that happen. A deal signed between Kiwi research and development company Orbis Diagnostics, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Caitlyn Forster, PhD Candidate, School of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Sydney This summer’s wetter conditions have created great conditions for flowering plants. Flowers provide sweet nectar and protein-rich pollen, attracting many insects, including bees. Commercial honey bees are also thriving: ...
Lotto scratchie tickets featuring the pop band Six60 are being withdrawn after a public backlash. In a statement, Lotto NZ said there had been a mutual decision made with the band to remove the tickets from sale following the negative feedback, and it offered an apology. The band faced criticism, both ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Russell Dean Christopher Bicknell, Post-doctoral researcher in Palaeobiology , University of New England Shell-crushing predation was already in full swing half a billion years ago, as our new research published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B reveals. A hyena devouring ...
Vodafone has suspended advertising on the radio station amid calls for talkback host John Banks to be taken off air after yet another racist outburst. Alex Braae reports. In an alarming segment of talkback radio, former Auckland mayor John Banks endorsed the views of a caller who described Māori as a ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Welch, Senior Lecturer, University of Auckland When a COVID-19 case was found in Northland last Sunday, Aotearoa’s second-longest period with no detected community case came to an end. ESR scientists worked late into Sunday night to obtain a whole genome sequence ...
He has the perfect moustache, an exceptional mullet, and he uses terms like ‘face hole’ on national TV. Who or what is Dr Joel Rindelaub?I was drawn in by the moustache, but it was the mullet that really kept me there. Watching TVNZ’s Breakfast yesterday morning I was fixated. Often, ...
We’ll never be royals with nearly a quarter of declined baby names featuring “Royal” in some form or another. Te Tari Taiwhenua Department of Internal Affairs has released the list of names declined in 2020 by the Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and ...
After a raft of inquiries delving into and recommending what should be done about the politically beleaguered Orangi Tamaraki, along with the briefing papers we suppose he has been given, we imagined Children’s Minister Kelvin Davis would have no more need for expert advice. Wrong. He has ...
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Looks like the property market has stalled, the Herald is trying to pimp it again;
“Aucklander, 21, already owns 11 properties around New Zealand ”
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12102563
The abridged version: You too can be rich…. if your parents can (and will) bankroll you.
All they really achieve there is to highlight the inequality in this country IMO.
The NZ Herald purveyors of property porn since……..forever
Yeah, they must really need the advertising revenue from the real estate industry.
Because real estate has sadly become one of the pillars of New Zealand’s FIRE economy.
Finance
Insurance
and
Real Estate
35 years of neoliberalism……
And he will be in deep dodah if/when the interest rates increase by a couple of % and or the properties drop in value.
The way the article reads 10 of the properties were bought with 100% mortgage based on increased valuations.
Greed.
The epitome of the Randian cult.
Ed, it could also be related to fear, especially for those who think the social contract between government and the public has been broken. They don’t want to be left vulnerable to life’s unknowables, and tax, investment and housing policy has all contributed to housing being a proven investment for those with capital.
We shouldn’t blame individuals when policy decisions are incentivising such behaviour.
Good point
Interestingly the Herald chooses not to be precise about the amount the rich boy got off his parents.
A key detail without which the story is utterly meaningless.
Yeah they were certainly a bit vague on the details weren’t they.
It’s the parents guaranteeing the loan that tells the main story. No typical 18yr old can walk in to the bank and get a mortgage like that.
Ah, the Herald propagandising for the bludgers.
If always stalls at this time of year because houses always look nicer when the sun is shining. The prime time for selling is after Labour weekend so people who want to sell and can wait, will wait till then.
We are seeing evidence of catastrophic climate change across the planet.
We are seeing rampant inequality in the world.
And yet helipads and the Haka is what the Herald decides is news.
The media is a significant part of the media/military/industrial complex which will see life extinguished on this Earth rather than abandon capitalism.
What is rampant inequality?
See #3 below
Pay attention Gosman
@Gosman
Rampant inequality looks a lot like this…
Statistics New Zealand, this report is from 2007, and as we all know this social obscenity has mushroomed since, especially under the government of John Key.
“Wealth disparity persists in New Zealand, as in other societies. Disparity in wealth holdings is of significant interest in respect of its implications for health outcomes, economic and social well being, opportunities for social participation, ability to withstand life-shocks, and so on.”
http://archive.stats.govt.nz/browse_for_stats/people_and_communities/Families/wealth-and-disparities-in-new-zealand.aspx
or this
‘10% richest Kiwis own 60% of NZ’s wealth’
https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/307458/10-percent-richest-kiwis-own-60-percent-of-nz%27s-wealth
or maybe this
‘Rich man, poor man: inequality gap grew in 2017, Oxfam report reveal’
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/100751224/rich-man-poor-man-inequality-gap-grew-in-2017-oxfam-report-reveals
Umm… That might define inequality but you haven’t explained why it is rampant? What makes the level of inequality in NZ rampant?
Do your own research.
Pay attention Gosman
The global economic war has begun!!!
We are very clearly in a better position to weather the economic storm now appearing with a Labour lead Government with us than having another “sell all to the lowest bidder “John -Key-ism” capitalist carpetbagger government as they would give the whole country to China at the blink of the eye.
Best we keep a socialist government in power at this ‘transitional time’ as the US did in the last depression under FDR.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZgwgUujn4Uk
“Economic Collapse Is Coming! China ‘Weaponize’ Yuan For Dollar Collapse – 2018 Stock Market CRASH!”
you really are a heartless scoundrel. Only a real scumbag would reflect on the level of homelessness in NZ, look at the mansions and empty houses, and decide that the pressing issue is whether the correct description of the level of inequality is “rampant”, or maybe “rife”, or simply “intolerable”.
Some days you just really make me want to puke.
Boo hoo. Given inequality is “rampant” it is obviously the number one priority of the current left leaning Government. What policies are they implementing that will immediately address this problem?
Only national promise magic wand solutions. In the real world, repairing the damage caused by people like you takes longer than you take to damage it in the first place. And so many problems are rampant, in any normal human use of the word.
People sleep in the goddamned street in NZ. Not just a few, either (as if that would make it any better). Not only do you not care, your “boo hoo” and party-political point-scoring suggest that you don’t even think you should care about anyone else’s misery.
Hell is a myth invented in the dim hope that unregenerate fuckwits like you would at least pretend to act like normal, caring human beings, on the off-chance that it’s real.
Fixing inequality is easy. Higher income taxes and a wealth tax. That doesn’t take much more than a single budget cycle.
It’s a start.
What does the government do with the cash?
How do you judge “taxable income” vs “wealth”?
How do you close loopholes like corporate or trust beneficiaries/expenses?
How do we know that what might be a magic want now will be less applicable in, say, a highly automated society with high unemployment?
Jeez, even your trite solution becomes less simple very quickly. Maybe we should have some sort of working party look at it with official advice for all the various options. I think that’s already started.
What does the Government do with the cash?!? I can’t believe I read that comment from a lefty. I thought there was a huge list of areas of under investment that was crying out for funding.
How about instead of a working group you propose actual policies.
Start by reading the 2017 manifestos of the Labour and Green parties.
While you’re at it, get a dictionary and find out what “rampant” means.
has been done, NZ pre 1984…and its progressive taxation rather than increased.
Whatever. The point is it is easy enough to implement so why isn’t the current Government implementing it?
might have something to do with the pledge not to alter taxation this parliamentry term
Because of pricks like you trying to point score and derail every goddamn conversation about inequality for literally years – even a decade in your individual case. If the search engine were running I’d bring up some debates we had back when the nats were a young and fresh government and you reckoned everything was fine. Now that it’s someone else’s problem, you’re happy to provide half-arsed suggestions on how to fix the damage.
Are you claiming my arguments are somehow powerful enough that they have the ability to slow the implementation of urgently needed policies to tackle inequality?
not you by yourself.
Just you and pricks like you. As Marx basically said, the mediocrities who manage to thrive better then most under capitalism will fight to preserve what little advantage they have, thereby serving the interests of the true profiteers of the system.
You, Gosman, are an excellent example of the alienation that capitalism causes, a fracturing of the natural human connections within society. But you are merely one amongst thousands, if not millions.
But united we stand McFlock!
How ironic that the power of collective action is defeated by collective resistance.
Not collective resistance.
Fractured, alienated, individual small-mindedness. Hordes of nasty little egoists convinced that they’re better than most other people, little realising that they’ll always just be the expendable pawns of capitalists, thrown just enough crumbs to keep them ravenous.
People like Donald Brash & John Key were the ultimate magician’s, they could just wave their magic wands around and everything was fixed in a jiffy, it was like watching everyone being sprinkled with pixie shit.
“The Art of the Illusion?”
Have you seen Adrian’s response below?
As you asked, it might be nice to respond.
Zzzzzzz….
What evidence do you have for the claim that climate change will “see life extinguished on this Earth”? Sounds like bullshit to me.
Of course it would to you.
Maybe you should read a bit more widely.
Did you see Bill’s post the other day?
Beyond that, I am not doing the research for you.
So i think you meant to say “some life forms”. It would not be possible for it to “extinguish life”.
Thank you Ed.
What are you thanking him for?
You really don’t like alternative viewpoints, do you?
You sound like the playground bully the way you stamp on other people’s comments.
So you do really think that climate change can extinguish life on earth? So i say again, where is your evidence? What is your argument? That position is certainly not supported by Bill’s last post and that is the only thing you have referenced.
You do understand that it was the processes of life that put the carbon in the ground in the first place?
Climate Change is a serious issue, talking nonsense is not helpful.
Zzzzzzzz
The question seems valid one. Simply because you can’t be bothered backing up your claim does not invalidate it.
Yawn…
As usual you are not prepared to back up what you say. It is all just propaganda. All you really do here is fart.
We all fart, and Ed’s ‘farts’ have value.
It’s possible that man-made climate change will extinguish all capitalism on Earth, but prokaryotes at least would survive.
Then just wait a billion years or so for the farting to begin again. Humans – so smart (we fart), so slow to learn.
“People say nothing is impossible, but I do nothing every day.“
You are a bully.
A pity ed didnt just say ,’ha yeah you’re correct I didn’t mean extinguish ALL life but rather all HUMAN life. Thanks for pointing out my hyperbole.
But no we don’t get that do we.
If that is what he actually thinks. It is often hard to be sure with Ed. But yeh, most of us just laugh it off when we get our words wrong.
And so this has happened.
Lady with 3 kids living IN A NZ SHANTY TOWN.
https://i.stuff.co.nz/national/106078431/the-shanty-town-of-wanaka
I bet they get booted or their illegal (but necessary) structures get torched soon given that tourist $$$$ and visual impact matters more than people.
Yeah no crisis at all
Albert Town Community Association chairman Jim Cowie.
I think this gentleman is about to offer to personally put up some of the people in this camping ground about which he is expressing distaste. And he is going to reach out to the community to share space in their back yard and use of facilities so that those suffering from lust for money and lack of kindness and good planning will be able to remedy their faults in a practical and helpful manner.
/Not
What a sparkly gardening day
Indupitably old bean. The answer lies in the soil.
I just got me broccoli and cauliflower in, the fruit trees are blossoming and little Zealandia birdies are paying their regular visit.
Indupitably.. lovely word. I like it.
Best Ms Alyokhina be careful, because, you know, accidental suicide is a thing.
https://www.thecut.com/2018/08/pussy-riot-smuggled-russia-music-festival.html
Email to RNZ this morning re; under reporting on Yemen…this should make their day.
Fairness and balance in reporting Yemen and Kim Griggs defending RNZ’s racial bias
Good morning
In an bizarre email exchange earlier this year with the producer of morning report Kim Griggs on this very subject, that producer actually told me at the end of that debate, that people preferred to see/hear stories on people in USA or Europe, to which I replied (in effect) that how would she know what NZ citizens want or not want to hear/see, because she has has never let a balanced world news cycle to exist, so there was nothing for RNZ listeners to compare it too…..
BTW if you know and understand that this is a serious problem of fairness and balance in reporting at RNZ..then change it!
anyway here are some excepts from that exchange….
Kim Griggs
“And no, we’re not racist but there are differences in news values
about deaths during annual monsoons, difficult as these are, versus
unexpected and catastrophic flooding of a large city not used to
flooding.
There are also issues about news production from one area versus the
other which is part and parcel of being part of the Western news
media.”
Adrian Thornton
Thanks for your reply, however Huston has had major floods over the
last three years, so this is not a completely unusual event there of
late, where as the floods in India, Bangladesh and Nepal are the worst
in 30 years, so are in fact an unusual event.
I of course understand your (RNZ) dilemma with being a ‘western’ media
source, however RNZ is the one place where this seemingly natural news
bias should be at it’s lest obvious, which I have to say it is often
not.
Kim Griggs,
“Adrian, we’ll have to agree to disagree on this.
Thirty years of experience in news tells me most people don’t care
about Bangladesh, more people care about Houston.
Right or wrong, it’s happened like that for years. For instance If you
can, without googling, name the ship involved in the deadliest
peacetime maritime disaster in history (and a hint – it’s not the
Titanic), I’ll listen to your arguments harder”.
Adrian Thornton.
I can’t remember it’s name off the top of my head, but I know that a
German troop ship carrying civilians sunk at the end of WW2 by a
Russian submarine is often cited as having the worst causality rate of
a ship lost at sea….no google involved.
I am sad to hear that you have succumbed to just answering the call of
essentially reinforcing the lowest common denominator in human
instinct, instead of helping to fellow citizens to look up higher,
which as I mentioned earlier, is what I thought high level public
funded news and reporting was all about…so I might just as well
listen to Mike Hosking’s then?
Kim Griggs,
“Not at all, it was a ferry in the Philippines. You probably don’t
recall because here in NZ no one took any notice of the fact four
thousand Filipinos had died – then or ever since.
And going back to the original message a) we are not racist and b) we
are not an educational service, we are a news service. As such we
follow the usual news values, which at the moment mean more people
care about Paris over Kenya, Houston over Bangladesh. It may be a sad
fact for you but it’s true.”
Adrian Thornton.
That’s a very strange analogy that you have used, surely you have just reinforced my position? isn’t this is the exact reason why RNZ should cover non european news in a more balanced way…I didn’t remember this tragedy probably because it was covered quite lightly considering it’s epic proportions at the time, whereas if this had happened in a western country I surely would have remembered it from the amount of coverage and human context you would have given it over a long time?
People can only care about what they are informed about (you don’t know what you don’t know), if you took time to humanize and contextualize a human from Bangladesh most other humans would relate to that person just as much as they would if the person was from France, but you never do so they never will have that chance…but that is your production choice not ours.
It is not sad for me personally because I try to take the time to stay informed, but it is sad for the citizens of NZ who trust you as their main news source.
BTW news and education are the same thing, well should be.
So there you have it..RNZ’s racial bias apparently explained.
Best
Adrian Thornton
This conversation needs a post in its own right.
There you have the biases of the msm laid bare.
Adrian T
You have taken this further than I have been able to. I have contacted RNZ
about this and received no answer,
When you get met with the sort of pomposity, complacency, calls to authority, history and precedent it is obvious as to how the recipients of complaints and requests for change view them.l
It is interesting to hear this media person quote that they are not concerned with being educative. In a world where every previoly held idea is being hung by its heels over a long drop, it is obvious that this is so far away from acceptable that one can’t touch wuch ideas with a continent-wide barge pole.
This bit about being a news service being totally self-explanatory is similar to the old idea in sociological research that they were completely scientific without bias. Except when women surveyed their modus operandi and choice of subject, they were pronounced thoroughly sexist and women were considered second-rate. So long-held myths confuse from all sides in every centre of thought and choice.
Interesting – Colin Peacock had a bit of a different take on things in Mediawatch (shame he isn’t Editor in Chief)
TRP (below) may be correct if you subscribe to the idea that a public service broadcaster should only be concerned with what’s popular.
It’s no wonder that some of NZ’s best (and others from that ‘Western media’) fuck off and join Aljazeera
I agree Ed, and well done Adrian. I’ve had a global view since I was a teenager in the sixties and often noticed the relative discounting of news from afar.
Dunno if you’d call this bias Eurocentric or pakeha-centric? A residue of colonialism? I give the RNZ producer credit for honesty though. Unusual, that.
A residue of power as well.
Only important people and countries are news
@ Ed, I would be happy to put the whole exchange on a post if there was any interest, never done one before, so don’t know how to go about it, and I am not to tech savvy.
Hey, Adrian. If you’re keen, send the email exchange and your thoughts on it to me and I’ll turn it into a guest post. I’ll send you back a draft for your approval before publishing.
tereoputake@gmail.com
Will do. thanks.
Kim Griggs is correct.
Reporting reflects readership (or in this case, listenership). For an item to be newsworthy it has to meet several tests, such as its impact on the audience (does it directly affect them), proximity (a plane crash in Norway vs a plane crash in Normanby), timeliness and currency (is it fresh, is it engaging?), are people we know or recognise involved (Johnny Depp snapped wearing an AB jersey vs 2nd division Romanian rugby team has bus accident).
There are quite a few principles or rules of newsworthiness that you could look up. They’ll help you understand why and how RNZ (and every other news service in the world) prioritises news. Hint, it’s not the news organisations’ ‘racism’, it’s the practical need to provide news that has value and engagement to the reader or listener.
Even better, enrol in a journalism 101 course. You’ll learn a lot about how the media works in quick time and you’ll be less likely in the future to fall in to Morrissey shaped holes when critiquing media output.
btw, there’s an old newspaper joke headline that goes something like this:
Thousands Killed in Indian Earthquake; One Briton Bruises Toe.
Not all media follow the same trajectory.
I disagree with you and side with Adrian.
And Morrissey is a beacon of light on the Standard.
Correct. Only the successful ones share RNZ’s trajectory (and have been doing for hundreds of years).
News values are not exactly a secret; as I wrote, they are taught at beginner level in media studies. If you don’t understand the process, you’ll never be able to successfully critique it.
And, as an aside, there’s nothing racist in this approach. Media in Africa, or Asia, or the Americas all use the exact same principles. You’ll be hard pressed to find regular mention of NZ in overseas news outlets for exactly the same reason.
Racism? No; relevancy.
ps agree about Morrissey’s luminous qualities, and I’ll refrain from cheap jokes about the wattage of his bulb 😉
Economics 101 teaches neoliberalism as a fact not a theory.’what is taught at University is not necessarily either correct or true.
Er, I illustrated the actual process used for centuries in media, Ed. It’s nothing to do with university (though you can learn about it there). The guiding principles for media reporting are fundamentally unchanged over the years and if you understand them, you can understand why the responses from Kim Griggs are actually correct.
No need for uni, just google ‘newsworthy’. There’s a ton of guidance available. And once you’ve got your head around it, you’ll be able to contextualise media reporting from around the world a hell of a lot easier.
And once you know what the media are doing and why, then you have a basis for quality criticism.
@ Ed
Exactly right +1
Do they actually teach that Neoliberalism Bullshit at University, I did an Economics Degree at Lincoln University under Professor Bruce Ross, he subsequently joined the OECD and became one of the world’s leading agricultural economists.
We did papers on production economics, international economics & trading, farm management & production systems, financial & management accounting, so what is neoliberal economics ?
You know this how?
“News values are not exactly a secret; as I wrote, they are taught at beginner level in media studies………..”
They certainly are, as are other ideas (such as the news agenda, and gate-keeping) in the hope there’d be some critical thought.
Then there’s a Public Sphere in which people are exposed to other ideas and viewpoints, NOT solely those that an individual might solicit. When we only ever expose ourselves to that which we solicit, we end up living in our own little bubble.
Of course, given that much of what is taught in the (now) BUSINESS of education, where boxes are ticked, and it doesn’t matter if the Media 101 student has plagiarised, or not even written their own assignments, some have reason to worry about the state of our public media.
What I find most interesting in the Adrian Thornton/Kim Griggs exchange is the bit about “thirty years experience………..etc”. She must undoubtably know best.
As I said before, it’s no wonder why many of our best are fucking off to join the likes of Aljazeera.
But then I defer to you TRP – you’re the voice of reason.
@TRP,
I would expect nothing less from you……and here I was thinking that one of the key objectives of the progressive project was helping fellow citizens and one’s self to slowly progress toward evolving to something higher…you know a place where we can care as much about people in Africa as in the USA, as much about someone’s plight in South East Asia as we do about someone in the UK or NZ….maybe not in our life times, but through us standing up to and calling out blatant racism/sexism etc in whatever way we can, we try to make a difference…at lest that is what I think part of being a progressive means.
Obviously you think different, and that’s OK..in the words of Kim Griggs….
“we’ll have to agree to disagree on this.
” … here I was thinking that one of the key objectives of the progressive project was helping fellow citizens and one’s self to slowly progress toward evolving to something higher… ”
And that has precisiely nothing to do with RNZ. They don’t exist as part of a ‘progressive project’. They’re a state owned news outlet, broadly based on the BBC model, and utilising the common news gathering and broadcast methods of all other news outlets.
You’re simply expecting too much from them.
“Er, I illustrated the actual proces…………”
Don’t you mean ” WHY Er HELLO!!!!, I illustrated the actual proce…………”
And just btw (that’s ‘by the way’), people are actually expecting a bare minimum
Er er er er er
@TRP
No it is you who you expects too little.
My take was that TRP wasn’t defending the status quo, merely describing it. Identifying the relevant teaching in media 1.01 explains why journos operate accordingly. Well to a large extent. Obviously supervision of those in the media organisation hierarchy reinforces adherence.
Most commentators believe leftists control & perpetuate education curricula according to the antique formula `those who can, do; those who can’t, teach’. Institutionalisation of the problem is the problem. A progressive agenda would include an education regime fit for purpose.
Then there’s the problem created by those calling out blatant racism/sexism: collateral damage caused by callers who get it wrong…
I do. I don’t really care about either. Their life and death have no effect upon me.
As TRP said – it’s all about relevancy.
Now, if the African states banded together and started wars the same way that the US does then I’d be interested. If African deaths were caused by US actions or vice versa I’d be interested.
These types of things are interesting as they require a country to respond to them in some way.
Bias can be shown in the MSM but not because they don’t report natural disasters. It’s because they’ll report a single Israeli death to Hamas missiles while the thousands of Palestinians killed by the IDF and Israeli settlers on Palestinian land either doesn’t get mentioned at all or its not more than a line or two.
It is not about relevance it is about balance, I get it that of course we would never have or maybe even want a 50/50 news balance re; west and the rest, but at the moment RNZ would be running on something like 90/10 or worse…I don’t know what the right balance is but it ain’t what it is now, that much is for sure.
No, it really is about relevance. They don’t have a lot of time to put things in and so things need to be prioritised and the simple fact is that things like death outside of the local is of no relevance whatsoever.
Hint, it’s not the news organisations’ ‘racism’, it’s the practical need to provide news that has value and engagement to the reader or listener.
As the way that media operate and have condensed is a change, so the way that media is taught and views itself has to change. It is no use repeating what has been the meme for years. Particularly as change is being thrust upon us because of our ineptitude of understanding received news in the past, and what has been chosen as suitable for us. (Patronising, even authoritarian.) And then there are the enormous number of things we don’t know that we don’t know.
I am interested in expanding my knowledge. It is facile to argue that news should be just about what is popular. Also that it is not educative. People read news to learn – at a populist level just what is going on in their everyday thought playpen, then those who want to be citizens read it to go further, and ask why is this going on and what ramifications does it have. When others choose the information to be presented people are being cheated of the opportunity to be informed people. Then you get bunches of prejudiced stuff flowing round in society that is all artificially flavoured but few will know what the reality looks and smells like.
I like Slavoj Zizek who presents constant clashes between what one thinks is known and his latest perception. He commented on a well-known speech from 2002 by then United States Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld
Rumsfeld stated:
Reports that say that something hasn’t happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns – the ones we don’t know we don’t know. And if one looks throughout the history of our country and other free countries, it is the latter category that tend to be the difficult ones…..
(But there was more).
Psychoanalytic philosopher Slavoj Žižek says that beyond these three categories there is a fourth, the unknown known, that which we intentionally refuse to acknowledge that we know: “If *Rumsfeld thinks that the main dangers in the confrontation with Iraq were the ‘unknown unknowns’, that is, the threats from Saddam whose nature we cannot even suspect, then the Abu Ghraib scandal shows that the main dangers lie in the “unknown knowns”—the disavowed beliefs, suppositions and obscene practices we pretend not to know about, even though they form the background of our public values.”[12]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There_are_known_knowns
Ever heard of a Johari window? No. Oh that will be because some newsman decided it wasn’t new news that was fit to print.
For a Public Service Broadcaster, in an out-of-the-way place like NZ, not to be delivering a pathway to world news leads to our ignorance, our backwardness and our cringe mentality to ‘clever sophisticated people from overseas'[ which seems fairly well-embedded in us. FGS get off your cliche’s of merely following historical trends that don’t supply what we need in a fraught, taut, endangered and not well-informed nation – that has to change.
And those rules may have made sense in the 1950s where NZ was connected to England … and that was it. But NZ has Bangladeshis living here, it has Africans living here, we tend to be well travelled especially to south east Asia.
I was pretty shocked to hear (on media report on RNZ) that 1,000,000 Yemeni’s are likely to get cholera and that the Saudi’s have bombed the port that medical supplies come through. I had no idea the conflict was at that kind of scale.
The silence isn’t because it’s in part of the world that we are not interested in – it’s silence around who are doing the attacking and who are supplying the millitary equipment … and it’s not Russia.
Brilliant post Adrian. RNZ needs to get rid of Kim Griggs-terrible sentiments, terrible opinions.
It is because of people like her that all we hear is Trump Trump Trump…
I concur !! rnz seems to do a good job of giving us a very broad selection of music from around the world , and we get current affairs etc etc but the news as such is a few minutes of msm talking points WTF ??just the same as the crap on tv Does the rnz newsroom not contain any actual journalists ?To make a food analogy its like a constant diet of luncheon sausage and boiled veges and like a row of blackbirds with gaping beaks we,re expected to swallow the spoon fed proffering !!Im sure TRP,s explanation is accurate but it still feels patronising or in this case matronising !!
I too appreciate you sharing your exchange Adrian, thanks, it is an interesting subject.
I’m not fond of the picket up my bum but I find myself on the fence. When I strip down my personal take on newsworthiness I am more inclined to want to hear more about my neighbour that got struck with lightning than 1000 drowning in Dunedin. Ideally, like you Adrian, I feel that an insight into both events is both attainable and desirable.
In the media smorgasbord we live in I feel a handle on the world view I’m after is attainable but it’s all down to my searching and clicking. Read 3 lines in a Herald World News round-up and go searching for an English spoken Bangladesh TV report.
Wallace talking to Bill Bailey about everything. Wonderful humorous thoughtful intelligent and with interesting comment on England. Bill talks about going round some areas of England and the sad state of boarding up they show wth nothing much to notice except some tech shop. And the government obsessed in trying to make sense over Brexist with things being on hold there which the country needs to attend to. The place sounds in a state of paralysis, and the mind boggles about what will happen when final dates arrive and some areas will just close down.
https://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/sunday/audio/2018657732/bill-bailey-comic-stand-up-who-loves-sup
Bill Bailey’s a man of many talents. As well as making people laugh, he’s an enthusiastic stand-up paddle boarder, passionate conservationist, accomplished musician and an author. He’s back in New Zealand in September with his Earl of Whimsy show which features tales of Britain’s fortunes past and present. He shares his thoughts on many things from Brexit to the best places in the world to paddle board.
From Bill Maher
Is Jeremy Corbyn’s “anti-Semitism Crisis” a Smear Campaign?
‘UK Opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn is accused of presiding over a surge of anti-Semitism inside the Labour Party. Author Norman Finkelstein and British scholar Jamie Stern-Weiner say that Corbyn’s foes have cynically concocted a fake scandal to sabotage his progressive agenda and support for Palestinian rights’
Too bad Finkelstein’s microphone/acoustics rendered him mostly incomprehensible, but you get the general picture. Seems worse than a smear campaign when you factor in some of the other reports from recent times. Anybody interested in the extent to which the Israel lobby is operated like a gutting knife in the body of the British Labour Party ought to read this expert commentary & analysis: https://www.jonathan-cook.net/blog/2018-08-08/labour-crisis-israel-anti-semitism/
The party exec committee is looking like a robot with a ray-gun having taken a hit to its control system, gone rogue & now zapping its members with random bursts. Now jews are subdividing themselves into good jews & bad jews!!
Corbyn can support Israel as a whole (including all the Druze and Arabs who are such significant minorities), if he opposes the destructive Netanyahu-affiliated parties and government, and finds common cause engaging with Israel’s own Labor Party and its own potential coalition.
The 2019 Israel election awaits.
Anyone for chess?
https://bowalleyroad.blogspot.com/2018/08/checkmate-in-two-years.html
Depends on Winston. As usual. Trotter has to maintain industry to get his columns published in our dwindling newspaper pool. That requires constant conjuring up of new angles from which to view stuff.
Granted he has a living to make but some of the observations are not without merit
13.5% wage drop. Such great times we live in, the greedy got get their fix, and workers are where they getting it, by keeping wages low. How about you just stop. STOP. it’s a simple message, no fighting, no struggle, just stop engaging with this system built on greed and exploitation.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz//business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=12096031&ref=clavis
Are we truly surprised that big business is lying so as to lower wages and conditions?
‘Murica
The first step in tackling a problem is identifying it. That’s the thinking behind a new effort from the Ad Council and the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence designed to promote gun safety in the home.
The organizations today are introducing a new term: “family fire,” aimed at preventing shootings that result from improperly stored weapons or misuse of firearms in households.
The idea for “family fire” takes inspiration from now familiar terms that have helped to address other epidemics in our country: secondhand smoke, designated driver, friendly fire. “Our goal is to make ‘family fire’ a part of the vernacular in an attempt to change behavior and save lives,” says Lisa Sherman, president and CEO of the Ad Council
http://adage.com/article/advertising/family-fire-words-taking-home-gun-tragedies-head/314536/
Turkey’s financial troubles started off as currency issues, and now they’re afflicted with the same woes that sank Greece, debt and liquidity.
The most immediate issue for Turkish policy makers is the financial system, which is exposed to interest- and exchange-rate shocks. Four people with knowledge of the matter said the banking regulator had scheduled calls with some banks on Saturday after asking them to study the potential impact. The regulator, known as BDDK in Turkish, said there was no meeting scheduled for Saturday and that the reviews were routine.
“This is a textbook currency crisis that’s morphing into a debt and liquidity crisis due to policy mistakes,” said Win Thin, a strategist at Brown Brothers Harriman & Co. in New York. “The way things are going, markets need to be prepared for a hard landing in the economy, corporate defaults on foreign currency debt, and possible bank failures.”
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-08-11/with-turkey-crisis-erupting-bankers-gather-for-emergency-talks
Suggested new names for Act
Whact, Cract, Sact, Sect, Suct, *uct.
Fuckt
Classic read and interesting too
“It’s well known that the racist news website wizard and former Trump confidante Steve Bannon, currently planning a pan-global far-right resurgence called The Motion, was inspired by Jean Raspail’s controversial 1973 French science-fiction novel The Camp of the Saints, which uses an invasion of western Europe by disenchanted brown people from below the equator as a satire of white European privilege and colonial guilt.
But is it possible that Bannon’s current championing of the sunbed magnate and mortgage fraudster Tommy Robinson as “the backbone” of the UK has been inspired by his acquaintance with a less well-known piece of fascist-flavoured fiction?
The Canadian alcoholic Richard Allen is thought to have written 290 novels in his lifetime, and between 1970 and 1980 he penned 18 violent books set in the milieu of Britain’s fractious youth culture, such as Skinhead, Skinhead Escapes, Skinhead Returns, and the martial arts-themed Taekwondo Skinhead…
… Indeed, Steve Bannon seems to be carrying vast sections of dialogue from The Right Honourable Skinhead around in his head, which spill unbidden from his careless face. Bannon said, off-air, to the LBC presenter Theo Usherwood, who had queried his support for Tommy Robinson, “Fuck you. Don’t you fucking say you’re calling me out. You fucking liberal elite. Tommy Robinson is the backbone of this country.”
And on page 103 of The Right Honourable Skinhead, the news magnate Steve Mannon, Robbie Tomlinson’s chief cheerleader, who differs only from Steve Bannon in that he is a Welsh born-again Christian, addresses radio presenter Leo Isherwood thus, “Flip you, boyo! Don’t you flipping say you’re calling me out. You flipping liberal elite. Robbie Tomlinson is the backbone of this country, by which I mean the whole UK not just Wales.””
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/aug/12/stewart-lee-bannons-crush-on-britains-old-bootboys
Not much on how women are faring, but anyhoo, read it and weep.
The decimation of Syria’s male population represents, arguably, the most fundamental shift in the country’s social fabric. As a generation of men has been pared down by death, disability, forced displacement and disappearance, those who remain have largely been sucked into a violent and corrupting system centered around armed factions.
An Alawi family in a coastal village provides a window into the ravaged state of Syria’s male population, even in territory that has remained firmly under government control. Of three brothers, one was killed in battle, a second paralyzed by a bullet to the spine, and a third—an underpaid, 30-year-old civil servant—lives in fear of conscription. Their mother summed up her plight:
http://www.synaps.network/picking-up-the-pieces
Good Morning The Am Show Duncan good interview with the science professor John about round up weed killer the owners of that prouduct were cheating and manipulating the data we can not trust there prouduct use all chemicals with causation ban the stuff and come up with some kiwi innovation was to control weed’s
Why did the council not have people on the ground check farms for environmental breaches because shonky backed the GDP money over the enviroment we leave for the mokopuna’s future I could see that happening right before my eyes .
This is letting everyone know how Great tangata whenua O Atearoa Culture really is around Papatuanuku ka pai to who stirred this subject of OUR Haka UP.
Ka kite ano
This is what I say about research data follow the mone and you will be able to see if the subject’s data is being manipulated to suit the mone men’s goal of selling more lie’s to us. The link is below
Huge alcohol clinical trial collapses. ka kite ano
https://www.stuff.co.nz/science/106158271/huge-alcohol-clinical-trial-collapses
Good morning Newshub Ana to kai national
Aretha Franklin is a exceptional musician one of the best condolences to her whano/family.
Is that evedince for you 2 Europeen boys running Dairy farms were are the tangata whenua farm managers they are younger my sons.????????????? Am I imagineing it all. That it’s 10x harder for tangata whenua to get good well paying jobs.
P.S we served our apprenticeship time in the Dairy industry. Its good that the council are going to check dairy farms effluent systems. You know how it is the many make sure they abide buy the rule and respect the environment and a small % don’t give a toss about the environment those are the idiots that ruin it for the majority OF of farmers. Aotearoa dollar is one of the most trusted traded dollar on Papatuanukue trump won’t shake the Papatuanukue to much his rich M8 will lose to much mone.
I’M a big Cliff Curtis and Jason stratham Fan I liked The Dark Horse.
Is Koepka a tangata whenua of America great golfing. Alex We hope we get some warm weather soon Ka kite ano
Good evening The Crowd goes Wild James and Mulls look like Wendy and her team m8 had a bit of fun after winning the net ball competition.
I tryed to find out Brook Koepka culture can’t find any thing on that subject. The Warriors are doing fine
Ka kite ano P.S the sandflys are grasping at straws of – – – lol