Dirty politics. Using fake news and trolls to discourage Bernie supporters from voting Clinton. With obvious lessons on things to look out for in our coming campaigns.
The is no such thing as fake news, there is just propaganda. And people who supported h.r.c. and the democrat’s need to get over losing. To live in this world you are creating, just hurts people and their chance to resist.
People will die because of this weakness deomcrats, at least 9 of these spineless flecks are going to vote to over turn health care. You could actually help stop that, rather than buy into utter b.s being peddled.
Here is a link to democrats who are in fear of losing there seats. Take down there names and write them a email.
Good on you Adam. It strikes me the Left are suffering the same bullshit ‘fake news’ paranoia as the Right are. You are correct…. it is all just another form of propaganda.
Hey, adam and garibaldi, we’ve got our own election coming up later this year. The result will either be a fourth term for National, or a Labour/Green led government. Yes, it is essentially a binary.
Your choice is to put your support to a Labour/Green led government (which will involve swallowing dead rats), support a fourth term Nat, or say you think they’re equally bad (which is the same as supporting Nats).
If you want to change the government, it’s a good idea to look at what tactics were used successfully elsewhere, because it’s quite likely they will be used here too. To me, one of the biggest lessons is we’re now at the point in our cycle where it’s time to support the positives in Labour/Greens, rather than picking at and amplifying flaws.
Andre, so your saying that a obvious corrupt two party system, which has been rejected by New Zealand in favor of proportional representation. Is the model you want to work from?
To Quote Mr Pepelo “Interesting…”
The working class people rejected the democrates for a multitude of reason: corruption, being conservative, in bed with the corporations, lying and cheating – not some fantasy about Russia. But sure beat yourself up about false flags, I won’t stand in your way.
Andre, I have never voted National and never will. However if you can’t see the bullshit that the Dems are pushing, and call it for what it is, then you are part of the problem.
I’m saying that for the coming election here, the choice has narrowed to “do you want to change the government, or not?”. And that the current government, having successfully used dirty politics in the past and been shown a new selection of dirty politics techniques to use, will undoubtedly do so to retain power. Inducing lefties to criticise left candidates and share fake news and smears are techniques likely to be re-used here. Even if doesn’t flip voters, it still depresses turnout.
It’s a sad commentary on our local politics that MMP has narrowed to the point that it has effectively become a binary again. But that’s the reality we have to deal with at the moment. If you think there’s a viable alternative, lay it out and explain it. I’ve asked Bill to explain his alternative vision and all I’ve seen are vague incoherent mutterings about “social democracy”. If you’ve got an alternative vision, I’m honestly interested.
When it comes to reforming government, the government has already pulled a bait-and-trash MMP review, so I really doubt there’s any chance of meaningful improvement with the current lot. Whereas Lab/Greens have both been supportive of improving democracy through implementing suggestions from the MMP review, limited as they were. Yet another reason to swallow dead ratsfor the sake of changing the government.
Unless Hone starts looking likely to win TTT AND Mana are polling above 1% (about 1.3% is needed for a second seat), then frankly a vote for Mana is wasted. No matter how moral someone may convince themselves it is. In practical terms Mana have had absolutely zero influence the last 2 years. Although because Hone had a good shot at winning TTT and Mana/IP were polling above 1%, I wouldn’t call it a wasted vote.
Similarly, a vote for TOP is wasted unless TOP are polling above 4%. But even then, TOP have no commitment to changing the government. They just want to slightly change the flavour of whatever government forms. So from the point of view of changing the government, TOP will be a wasted vote.
Hi Andre. Not quite sure what conversation you’re referring to when you write I’ve asked Bill to explain his alternative vision and all I’ve seen are vague incoherent mutterings about “social democracy”.
It’s pretty simple stuff.
Social democracy puts a tighter or shorter leash on capitalism/markets than liberalism does.
In short, social democracy seeks to protect individuals from the more egregious affects of capitalism; to rein it in so that it serves society (ie – social democratic policies would seek equal or fair outcomes across populations).
That sits in stark contrast to liberalism, that promotes the simple notion of an individual having access to equal opportunities in a world dominated by unfettered capitalism.
You really find that too vague or just generally incoherent?
And I should note, social democracy is not my alternative vision – I’m not a social democrat. My vision involves self governance through meaningful or substantive, non-hierarchical democratic institutions being developed and existing at the local or community level – ie, my vision revolves around a fully participatory democracy.
Sorry, that conversation looks to have dropped off my replies tab so I can’t find it easily.
In any case, what I’m interested in is the nuts and bolts of what kind of structures get set up to resolve conflicts over where resource comes from and gets allocated. The how and who of balancing the competing demands of infrastructure, welfare, health, education, conservation and so on.
I can stretch my mind to incremental improvements of what we’ve got now. Things like lowering thresholds for representation in parliament, adjusting tax rates and where they’re spent. I can even get my head around changes as big as introducing a UBI and funding it from new sources, such as carbon taxes and capital gains taxes.
But if you want my support for throwing out a big chunk of what we’ve got now in favour of something completely new, I’m going want a very detailed picture of what it is. Preferably with an established model elsewhere showing how it’s going to work.
Because for all the flaws in the systems we have now, they still work better than just about everything else I can point at. And the models I can think of that I’d like better, mostly Scandinavian states, are really just incremental changes from what we have here and now.
In NZ, just look to anything prior 1984. In the UK, look to pre-Thatcher. IN the US, pre-Reagan.
You want examples of social democratic policies in action today in the English speaking world? Then look at what the SNP does (free tertiary education, more or less free dental care, no prescription charges, no privatisation of the health service etc…ie, a raft of policies putting people first or of putting society before finance).
And that’s achieved by a government that cannot borrow money or raise tax thresh-holds in any meaningful way. It works with in proscribed powers of governance and within the constraints of a formulaic allocation of monies from a Westminster government wedded to liberalism and austerity.
Thinking about social democracy versus liberalism = merely thinking about priorities.
We have come upon a very different age from any that preceded us. We have come upon an age when we do not do business in the way in which we used to do business,—when we do not carry on any of the operations of manufacture, sale, transportation, or communication as men used to carry them on. There is a sense in which in our day the individual has been submerged. In most parts of our country men work, not for themselves, not as partners in the old way in which they used to work, but generally as employees,—in a higher or lower grade,—of great corporations. There was a time when corporations played a very minor part in our business affairs, but now they play the chief part, and most men are the servants of corporations.
You know what happens when you are the servant of a corporation. You have in no instance access to the men who are really determining the policy of the corporation. If the corporation is doing the things that it ought not to do, you really have no voice in the matter and must obey the orders, and you have oftentimes with deep mortification to co-operate in the doing of things which you know are against the public interest. Your individuality is swallowed up in the individuality and purpose of a great organization.
It is true that, while most men are thus submerged in the corporation, a few, a very few, are exalted to a power which as individuals they could never have wielded. Through the great organizations of which they are the heads, a few are enabled to play a part unprecedented by anything in history in the control of the business operations of the country and in the determination of the happiness of great numbers of people.
Yesterday, and ever since history began, men were related to one another as individuals. To be sure there were the family, the Church, and the State, institutions which associated men in certain wide circles of relationship. But in the ordinary concerns of life, in the ordinary work, in the daily round, men dealt freely and directly with one another. To-day, the everyday relationships of men are largely with great impersonal concerns, with organizations, not with other individual men.
Now this is nothing short of a new social age, a new era of human relationships, a new stage-setting for the drama of life.
Very few people I know (actually none that I know of IRL) have fond memories of the Muldoon years. Things like Supplementary Minimum Prices paid to very-well-off farmers, carless days and no weekend petrol, wage-and-price freeze (that was really only a wage freeze) and so on leave a bad taste. I suggest pointing to the specific aspects, such as near-free tertiary education, near-free medical care etc, if you want to get traction in a New Zealand audience.
All of those things can be achieved by increments from where we are now, by supporting and pressuring a sympathetic government. Look at how far Key was able to move things the other way, without scaring the populace.
Meanwhile, we do have people active in politics advocating those kinds of policies, such as Joe Carolan. If those policies are so popular, why don’t they get a bigger vote share?
So no fond memories of being able to afford a house (either for rent or to buy)?
No fond memories of having a secure job – of penal rates – of vastly superior conditions than those endured today…?
No fond memories of going to the shops and actually being able to afford the stuff that was needed…?
No fond memories of actually getting hospital treatment when you needed it and not being required to have health insurance…?
No fond memories of going to university because going to university…?
Nah, you’re right. It was a hell zone of no margarine and no frothy wee flat whites….just like most of the rest of the world in the tasteless 70’s. And margarine and wee frothy flat whites are where it’s at.
Those things are the prize and the goal and the end point of the liberal medicine bottle marked “no gain without pain”. And my, such gains we have!!
Adam, not surprising to find out that many anti-democrats want to sweep the dirt under the carpet, as if the filth perpetrated by the Republicans never took place nor isn’t taking place. I am not a fan of American politics, but I am astonished that a pervert, like Trump can rise to the position of President of the USA.
Hillary crashed Bernie so he couldn’t become Trump’s challenger. If he had manged, the result could have been very different and got people who would have otherwise never thought of voting, come out and do so.
Hillary should not have even been the Democrat nominee.
In conservative America, they talk about Republicans In Name Only (R.I.N.O.’s), who are thought to be too left leaning, or forgotten what a “true conservative” is.
I would say in all honesty, then there must be D.I.N.O.’s too who are too sympathetic to the causes of the Republicans, or who have forgotten what a true socialist is.
That’s interesting. Wouldn’t mind seeing the entire filmed version (their next step apparently). Anyway. Because I suspect most people don’t chase down links, I’m just going to drop the 2 min vid from rehearsals here…
The is no such thing as fake news, there is just propaganda.
What a steaming piece of po-mo bullshit. There’s a clear and significant difference between news agencies presenting actually-occurring events in ways you don’t like, and private interests paying people to flood opponents’ communication channels with made-up stories. Pretending there’s no difference helps only the left’s enemies, who have a lot of money to spend on fake news.
Accusations that Iraqi soldiers were throwing babies from incubators onto the floor to die. Fake news or propaganda?
Last hospital in Aleppo razed (lost count of the number of times that was reported as having happened). Fake news or propaganda?
Last pediatrician in Aleppo killed. Fake news or propaganda?
All of the above were stories that were pushed heavily by all major western news outlets and quite a few western NGOs (eg – Amnesty International or medecins sans frontieres). And all were used by western governments to justify actions or positions they were holding and as a way to sway public opinion or attitudes.
I can’t believe this stuff can be genuinely that hard to figure out.
Scenario 1:
Kuwaitis who’ve fled the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait describe atrocities committed by the invaders, including the accusation that Iraqi soldiers had pulled babies from incubators. News media extensively report the unverifiable accusations as unverifiable accusations and people make up their own minds how much credence they’ll give them.
Scenario 2:
Republican black ops type makes up a story about tens of thousands of fraudulent Clinton votes found in a warehouse and publishes them on his web site, which presents itself as a newspaper site but isn’t one.
Only one of the above is fake news. If people really do struggle to understand the difference, I suggest they hand in their computers as it would better if they steered clear of the web.
Scenario 1. The daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador to the US gave false testimony ie – made up a fucking story – before the US Congress and her entirely false story was corroborated by Amnesty International.
And from the NYT of Dec 16 1990 (one snippet among many that you can find using “google is my advanced friend)
In its last report, Amnesty International said that based on scores of interviews with refugees, it had found a “horrifying picture of widespread arrests, torture under interrogation, summary executions, and mass extrajudicial killings.”
Few informed observers disagree. What is at issue, however, is the number of victims. 250 Executions Confirmed
and
“Kuwait says seizure of hospital equipment caused many deaths”. Reuters News. September 6, 1992.
“Iraq equipment removal killed patients – Kuwait.”. Reuters News. September 6, 1992.
“Kuwaiti says Iraq plundered hospitals”. Associated Press. North Carolina: Charlotte Observer. September 7, 1990. p. A16.
“Official: Hospitalized in Kuwait are left to die”. Associated Press. Chicago Tribune. September 7, 1990. p. 12.
“Persian Gulf crisis – More about the Mideast”. Houston Chronicle. September 7, 1990. p. A18.
“Kuwait Says Iraq Plundered Hospitals”. The San Francisco Chronicle (Associated Press). September 7, 1990. p. A21.
“Released Hostages Tell of Kuwait Terror”. All Things Considered (Transcription of broadcast). National Public Radio. September 7, 1990. Total destruction everywhere, cars wrecked, burned, people thrown out of cars on the street you’re driving down; they just throw people over the street. They’re hitting children with the butts of the guns, taking infants out of incubators and taking the incubators.
And for some strange reason you don’t appear to want to speak to the other two salient instances I brought up. Or are you getting around to them?
I’m going to guess you won’t. And here’s the thing. Labeling some stuff as ‘fake news’ as opposed to propaganda means that propaganda that isn’t liked gets dismissed out of hand and propaganda that’s approved of slips uncritically under the radar. And that’s pernicious.
Personally, I think the distinction is that the incubator story was reported by organisations that could fairly be regarded as at least trying (although maybe lazily and with significant confirmation bias) to report an objective truth, whereas “fake news” systems dispense with any attempt to report the truth. And the distinction between fake news and propaganda is that propaganda is designed with a specific angle and frequently merely exagerrates the truth, whereas fake news is just intended to overload the synapses to produce a null response.
That’s just my personal taxonomy of thumb. It’s all just different flavours of shit.
You telling me that Hill & Knowlton were attempting to report an objective truth?
If anything qualifies as ‘fake news’ it’s that utter fabrication Hill & Knowlton knowingly and cynically compiled and peddled. And given its fake news status, and the fact it was used to impact on opinion around an invasion of Iraq….well, your distinction for what separates ‘fake news’ from propaganda seem to fall over, no?
I agree everything’s shades of shit. But I think my point about the potentially pernicious impact of labeling some stuff as ‘fake news’ and other stuff as propaganda, stands.
No, it was propaganda from hill&knowlton that was probably reported in good faith by AI and the media (with the caveats and attributions milt has raised).
This is a phenomenon distinct from fake news like RT or breitbart or even large swathes of fox news, who flood people with oft-conflicting bullshit simply to overload individuals’ ability to make an informed decision.
The objective of propaganda is to mislead or persuade, whereas the objective of fake news is simply to induce information overload in the public sphere.
Lets cut the fucking crap here McFlock. Propaganda is by definition false. There is no distinction between what you want to call fake news and what you’d rather call propaganda….except, it seems, that propaganda would be practiced by those sources you’d seek to be an apologist for (BBC, AI, CNN etc) and fake news would be practiced by those you seek to discount entirely (RT and other non-western news sources alongside a few right wing western news sources).
I mean ffs! RT “induces information over-load in the public sphere”??!!
No, it’s not always “false news”. It often takes the form of fake news, but it tries to form a single, coherent, plausible message. E.g. the incubator story reinforced other atrocity stories, some of which probably true, and the true fact of the actual invasion, in order to produce the coherent message of “Iraq = bad war criminals”
It also takes the form of true facts selectively reported in order to reinforce the intended message. The Churchill “gangster” photo with the thompson machine gun was a true depiction that was used by both sides in WW2 to reinforce their respective propaganda messages.
It can also take the form of simple opinion or editorial pieces with no assertion of fact: e.g. “keep calm and carry on” or even just the pictorial leaflets of porn on one side and a corpse on the other. The gist is there.
But “fake news” functions not by individual or even an over-arching message, but by producing an overwhelming number of conflicting messages. Propaganda tries to drive the car in one direction, fake news just tries to overheat the car’s engine until it seizes.
Look at RT’s coverage of the airliner shot down over the ukraine, up to and including obviously faked “satellite photos” of other jets in the area, conflicting statements about the possible antiair systems and their locations, and all sorts of shit about radar tracks. Each theory with its own headline and article, reported as reasonable no matter how outlandish. Just clickbait for morons.
That’s qualitatively different to say the BBC or CNN. They might have their own agenda, but at least it’s a coherent agenda, rather than just noise to drown everything else out.
Sorry McFlock but noise is just one part of propaganda, you and Psycho Milt want to limit propaganda to a fit your agenda.
Propaganda is “information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote a political cause or point of view”
A point of view, includes overload, and putting people off.
I’m all for differing points of view, and think we should have it. Look the media you seem to being holding up is only three organisations, all corporate, and have one interest, profit.
So they do propaganda well. One example is just by omitting news. Standing rock is a good example, then MSNBC and their refusal to do anything positive about Bernie Sanders, instead showing trumps empty podium. They did it for hours. Still propaganda.
I’m glad you getting a handle on what is happening. But don’t think it’s not propaganda, that is the road to a very dangerous tribalism bubble.
Look at RT’s coverage of the airliner shot down over the ukraine, up to and including obviously faked “satellite photos” of other jets in the area, conflicting statements about the possible antiair systems and their locations, and all sorts of shit about radar tracks. Each theory with its own headline and article, reported as reasonable no matter how outlandish. Just clickbait for morons.
I never really took much interest in that particular event, but all you say about it and use as a reason to condemn rt, applies equally to the framework of western coverage of Syria.
And the noise from the BBC, CNN et al is many decibels above anything rt can achieve. It’s like a solo artist playing against an orchestra…and both produce clickbait for morons. (But one obviously produces more readily available clickbait than the other though, aye?)
Alternatively, Adam, you’re redefining what a “view” is to include information overload (aka the complete absence of a view) in order to fit your false equivalence.
You think I’m only just getting a handle on things? I’d feel patronised if you weren’t such a monochromatic tool. Hell, not even monochrome: dot matrix. Thirty years out of date and with a worldview of thousands of unconnected black dots on white paper, no shades of grey.
I never really took much interest in that particular event, but all you say about it and use as a reason to condemn rt, applies equally to the framework of western coverage of Syria.
No, it doesn’t. Nowhere near equally. That’s a false equivalence.
My point was not to be condescending, and for that I apologies.
That said, you need to read what current people are writing about propaganda. It’s not new what you are trying to point forward, people said similar things about Berlusconi and his campaigns. Then a new wave came with the rise of Putin.
So I’m not living in the dark ages, as you wish I was. As I actually read about this quite often. And have for years.
Like I said, the problem trying to spin this to fit an agenda, is the road to tribalism.
“current people”. People with their own agenda? Or just more noise?
My approach isn’t particularly new, again I never claimed it was. What it does do is provide a distinction between two logically different approaches to public information warfare.
Let’s avoid attribution to particular networks or outlets, and just work on the distinction: is “information overload” as an objective fundamentally different from “attempting to persuade or dissuade people about a particular point of view”?
I think they are fundamentally different objectives and are characterised by different tactics.
Let’s avoid attribution to particular networks or outlets, and just work on the distinction: is “information overload” as an objective fundamentally different from “attempting to persuade or dissuade people about a particular point of view”?
So by that definition – that ‘fake news’ is a process of ‘information overload’ – then arguably all of the sports news and the ‘girl shits on Dunedin street’ news and the endless hours of adverts that supposedly impart information, and the Hollywood gossip and the OMG! you’ll never believe what they did, said, happened next…and all of the misleading headlines and vacuous filler on websites and in newspapers and what not… all of that’s fake news.
Meanwhile, any spin (on say) a plane being shot down or on the situation in a war zone would be propaganda. And some of it will be quite slick and professional and some of it amateurish. But none of it ‘fake’ insofar as it’s all trying to sway opinion.
no bill, because although you might think it’s a pointless distraction, some people find sports interesting and want to know about it.
That’s real news, supplied in good faith to people who want it, even if it bores the fuck out of you or I.
Fake news in regards to sports would involve dozens fictional teams, injury reports, scores and fixtures all thrown in alongside maybe the occasional true report of a football match.
How was RT coverage of MH17 being shot down trying to “sway opinion”? What did they want us to believe – that it was a Ukrainian jet, an invented story, a spy plane, a Ukrainian SAM covered up by the US (who saw everything with their 100% radar coverage of the area), or a US “false flag” op? There was no attempt to persuade, just an attempt to overload.
The incubator story was part of an actual propaganda campaign where, even if the actors didn’t necessarily coordinate every piece of their material, the US, Kuwaitis, UK, and Saudis all had the basic message “Iraq bad, committing heinous atrocities, must be stopped or someone else is next”.
As far as I’m aware the reporting around MH17 was “it were the Russians that wot did it” on one side of the coin and “it were Ukrainians that wot did it” on the other.
But like I said previously, I never paid much attention to any of it since I reckoned (rightly or wrongly) that it was going to be an endless blame game of ping-pong.
So I just applied some basic questions around motivation, likelihood and what not, came to a reasonable conclusion and moved on.
Yes, sports are of interest to some. And it’s why I used the word “arguably”. I mean, adverts are important to some (I lived with a person who got annoyed if ads were interrupted by people in a room).
So are we at the point where fake news is taken to be complete smash that no-one is interested in? If so, it’s completely irrelevant and therefore not a problem.
On the other hand, if people are giving some time and energy over to it, then it’s having an impact, and is therefore propaganda.
edit – a thousand made up stories around (say) HC impacts on how people perceive HC. There’s an agenda. Just as there was an agenda when the claim was made that German soldiers were bayoneting Belgium babies during WWI…or that babies were thrown from incubators…or that the queen is a lizard.
A story about a WW 2 plane being found on the moon – well, that’s in the realm of fake news. (An actual headline story from a UK paper back in the day)
RT’s approach was to provide conflicting stories, rather than a coherent “it wasn’t us” message.
So are we at the point where fake news is taken to be complete smash that no-one is interested in? If so, it’s completely irrelevant and therefore not a problem.
It’s noise, that’s the problem. That’s the entire problem. It drowns everything else out, either you create more noise refuting the more plausible stuff or you hope enough people notice that today’s noise is the exact opposite from the noise the same source was throwing out yesterday and will throw out tomorrow. And in the meantime, actual news has to compete for space against utter bullshit.
The goal of fake news is to stop people making an informed or considered decision, at all. The goal of propaganda is to get people to make the decision you want.
Hmm. So the propaganda we’ve been fed for years and years about the middle east is predicated on having us make decisions around stuff in the middle east? And here was me thinking that most people I know just throw their hands in the air and announce how it’s all just “too hard”.
Much the same with regards Yugoslavia from memory. And was much the same with Northern Ireland too (from the perspective of broadcasts in the UK).
Seems all that propaganda was designed to prevent people coming to any kind of informed decision. But that can’t be right according to what you reckon propaganda is and how it differs from ‘fake news’.
Libyan troops filling up on Viagra in order to rape opponents to the government in Tripoli. That one was carried ‘everywhere’ and used to generate backing for a ‘no-fly zone’ in Libya. The story was obviously bullshit and noise that crowded out any sensible discussion on Libya (maybe in the same way that Brietbart stuff is noisy bullshit)….and it had an impact.
According to what you’ve been saying, the Viagra story should rightfully be seen as propaganda and yet the same type of stuff (coming from Brietbart or wherever and focused on the Democrats or whatever instead of Libya) should be considered ‘fake news’ as opposed to propaganda.
And this is straight back to one of my first points about this so-called difference between ‘fake news’ and propaganda. The ‘fake news’ tag gets reserved for specific outlets (lists have been drawn up and circulated by liberal media), meaning that everything those outlets produce becomes tarnished and at risk of instant dismissal regardless of the actual content…leaving the coast clear for ‘our’ propaganda.
And that’s pernicious, very dangerous and a damned good reason to run a propaganda campaign around this notion of ‘fake news’.
According to what you’ve been saying, the Viagra story should rightfully be seen as propaganda […]
Not necessarily.
The viagra story in the context of a campaign towards a coherent message would be propaganda.
The viagra story in the context of it being A) true and b)reported impartially would be news.
The viagra story from the same outlet that releases stories about how Libyan soldiers are all part of an abstinence cult, as well as stories about how no medicines are in Libya, and as well as stories that “Libyan” soldiers are all actors in southern Nevada, as well as stories that Libyan soldiers are all women because Libyan men run away, etc etc etc, that’s fake news. Regardless of outlet and regardless of whether one of those stories happens to be true. It’s just about noise, so nobody on the street decides that they have a strong enough onpinion on the matter to write a letter to the editor or their MP or boycott goods from XYZ.
You say the “fake news” tag is reserved for specific outlets to discredit the news from those outlets. I say specific outlets are fake news sources because their stories are completely unverifiable and usually contradictory, even if some of their stories are true. It’s impossible to verify or place any reliability on anything from those sources because there’s no distinction between opinion, fact and outright fabrication. To the point that even considering almost anything from those sources is a waste of time, you’ll find out the true stories from other sources sooner or later.
The daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador to the US gave false testimony ie – made up a fucking story…
And the news media reported it as a claim, just like they reported Trump claiming that Obama ordered Trump Tower’s phone’s tapped. That isn’t “fake news,” it’s just “news.”
And from the NYT of Dec 16 1990…
Er, yes. The NYT reported Amnesty International’s claims about widespread torture and murder, with the appropriate caveats. And of course, not completely irrelevant to the issue was the fact that widespread torture and murder did actually take place, and wasn’t made up by a party hack to put on his pretend newspaper site.
And for some strange reason you don’t appear to want to speak to the other two salient instances I brought up.
Well, no, because they’re just two more instances of the same thing: news media reporting claims from a war zone that can’t be independently verified, as claims from a war zone that can’t be independently verified, otherwise known as “reporting the news.”
If you can find repeated and egregious instances of reputable news organisations deliberately making up stories and reporting them as news, you’ll have a case. Until then, fake news is something different from regular propaganda.
because they’re just two more instances of the same thing: news media reporting claims from a war zone that can’t be independently verified
Hmm. Except any western journalist from a major outlet could have interviewed Dr Zahar Buttal, Director of the Aleppo Medical Association with regards hospitals in east Aleppo and registered medical practitioners. But then that might have interfered with the ‘official’ narrative…which has been wholly informed by “opposition” voices.
The British government is waging information warfare in Syria by funding media operations for some rebel fighting groups, in the foreign front of what David Cameron has called “the propaganda war” against Islamic State (and the Syrian Government)
The campaign aims to boost the reputation of what the government calls the “moderate armed opposition”, a complex and shifting alliance of armed factions.
Deciding which factions to support is risky for the government because many groups have become increasingly extremist as the five-year civil war grinds on.
Contractors hired by the Foreign Office but overseen by the Ministry of Defence (MoD) produce videos, photos, military reports, radio broadcasts, print products and social media posts branded with the logos of fighting groups, and effectively run a press office for opposition fighters
Bracketed text my expansion for the sake of accuracy 👿
edit. Oops. Forgot to respond to the first part of your reply above. You suggest that media reported the babies and what not as claims. Did you read the list of headlines provided? The word ‘claims’ or ‘alleges’ or any other such like simply doesn’t appear. Kuwaiti says and statement of fact as headline after statement of fact as headline…. 🙄
… any western journalist from a major outlet could have interviewed Dr Zahar Buttal, Director of the Aleppo Medical Association…
Well, they could have, but claims from the government side also can’t be verified, and this particular regime mouthpiece wouldn’t have set foot in east Aleppo at least since the start of the siege, so wouldn’t have any current info to base his claims on. It would be like asking rebel forces for commentary on what was happening in west Aleppo.
Did you read the list of headlines provided? The word ‘claims’ or ‘alleges’ or any other such like simply doesn’t appear.
“Kuwait says” in a headline means the Kuwaiti government is claiming something.
and this particular regime mouthpiece wouldn’t have set foot in east Aleppo at least since the start of the siege, so wouldn’t have any current info to base his claims on.
So the head of the medical association is a “regime mouthpiece”. What you base that allegation on? The fact he’s saying stuff that contradicts what the BBC and others reporting from ooutside of the country have reported as true?
And even if he didn’t set foot in east Aleppo, he does have the list of all existing hospitals and of all registered medical practitioners for Aleppo. And they can be checked.
It would have been an improvement on western reporting had they asked their mates they were embedded with what was going on (Channel 4 ran with Al Zenka for a production that they later removed from their site – linked)
Go to 2min and 45 secs and you’ll see Mahmoud Raslan. Now, if you don’t know who Mahmoud Raslan is, well he was the guy who took the ‘boy in the orange seat’ video that all western outlets ran with and who also gleefully filmed his mates (Al Zenki) beheading a 9 year old Palestinian boy.
How do you think an authority figure got his position of authority under an authoritarian dictatorship, Bill?
I’m sure this particular one had info on all the registered medical practitioners in Aleppo at the time conflict started – how many of the ones in east Aleppo were still around in its later stages is anyone’s guess, as is the number of foreign volunteers. Likewise the hospitals – people in a city under continuous bombardment end up with makeshift hospitals and don’t concern themselves over-much about official documentation.
See…this bullshit you appear to exhibit…of excusing anything and everything western media says or claims, because to not accept what they say would apparently mean taking a side is…fucking tragic.
Nice to see you slipping slightly from the official narrative there though. So now the hospitals may not have been hospitals in the sense claimed and the pediatrician may not have been a pediatrician after all. Jollity.
Just like there’s a difference between propaganda and the more recent phenomenon of fake news, there’s a difference between taking a realistic view of news media organisations and “excusing anything and everything the western media claims.”
Sure, you could go on – the list of irrelevant items is effectively infinite. The evidence requested was instances of reputable media organisations deliberately inventing false stories to serve a political purpose – what you’ve provided is examples of media organisations failing to uncover government lies, which is something else entirely.
I’d also add most journalist knew the welfare queen lie and printed it anyway. Many on that list could fall into the same category. Again off the top of my head, without research.
I find it interesting you want to differentiate on propaganda. Maybe you should read what propaganda means. I’d say you a twisting it into to a narrow definition to fit your own narrative, rather than looking at as a whole.
Fake news is a out and out propaganda term, put out there by Muppet’s who want to mislead people.
Lies are not new, getting worked up over the latest propaganda term is also not new. Cutting through the lies and b.s, is difficult – but keeping an open mind and read a lot of different sources can help. Buying into your sides latest fetish, helps no one.
National are poor managers of the economy. Food retailer managers are poor sellers of goods. Going in a Tesco, etc you’d find something worth buying, NZ retail offerings are so contorted and rigged my cash goes elsewhere, its just poor management. Its always been this way, no. eight wire get something that works mentality. Good when your on the frontier but UK ruled the world eith four million people. Its like we keep digging whith a bunch of managers who just know how to did more debt.
Both Westpac and UBS warn growth may have dropped as low as 0.5 per cent in the quarter, which would mark it as the weakest quarter of growth since the start of 2015.
It would also suggest the economy was growing at around the pace of New Zealand’s annual population growth, currently about 2 per cent – a 40 year high.
Meanwhile, Bernard Hickey on Newsroom says that the big Aussie banks are now restricting lending to property developers in NZ, meaning there will likely be a drop in the numbers of new residential properties being built in Auckland.
The Government’s grand plan for a massive boom of apartment and townhouse building to solve Auckland’s housing crisis is quietly being picked apart by banking regulators on both sides of the Tasman.
Apartment and section developers say banks have pulled back from lending to them in recent months and property buyers also face a squeeze on mortgages from the big four Australian-owned banks because banks are hitting limits set by regulators – both in Australia and New Zealand.
Meanwhile, Bernard Hickey on Newsroom says that the big Aussie banks are now restricting lending to property developers in NZ. What does he mean “now” this has been the position since the middle of last year, and the consequence of less credit ? The pace of development dramatically slows both in the creation of development land and the construction of dwellings. This has been happening since the end of last year, so no matter what any govt does without the 4 banks to fund there will be limited construction of houses. But leave it to the market to solve !!! eh
By the time that the media was made aware of this was months after the banks had quietly implemented their policies. Ever wondered why the banks are so compliant with the Reserve Banks restrictions ?? So that they can reduce their risk in the sector. http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/property/85468366/construction-costs-funding-squeeze-blamed-for-developers-walking-away
ps://blog.bnz.co.nz/2016/11/auckland-property-developers-feel-funding-pinch/
From the Standard and Poor report on New Zealand lending situation:
“With banks reporting a tightening in lending standards for property development, it’s conceivable that new construction will slow, despite the rollout of the Auckland Unitary Plan, applying further upward pressure on house prices.”
Our Reserve Bank will also shortly force banks to put more of their profits aside to assure against riskier lending. That will take higher profit margins. And you just know what that means ….
Auckland has already seen a few developers pull out (eg the St James, Avondale, and Albany ones) even though they had the pre-sales to go. It was simply the Aussie banks saying NO.
I sure don’t want a housing crash, or a credit crunch, or thousands more homeless, or existing rental landlords just creaming it.
But the actions of our Australian-dominated banking system says that is where we are headed. There will be no more “show me the money!”
The 2017 government has an almighty task on its hands. And it’s the biggie: a banking policy problem so big that will test the political independence of the RBA.
As far as I can honestly tell, if they have a plan at all it is a hodge podge mash of various ideas slapped together with a few more houses built here and there at the expense of environmental planning to glue the various bits of this bizarre looking mash together.
Before she gets to talk about JK’s lies, Leilani describes her journey from being a PI-Māori Aucklander, growing up in a Pākehā education system, through learning the Māori and Pacific history of the country and region, to working for MFAT and McCully.
When Leilani and her husband hit hard times, he was driving a bus on minimum wage, and she saw a reality that was different from the brighter future John key was spinning.
Then our landlord gave us notice and we couldn’t find a place to rent. And I had this sense of: My God! Here I am. I’ve got a degree. My husband has a degree. We work hard. We work long hours. We’re trying to do the best by our children. And yet, it feels like we’re going backwards.
All around me I saw the same story. I saw struggle. All around my neighbourhood. My friends and colleagues. And everybody was saying the same thing. So I started to think: John Key has to be telling lies here. Because people are suffering and struggling. And yet he’s telling us, it’s fine. And there’s a big gap between what he’s saying and what I’m seeing.
That’s when I decided to become political and put myself out there and walk the talk.
.Good article and good on Leilani for getting active on the Left. One small point is that many thousands of us knew that Key was lying from day one and it is an indictment on how dumbed down we have become to the ravages of neoliberalism that the rest of NZ still can’t ( or don’t want to) see that.
OK Keyboard warriors. 177 days till the election. Labour want to be in a coalition with NZF and get Green Support. The MOU only lasts till Sept 23rd. Crazy strategy relying on Winston. I marvel at how easily the Left make assumptions of victory in the absence of any evidence. Do you not realise that National have planned the next 177 days carefully and that there will be a multiple carrots on offer. Labour’s best trick is to change leaders after June 23rd. Will it be Jacinda or Grant?
[TheStandard: A moderator moved this comment to Open Mike as being off topic or irrelevant in the post it was made in. Be more careful in future.]
[lprent: As was pointed out below, this was a blatant attempt at diversion (I was somewhat busy today). Banned for 2 weeks. If I have to ban you again for anything similar, it will be until 1 month after the election. ]
Meanwhile, is Judith going to make a last tilt at putting “PM” on her CV before the election, or will she be satisfied spending three years as a caretaker opposition leader after blinglish disappears?
Poor old, Act Party supporter, fisiani, goes on a lot of fishing expeditions, and seems to do very little catching, if any. His comments are meant to show there is conflict between Labour/Green and NZF, to me fisiani is just a sad comic.
If it’s a crazy strategy to be relying on Winston, that’s going to turn out badly for National, given they’ll need Winston to be in coalition with them.
Protesters held a rally in front of Paypal co-founder Peter Thiel’s home Saturday in San Francisco’s Pacific Heights neighborhood, speaking out against the work by one of his companies that could track airline passengers and other immigrants.
A small group of protesters were calling attention to a company he co-founded called Palantir.
Theil is one of only a few Silicon Valley giants who supported Donald Trump for president.
Former San Francisco City Supervisor Dave Campos says Palantir won a contract to do work for the Immigration and Custom’s Enforcement Agency. “They’ve received this contract, which will essentially create a data system that will allow, that will enable the mass deportation of millions of people,” Campos said.
According to federal government, in 2014 Palantir was awarded a $41.6 million contract to create an ICE investigative case management system.
How much has the NZ government paid out to Palantir for contracts with NZ Defence Force, the SIS and the GCSB? Matt Nippert has resorted to requesting the Ombudman to find the answer, despite the following BS statement:
Open and Transparent Government
New Zealand has a strong history of open and transparent government that is internationally recognised. One of the pillars of open and transparent government is open government data and information.
“The study involved several tests conducted on nine different brands of “smart” meters, also referred to in the industry as “static energy meters.” Researchers also used one electromechanical meter for reference… Experiments went on for six months, with individual tests lasting at least one week, and sometimes several weeks. Test results varied wildly, with some meters reporting errors way above their disclosed range, going from -32% to +582%..”
This old house is going and 17 units will be put in its place. Though that sounds positive the price for each will still be $700,000 so that volume and being on one location still can’t bring them within the reach of young hopefuls. Why can’t this be organised by the government. Low interest mortgages over 15 years or longer within the price range of a hard-working young couple. Come on Bill English take a laxative and get moving.
“It is in such a bad way inside, it was inevitable [it would go],” she said. “It’ll be sad, but it’s served its purpose.”
Yeoman Homes is the building contractor for the Ruakiwi Terraces project. Yeoman declined to name the owner of the property.
Managing director Andrew Yeoman said the homes will be worth around $700,000 each and include three bedrooms, two bathrooms and either a single or double garage.
Yeoman said the current house was investigated to see if it could be relocated, but it was too riddled with borer and rot to be able to be moved successfully.
Some of the materials are going to be recycled, he said.
Muriel Newman writes – When Meridian Energy was seeking resource consents for a West Coast hydro dam proposal in 2010, local Maori “strenuously” objected, claiming their mana was inextricably linked to ‘their’ river and could be damaged. After receiving a financial payment from the company, however, the Ngai Tahu ...
Alwyn Poole writes – “An SEP,’ he said, ‘is something that we can’t see, or don’t see, or our brain doesn’t let us see, because we think that it’s somebody else’s problem. That’s what SEP means. Somebody Else’s Problem. The brain just edits it out, it’s like a ...
Our trust in our political institutions is fast eroding, according to a Maxim Institute discussion paper, Shaky Foundations: Why our democracy needs trust. The paper – released today – raises concerns about declining trust in New Zealand’s political institutions and democratic processes, and the role that the overuse of Parliamentary urgency ...
This article was prepared for publication yesterday. More ministerial announcements have been posted on the government’s official website since it was written. We will report on these later today …. Buzz from the BeehiveThere we were, thinking the environment is in trouble, when along came Jones. Shane Jones. ...
New Zealand now has the fourth most depressed construction sector in the world behind China, Qatar and Hong Kong. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy at 8:46am on Thursday, May 2:The Lead: ...
Hi,I am just going to state something very obvious: American police are fucking crazy.That was a photo gracing the New York Times this morning, showing New York City police “entering Columbia University last night after receiving a request from the school.”Apparently in America, protesting the deaths of tens of thousands ...
Winston Peters’ much anticipated foreign policy speech last night was a work of two halves. Much of it was a standard “boilerplate” Foreign Ministry overview of the state of the world. There was some hardening up of rhetoric with talk of “benign” becoming “malign” and old truths giving way to ...
Graham Adams assesses the fallout of the Cass Review — The press release last Thursday from the UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls didn’t make the mainstream news in New Zealand but it really should have. The startling title of Reem Alsalem’s statement — “Implementation of ‘Cass ...
This open-for-business, under-new-management cliché-pockmarked government of Christopher Luxon is not the thing of beauty he imagines it to be. It is not the powerful expression of the will of the people that he asserts it to be. It is not a soaring eagle, it is a malodorous vulture. This newest poll should make ...
The latest labour market statistics, showing a rise in unemployment. There are now 134,000 unemployed - 14,000 more than when the National government took office. Which is I guess what happens when the Reserve Bank causes a recession in an effort to Keep Wages Low. The previous government saw a ...
Three opinion polls have been released in the last two days, all showing that the new government is failing to hold their popular support. The usual honeymoon experienced during the first year of a first term government is entirely absent. The political mood is still gloomy and discontented, mainly due ...
National's Finance Minister once met a poor person.A scornful interview with National's finance guru who knows next to nothing about economics or people.There might have been something a bit familiar if that was the headline I’d gone with today. It would of course have been in tribute to the article ...
Rob MacCulloch writes – Throughout the pandemic, the new Vice-Chancellor-of-Otago-University-on-$629,000 per annum-Can-you-believe-it-and-Former-Finance-Minister Grant Robertson repeated the mantra over and over that he saved “lives and livelihoods”.As we update how this claim is faring over the course of time, the facts are increasingly speaking differently. NZ ...
Chris Trotter writes – IT’S A COMMONPLACE of political speeches, especially those delivered in acknowledgement of electoral victory: “We’ll govern for all New Zealanders.” On the face of it, the pledge is a strange one. Why would any political leader govern in ways that advantaged the huge ...
Bryce Edwards writes – The list of former National Party Ministers being given plum and important roles got longer this week with the appointment of former Deputy Prime Minister Paula Bennett as the chair of Pharmac. The Christopher Luxon-led Government has now made key appointments to Bill ...
TL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy at 10:06am on Wednesday, May 1:The Lead: Business confidence fell across the board in April, falling in some areas to levels last seen during the lockdowns because of a collapse in ...
Over the past 36 hours, Christopher Luxon has been dong his best to portray the centre-right’s plummeting poll numbers as a mark of virtue. Allegedly, the negative verdicts are the result of hard economic times, and of a government bravely set out on a perilous rescue mission from which not ...
Auckland Transport have started rolling out new HOP card readers around the network and over the next three months, all of them on buses, at train stations and ferry wharves will be replaced. The change itself is not that remarkable, with the new readers looking similar to what is already ...
Completed reads for April: The Difference Engine, by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling Carnival of Saints, by George Herman The Snow Spider, by Jenny Nimmo Emlyn’s Moon, by Jenny Nimmo The Chestnut Soldier, by Jenny Nimmo Death Comes As the End, by Agatha Christie Lord of the Flies, by ...
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
Have a story to share about St Paul’s, but today just picturesPopular novels written at this desk by a young man who managed to bootstrap himself out of father’s imprisonment and his own young life in a workhouse Read more ...
The list of former National Party Ministers being given plum and important roles got longer this week with the appointment of former Deputy Prime Minister Paula Bennett as the chair of Pharmac. The Christopher Luxon-led Government has now made key appointments to Bill English, Simon Bridges, Steven Joyce, Roger Sowry, ...
Newsroom has a story today about National's (fortunately failed) effort to disestablish the newly-created Inspector-General of Defence. The creation of this agency was the key recommendation of the Inquiry into Operation Burnham, and a vital means of restoring credibility and social licence to an agency which had been caught lying ...
Holding On To The Present:The moment a political movement arises that attacks the whole idea of social progress, and announces its intention to wind back the hands of History’s clock, then democracy, along with its unwritten rules, is in mortal danger.IT’S A COMMONPLACE of political speeches, especially those delivered in ...
Stuck In The Middle With You:As Christopher Luxon feels the hot breath of Act’s and NZ First’s extremists on the back of his neck and, as he reckons with the damage their policies are already inflicting upon a country he’s described as “fragile”, is there not some merit in reaching out ...
The unpopular coalition government is currently rushing to repeal section 7AA of the Oranga Tamariki Act. The clause is Oranga Tamariki's Treaty clause, and was inserted after its systematic stealing of Māori children became a public scandal and resulted in physical resistance to further abductions. The clause created clear obligations ...
Buzz from the Beehive The government’s official website – which Point of Order monitors daily – not for the first time has nothing much to say today about political happenings that are grabbing media headlines. It makes no mention of the latest 1News-Verian poll, for example. This shows National down ...
It Takes A Train To Cry:Surely, there is nothing lonelier in all this world than the long wail of a distant steam locomotive on a cold Winter’s night.AS A CHILD, I would lie awake in my grandfather’s house and listen to the traffic. The big wooden house was only a ...
Packing A Punch: The election of the present government, including in its ranks politicians dedicated to reasserting the rights of the legislature in shaping and determining the future of Māori and Pakeha in New Zealand, should have alerted the judiciary – including its anomalous appendage, the Waitangi Tribunal – that its ...
Dead Woman Walking: New Zealand’s media industry had been moving steadily towards disaster for all the years Melissa Lee had been National’s media and communications policy spokesperson, and yet, when the crisis finally broke, on her watch, she had nothing intelligent to offer. Christopher Luxon is a patient man - but he’s not ...
Chris Trotter writes – New Zealand politics is remarkably easy-going: dangerously so, one might even say. With the notable exception of John Key’s flat ruling-out of the NZ First Party in 2008, all parties capable of clearing MMP’s five-percent threshold, or winning one or more electorate seats, tend ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Polling shows that Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau has the lowest approval rating of any mayor in the country. Siting at -12 per cent, the proportion of constituents who disapprove of her performance outweighs those who give her the thumbs up. This negative rating is ...
Luxon will no doubt put a brave face on it, but there is no escaping the pressure this latest poll will put on him and the government. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political ...
This is a re-post from The Climate Brink by Andrew Dessler In the wake of any unusual weather event, someone inevitably asks, “Did climate change cause this?” In the most literal sense, that answer is almost always no. Climate change is never the sole cause of hurricanes, heat waves, droughts, or ...
Something odd happened yesterday, and I’d love to know if there’s more to it. If there was something which preempted what happened, or if it was simply a throwaway line in response to a journalist.Yesterday David Seymour was asked at a press conference what the process would be if the ...
Hi,From time to time, I want to bring Webworm into the real world. We did it last year with the Jurassic Park event in New Zealand — which was a lot of fun!And so on Saturday May 11th, in Los Angeles, I am hosting a lil’ Webworm pop-up! I’ve been ...
Education Minister Erica Standford yesterday unveiled a fundamental reform of the way our school pupils are taught. She would not exactly say so, but she is all but dismantling the so-called “inquiry” “feel good” method of teaching, which has ruled in our classrooms since a major review of the New ...
Exactly where are we seriously going with this government and its policies? That is, apart from following what may as well be a Truss-Lite approach on the purported economic “plan“, and Victorian-era regression when it comes to social policy.Oh it’ll work this time of course, we’re basically assured, “the ...
Hey Uncle Dave, When the Poms joined the EEC, I wasn't one of those defeatists who said, Well, that’s it for the dairy job. And I was right, eh? The Chinese can’t get enough of our milk powder and eventually, the Poms came to their senses and backed up the ute ...
Polling shows that Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau has the lowest approval rating of any mayor in the country. Siting at -12 per cent, the proportion of constituents who disapprove of her performance outweighs those who give her the thumbs up. This negative rating is higher than for any other mayor ...
Buzz from the Beehive Pharmac has been given a financial transfusion and a new chair to oversee its spending in the pharmaceutical business. Associate Health Minister David Seymour described the funding for Pharmac as “its largest ever budget of $6.294 billion over four years, fixing a $1.774 billion fiscal cliff”. ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Many criticisms are being made of the Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill, including by this writer. But as with everything in politics, every story has two sides, and both deserve attention. It’s important to understand what the Government is trying to achieve and its ...
TL;DR: Here’s my top 10 ‘pick ‘n’ mix of links to news, analysis and opinion articles as of 10:10am on Monday, April 29:Scoop: The children's ward at Rotorua Hospital will be missing a third of its beds as winter hits because Te Whatu Ora halted an upgrade partway through to ...
span class=”dropcap”>As hideous as David Seymour can be, it is worth keeping in mind occasionally that there are even worse political figures (and regimes) out there. Iran for instance, is about to execute the country’s leading hip hop musician Toomaj Salehi, for writing and performing raps that “corrupt” the nation’s ...
Yesterday marked 10 years since the first electric train carried passengers in Auckland so it’s a good time to look back at it and the impact it has had. A brief history The first proposals for rail electrification in Auckland came in the 1920’s alongside the plans for earlier ...
Right now, in Aotearoa-NZ, our ‘animal spirits’ are darkening towards a winter of discontent, thanks at least partly to a chorus of negative comments and actions from the Government Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on ...
You make people evil to punish the paststuck inside a sequel with a rotating castThe following photos haven’t been generated with AI, or modified in any way. They are flesh and blood, human beings. On the left is Galatea Young, a young mum, and her daughter Fiadh who has Angelman ...
April has been a quiet month at A Phuulish Fellow. I have had an exceptionally good reading month, and a decently productive writing month – for original fiction, anyway – but not much has caught my eye that suggested a blog article. It has been vaguely frustrating, to be honest. ...
A listing of 31 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, April 21, 2024 thru Sat, April 27, 2024. Story of the week Anthropogenic climate change may be the ultimate shaggy dog story— but with a twist, because here ...
Hi,I spent about a year on Webworm reporting on an abusive megachurch called Arise, and it made me want to stab my eyes out with a fork.I don’t regret that reporting in 2022 and 2023 — I am proud of it — but it made me angry.Over three main stories ...
The new Victoria University Vice-Chancellor decided to have a forum at the university about free speech and academic freedom as it is obviously a topical issue, and the Government is looking at legislating some carrots or sticks for universities to uphold their obligations under the Education and Training Act. They ...
Do you remember when Melania Trump got caught out using a speech that sounded awfully like one Michelle Obama had given? Uncannily so.Well it turns out that Abraham Lincoln is to Winston Peters as Michelle was to Melania. With the ANZAC speech Uncle Winston gave at Gallipoli having much in ...
She was born 25 years ago today in North Shore hospital. Her eyes were closed tightly shut, her mouth was silently moving. The whole theatre was all quiet intensity as they marked her a 2 on the APGAR test. A one-minute eternity later, she was an 8. The universe was ...
Skeptical Science is partnering with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. This fact brief was written by Sue Bin Park in collaboration with members from our Skeptical Science team. You can submit claims you think need checking via the tipline. Is Antarctica gaining land ice? ...
Images of US students (and others) protesting and setting up tent cities on US university campuses have been broadcast world wide and clearly demonstrate the growing rifts in US society caused by US policy toward Israel and Israel’s prosecution of … Continue reading → ...
Barrie Saunders writes – Dear Paul As the new Minister of Media and Communications, you will be inundated with heaps of free advice and special pleading, all in the national interest of course. For what it’s worth here is my assessment: Traditional broadcasting free to air content through ...
Many criticisms are being made of the Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill, including by this writer. But as with everything in politics, every story has two sides, and both deserve attention. It’s important to understand what the Government is trying to achieve and its arguments for such a bold reform. ...
Peter Dunne writes – The great nineteenth British Prime Minister, William Gladstone, once observed that “the first essential for a Prime Minister is to be a good butcher.” When a later British Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, sacked a third of his Cabinet in July 1962, in what became ...
Ele Ludemann writes – New Zealanders had the OECD’s second highest tax increase last year: New Zealanders faced the second-biggest tax raises in the developed world last year, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) says. The intergovernmental agency said the average change in personal income tax ...
We all know something’s not right with our elections. The spread of misinformation, people being targeted with soundbites and emotional triggers that ignore the facts, even the truth, and influence their votes.The use of technology to produce deep fakes. How can you tell if something is real or not? Can ...
This video includes conclusions of the creator climate scientist Dr. Simon Clark. It is presented to our readers as an informed perspective. Please see video description for references (if any). This year you will be lied to! Simon Clark helps prebunk some misleading statements you'll hear about climate. The video includes ...
It is all very well cutting the backrooms of public agencies but it may compromise the frontlines. One of the frustrations of the Productivity Commission’s 2017 review of universities is that while it observed that their non-academic staff were increasing faster than their academic staff, it did not bother to ...
Buzz from the Beehive Two speeches delivered by Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters at Anzac Day ceremonies in Turkey are the only new posts on the government’s official website since the PM announced his Cabinet shake-up. In one of the speeches, Peters stated the obvious: we live in a troubled ...
1. Which of these would you not expect to read in The Waikato Invader?a. Luxon is here to do business, don’t you worry about thatb. Mr KPI expects results, and you better believe itc. This decisive man of action is getting me all hot and excitedd. Melissa Lee is how ...
…it has a restricted jurisdiction which must not be abused: it is not an inquisitionNOTE – this article was published before the High Court ruled that Karen Chhour does not have to appear before the Waitangi Tribunal Gary Judd writes – The High Court ...
Lindsay Mitchell writes – One of reasons Oranga Tamariki exists is to prevent child neglect. But could the organisation itself be guilty of the same?Oranga Tamariki’s statistics show a decrease in the number and age of children in care. “There are less children ...
David Farrar writes: Graeme Edgeler wrote in 2017: In the first five years after three strikes came into effect 5248 offenders received a ‘first strike’ (that is, a “stage-1 conviction” under the three strikes sentencing regime), and 68 offenders received a ‘second strike’. In the five years prior to ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has surprised everyone with his ruthlessness in sacking two of his ministers from their crucial portfolios. Removing ministers for poor performance after only five months in the job just doesn’t normally happen in politics. That’s refreshing and will be extremely ...
TL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the two days to 6:06am on Thursday, April 25:Politics: PM Christopher Luxon has set up a dual standard for ministerial competence by demoting two National Cabinet ministers while leaving also-struggling ...
Hi,Today I mainly want to share some of your thoughts about the recent piece I wrote about success and failure, and the forces that seemingly guide our lives. But first, a quick bit of housekeeping: I am doing a Webworm popup in Los Angeles on Saturday May 11 at 2pm. ...
It is hard to see what Melissa Lee might have done to “save” the media. National went into the election with no public media policy and appears not to have developed one subsequently. Lee claimed that she had prepared a policy paper before the election but it had been decided ...
The Labour Party is saddened to learn of the death of Sir Robert Martin, a globally renowned disability advocate who led the way for disability rights both in New Zealand and internationally. ...
Labour is calling for the Government to urgently rethink its coalition commitment to restart live animal exports, Labour animal welfare spokesperson Rachel Boyack said. ...
Today’s Financial Stability Report has once again highlighted that poverty and deep inequality are political choices - and this Government is choosing to make them worse. ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to do more for our households in most need as unemployment rises and the cost of living crisis endures. ...
Unemployment is on the rise and it’s only going to get worse under this Government, Labour finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds said. Stats NZ figures show the unemployment rate grew to 4.3 percent in the March quarter from 4 percent in the December quarter. “This is the second rise in unemployment ...
The New Zealand Labour Party welcomes the entering into force of the European Union and New Zealand free trade agreement. This agreement opens the door for a huge increase in trade opportunities with a market of 450 million people who are high value discerning consumers of New Zealand goods and ...
The National-led Government continues its fiscal jiggery pokery with its Pharmac announcement today, Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall says. “The government has increased Pharmac funding but conceded it will only make minimal increases in access to medicine”, said Ayesha Verrall “This is far from the bold promises made to fund ...
This afternoon’s interim Waitangi Tribunal report must be taken seriously as it affects our most vulnerable children, Labour children’s spokesperson Willow-Jean Prime. ...
Te Pāti Māori are demanding the New Zealand Government support an international independent investigation into mass graves that have been uncovered at two hospitals on the Gaza strip, following weeks of assault by Israeli troops. Among the 392 bodies that have been recovered, are children and elderly civilians. Many of ...
Our two-tiered system for veterans’ support is out of step with our closest partners, and all parties in Parliament should work together to fix it, Labour veterans’ affairs spokesperson Greg O’Connor said. ...
Stripping two Ministers of their portfolios just six months into the job shows Christopher Luxon’s management style is lacking, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said. ...
Tonight’s court decision to overturn the summons of the Children’s Minister has enabled the Crown to continue making decisions about Māori without evidence, says Te Pāti Māori spokesperson for Children, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “The judicial system has this evening told the nation that this government can do whatever they want when ...
It appears Nicola Willis is about to pull the rug out from under the feet of local communities still dealing with the aftermath of last year’s severe weather, and local councils relying on funding to build back from these disasters. ...
The Government is making short-sighted changes to the Resource Management Act (RMA) that will take away environmental protection in favour of short-term profits, Labour’s environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
Labour welcomes the release of the report into the North Island weather events and looks forward to working with the Government to ensure that New Zealand is as prepared as it can be for the next natural disaster. ...
The Labour Party has called for the New Zealand Government to recognise Palestine, as a material step towards progressing the two-State solution needed to achieve a lasting peace in the region. ...
Some of our country’s most important work, stopping the sexual exploitation of children and violent extremism could go along with staff on the frontline at ports and airports. ...
The Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill will give projects such as new coal mines a ‘get out of jail free’ card to wreak havoc on the environment, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
The government's decision to reintroduce Three Strikes is a destructive and ineffective piece of law-making that will only exacerbate an inherently biased and racist criminal justice system, said Te Pāti Māori Justice Spokesperson, Tākuta Ferris, today. During the time Three Strikes was in place in Aotearoa, Māori and Pasifika received ...
Cuts to frontline hospital staff are not only a broken election promise, it shows the reckless tax cuts have well and truly hit the frontline of the health system, says Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall. ...
The Green Party has joined the call for public submissions on the fast-track legislation to be extended after the Ombudsman forced the Government to release the list of organisations invited to apply just hours before submissions close. ...
New Zealand’s good work at reducing climate emissions for three years in a row will be undone by the National government’s lack of ambition and scrapping programmes that were making a difference, Labour Party climate spokesperson Megan Woods said today. ...
More essential jobs could be on the chopping block, this time Ministry of Education staff on the school lunches team are set to find out whether they're in line to lose their jobs. ...
Te Pāti Māori is disgusted at the confirmation that hundreds are set to lose their jobs at Oranga Tamariki, and the disestablishment of the Treaty Response Unit. “This act of absolute carelessness and out of touch decision making is committing tamariki to state abuse.” Said Te Pāti Māori Oranga Tamariki ...
The Government is trying to bring in a law that will allow Ministers to cut corners and kill off native species, Labour environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said. ...
Cancelling urgently needed new Cook Strait ferries and hiking the cost of public transport for many Kiwis so that National can announce the prospect of another tunnel for Wellington is not making good choices, Labour Transport Spokesperson Tangi Utikere said. ...
A laundry list of additional costs for Tāmaki Makarau Auckland shows the Minister for the city is not delivering for the people who live there, says Labour Auckland Issues spokesperson Shanan Halbert. ...
Te Pāti Māori co-leader Rawiri Waititi, and Mema Paremata mō Tāmaki-Makaurau, Takutai Tarsh Kemp, will travel to the Gold Coast to strengthen ties with Māori in Australia next week (15-21 April). The visit, in the lead-up to the 9th Australian National Kapa haka Festival, will be an opportunity for both ...
The Green Party has today launched a step-by-step guide to help New Zealanders make their voice heard on the Government’s democracy dodging and anti-environment fast track legislation. ...
Trade Minister Todd McClay says Canada’s refusal to comply in full with a CPTPP trade dispute ruling in our favour over dairy trade is cynical and New Zealand has no intention of backing down. Mr McClay said he has asked for urgent legal advice in respect of our ‘next move’ ...
The rights of our children and young people will be enhanced by changes the coalition Government will make to strengthen oversight of the Oranga Tamariki system, including restoring a single Children’s Commissioner. “The Government is committed to delivering better public services that care for our most at-risk young people and ...
The Government is making it easier for minor changes to be made to a building consent so building a home is easier and more affordable, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “The coalition Government is focused on making it easier and cheaper to build homes so we can ...
New Zealand lost a true legend when internationally renowned disability advocate Sir Robert Martin (KNZM) passed away at his home in Whanganui last night, Disabilities Issues Minister Louise Upston says. “Our Government’s thoughts are with his wife Lynda, family and community, those he has worked with, the disability community in ...
Good evening – Before discussing the challenges and opportunities facing New Zealand’s foreign policy, we’d like to first acknowledge the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs. You have contributed to debates about New Zealand foreign policy over a long period of time, and we thank you for hosting us. ...
From today, passengers travelling internationally from Auckland Airport will be able to keep laptops and liquids in their carry-on bags for security screening thanks to new technology, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Creating a more efficient and seamless travel experience is important for holidaymakers and businesses, enabling faster movement through ...
People with an interest in the health of Northland’s marine ecosystems are invited to a public meeting to discuss how to deal with kina barrens, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones will lead the discussion, which will take place on Friday, 10 May, at Awanui Hotel in ...
Kiwi exporters are $100 million better off today with the NZ EU FTA entering into force says Trade Minister Todd McClay. “This is all part of our plan to grow the economy. New Zealand's prosperity depends on international trade, making up 60 per cent of the country’s total economic activity. ...
There are heartening signs that the extractive sector is once again becoming an attractive prospect for investors and a source of economic prosperity for New Zealand, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. “The beginnings of a resurgence in extractive industries are apparent in media reports of the sector in the past ...
The return of the historic Ō-Rākau battle site to the descendants of those who fought there moved one step closer today with the first reading of Te Pire mō Ō-Rākau, Te Pae o Maumahara / The Ō-Rākau Remembrance Bill. The Bill will entrust the 9.7-hectare battle site, five kilometres west ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has announced 25 new high-speed EV charging hubs along key routes between major urban centres and outlined the Government’s plan to supercharge New Zealand’s EV infrastructure. The hubs will each have several chargers and be capable of charging at least four – and up to 10 ...
The coalition Government will not proceed with the previous Government’s plans to regulate residential property managers, Housing Minister Chris Bishop says. “I have written to the Chairperson of the Social Services and Community Committee to inform him that the Government does not intend to support the Residential Property Managers Bill ...
The Government has announced an independent review into the disability support system funded by the Ministry of Disabled People – Whaikaha. Disability Issues Minister Louise Upston says the review will look at what can be done to strengthen the long-term sustainability of Disability Support Services to provide disabled people and ...
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith has attended the Universal Periodic Review in Geneva and outlined the Government’s plan to restore law and order. “Speaking to the United Nations Human Rights Council provided us with an opportunity to present New Zealand’s human rights progress, priorities, and challenges, while responding to issues and ...
The Government and Rotorua Lakes Council are committed to working closely together to end the use of contracted emergency housing motels in Rotorua. Associate Minister of Housing (Social Housing) Tama Potaka says the Government remains committed to ending the long-term use of contracted emergency housing motels in Rotorua by the ...
Trade Minister Todd McClay heads overseas today for high-level trade talks in the Gulf region, and a key OECD meeting in Paris. Mr McClay will travel to Riyadh to meet with counterparts from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). “New Zealand’s goods and services exports to the Gulf region ...
Education Minister Erica Stanford has outlined six education priorities to deliver a world-leading education system that sets Kiwi kids up for future success. “I’m putting ambition, achievement and outcomes at the heart of our education system. I want every child to be inspired and engaged in their learning so they ...
The new NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) App is a secure ‘one stop shop’ to provide the services drivers need, Transport Minister Simeon Brown and Digitising Government Minister Judith Collins say. “The NZTA App will enable an easier way for Kiwis to pay for Vehicle Registration and Road User Charges (RUC). ...
Whānau with tamariki growing up in emergency housing motels will be prioritised for social housing starting this week, says Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka. “Giving these whānau a better opportunity to build healthy stable lives for themselves and future generations is an essential part of the Government’s goal of reducing ...
Racing Minister Winston Peters has paid tribute to an icon of the industry with the recent passing of Dave O’Sullivan (OBE). “Our sympathies are with the O’Sullivan family with the sad news of Dave O’Sullivan’s recent passing,” Mr Peters says. “His contribution to racing, initially as a jockey and then ...
Assalaamu alaikum, greetings to you all. Eid Mubarak, everyone! I want to extend my warmest wishes to you and everyone celebrating this joyous occasion. It is a pleasure to be here. I have enjoyed Eid celebrations at Parliament before, but this is my first time joining you as the Minister ...
Associate Health Minister David Seymour has announced Pharmac’s largest ever budget of $6.294 billion over four years, fixing a $1.774 billion fiscal cliff. “Access to medicines is a crucial part of many Kiwis’ lives. We’ve committed to a budget allocation of $1.774 billion over four years so Kiwis are ...
Hon Paula Bennett has been appointed as member and chair of the Pharmac board, Associate Health Minister David Seymour announced today. "Pharmac is a critical part of New Zealand's health system and plays a significant role in ensuring that Kiwis have the best possible access to medicines,” says Mr Seymour. ...
Hundreds of New Zealand families affected by Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) will benefit from a new Government focus on prevention and treatment, says Health Minister Dr Shane Reti. “We know FASD is a leading cause of preventable intellectual and neurodevelopmental disability in New Zealand,” Dr Reti says. “Every day, ...
Regional Development Minister Shane Jones today attended the official opening of Kaikohe’s new $14.7 million sports complex. “The completion of the Kaikohe Multi Sports Complex is a fantastic achievement for the Far North,” Mr Jones says. “This facility not only fulfils a long-held dream for local athletes, but also creates ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters’ engagements in Türkiye this week underlined the importance of diplomacy to meet growing global challenges. “Returning to the Gallipoli Peninsula to represent New Zealand at Anzac commemorations was a sombre reminder of the critical importance of diplomacy for de-escalating conflicts and easing tensions,” Mr Peters ...
Ambassador Millar, Burgemeester, Vandepitte, Excellencies, military representatives, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen – good morning and welcome to this sacred Anzac Day dawn service. It is an honour to be here on behalf of the Government and people of New Zealand at Buttes New British Cemetery, Polygon Wood – a deeply ...
Distinguished guests - It is an honour to return once again to this site which, as the resting place for so many of our war-dead, has become a sacred place for generations of New Zealanders. Our presence here and at the other special spaces of Gallipoli is made ...
Mai ia tawhiti pamamao, te moana nui a Kiwa, kua tae whakaiti mai matou, ki to koutou papa whenua. No koutou te tapuwae, no matou te tapuwae, kua honoa pumautia. Ko nga toa kua hinga nei, o te Waipounamu, o te Ika a Maui, he okioki tahi me o ...
Paul Goldsmith will take on responsibility for the Media and Communications portfolio, while Louise Upston will pick up the Disability Issues portfolio, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon announced today. “Our Government is relentlessly focused on getting New Zealand back on track. As issues change in prominence, I plan to adjust Ministerial ...
Recreational catch limits will be reduced in areas of Fiordland and the Chatham Islands to help keep those fisheries healthy and sustainable, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. The lower recreational daily catch limits for a range of finfish and shellfish species caught in the Fiordland Marine Area and ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has welcomed an important milestone in New Zealand’s hydrogen future, with the opening of the country’s first network of hydrogen refuelling stations in Wiri. “I want to congratulate the team at Hiringa Energy and its partners K one W one (K1W1), Mitsui & Co New Zealand ...
The coalition Government is delivering on its commitment to improve resource management laws and give greater certainty to consent applicants, with a Bill to amend the Resource Management Act (RMA) expected to be introduced to Parliament next month. RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop has today outlined the first RMA Amendment ...
Overseas models for regulating the oil and gas sector, including their decommissioning regimes, are being carefully scrutinised as a potential template for New Zealand’s own sector, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. The Coalition Government is focused on rebuilding investor confidence in New Zealand’s energy sector as it looks to strengthen ...
Emergency Management and Recovery Minister Mark Mitchell has today released the Report of the Government Inquiry into the response to the North Island Severe Weather Events. “The report shows that New Zealand’s emergency management system is not fit-for-purpose and there are some significant gaps we need to address,” Mr Mitchell ...
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith is today travelling to Europe where he’ll update the United Nations Human Rights Council on the Government’s work to restore law and order. “Attending the Universal Periodic Review in Geneva provides us with an opportunity to present New Zealand’s human rights progress, priorities, and challenges, while ...
Associate Agriculture Minister, Mark Patterson, formally reopened the world’s largest wool processing facility today in Awatoto, Napier, following a $50 million rebuild and refurbishment project. “The reopening of this facility will significantly lift the economic opportunities available to New Zealand’s wool sector, which already accounts for 20 per cent of ...
Hon Andrew Bayly, Minister for Small Business and Manufacturing At the Southland Otago Regional Engineering Collective (SOREC) Summit, 18 April, Dunedin Ngā mihi nui, Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Ko Whanganui aho Good Afternoon and thank you for inviting me to open your summit today. I am delighted ...
The Government is delivering on its commitment to bring back the Three Strikes legislation, Associate Justice Minister Nicole McKee announced today. “Our Government is committed to restoring law and order and enforcing appropriate consequences on criminals. We are making it clear that repeat serious violent or sexual offending is not ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has today announced four new diplomatic appointments for New Zealand’s overseas missions. “Our diplomats have a vital role in maintaining and protecting New Zealand’s interests around the world,” Mr Peters says. “I am pleased to announce the appointment of these senior diplomats from the ...
Workers at a major ASB contact centre in Auckland have voted to take strike action and withdraw their labour following disappointing pay negotiations with the employer and an "offer" to workers that would leave them worse off than the previous year. ...
The Labour Party is demanding Peters be stood down, saying "he's embarrassed the country" with a "totally unacceptable" attack on a prominent AUKUS critic. ...
The Inter-Parliamentary Alliance, whose members were victims of a China-backed cyber attack, is discussing forming a standing committee to deal with foreign influence. ...
The PSA is concerned that the voluntary redundancies being offered to staff by Stats NZ will impact on the agency’s ability to deliver on its core functions. ...
Results ranged from surprisingly yum to soul-destroying. I love cooking. The kitchen is a hearth of culinary creation, of sensory delights, of gastronomic poetry. I also can’t afford anything nice. Why does a pack of instant noodles and some milk cost ten bucks? I love you, Aotearoa, but I miss ...
By Koroi Hawkins, RNZ Pacific editor Police in Solomon Islands are on high alert ahead of the election of the prime minister today. The two candidates for the top job are former foreign affairs minister Jeremiah Manele at the head of the Coalition for National Unity and Transformation, which is ...
He’s fine but it feels like I’m losing a friend and it’s making me bitter. How do I say ‘enough is enough’? Want Hera’s help? Email your problem to helpme@thespinoff.co.nzHey Hera,I’ve recently moved in with a girlfriend, her partner Steve, and his friend. We all live in a lovely little house. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nick Chartres, Senior Research Fellow, Faculty of Medicine & Health, University of Sydney shutterstockAhmet Misirligul/Shutterstock You go to the gym, eat healthy and walk as much as possible. You wash your hands and get vaccinated. You control your health. This is ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jacqueline Hendriks, Research Fellow and Lecturer, Curtin University Children and young people may be seeing news headlines about men murdering women or footage of people rallying to call for action. Perhaps they or their friends have even gone to the protests. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jessica Balanzategui, Senior Lecturer in Media, RMIT University ABC “Bluey mania” shows no sign of abating. Bluey’s season finale, The Sign, was the most viewed ABC program of all time on iView. A “hidden” follow-up episode, aptly named The Surprise, created ...
Labour market figures came in softer than the Reserve Bank had forecast, but they won’t be enough to move the needle on interest rates, writes Catherine McGregor in this excerpt from The Bulletin, The Spinoff’s morning news round-up. To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign up here. Unemployment ...
The campaign will engage the community and encourage submissions on the bill to the New Zealand government by the closing submission deadline of Friday 31st of May 2024 4pm. ...
The paper raises concerns about declining trust in New Zealand's political institutions and democratic processes, and the role that the overuse of Parliamentary urgency plays in that. ...
The Urban Habitat Collective was an attempt to built an innovative new form of apartment building in Wellington. Here’s why it failed, and why the idea could still work, writes co-founder Bronwen Newton. When we started the Urban Habitat Collective in November 2018, we thought we were starting a revolution, ...
Two decades ago this week, a controversial law that attempted to define ownership of the foreshore and seabed prompted a formidable display of outrage and kōtahitanga as 15,000 marched to parliament. Jamie Tahana looks back.‘Hīkoi, hīkoi,” they chanted by the thousands as the biggest Māori march in a generation ...
Why has New Zealand slipped from third to 12th on Quality of Death Indexes over the past decade or so? Hospice New Zealand Chief Executive Wayne Naylor has a list of reasons. “We don’t have a current national strategy – the Government hasn’t renewed our 2001 strategy, so we don’t ...
While women’s sport is exploding in Aotearoa and around the world, you still don’t hear a lot of talk about athletes and their periods, RED-S, breastfeeding and visible panty-lines. SASS (Suze and Sez Sports)Talk isn’t afraid to have that kōrero.LockerRoom founder Suzanne McFadden and Olympian broadcaster Sarah ...
On an unusually hot night in January 2019, a little boy’s lifeless body was found face up in a small town’s sewage oxidation pond. To the police, it was an open and shut case: three-year-old Lachlan Jones had run away from his home in the Southland town of Gore, climbed ...
A Labour Party Member’s Bill aims to plug a culpability gap between manslaughter and health and safety breaches The post New push for corporate killing laws appeared first on Newsroom. ...
Terence O’Brien had the rare and no doubt undesired distinction of rising to one of the most exalted positions in New Zealand diplomacy, then being unceremoniously recalled to Wellington without explanation just when his career was at its zenith. What is perhaps more surprising is that he appears to have ...
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Rongotai MP Julie Anne Genter has apologised in Parliament after National accused her of intimidating and attacking one of its ministers in the House. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra The Prime Minister and state and territory leaders met on Wednesday as the national cabinet to discuss a crisis gripping Australia – the horrific number of women murdered this year. The killings have shocked ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Radhika Raghav, Teaching Fellow, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Otago Netflix Indian director Sanjay Leela Bhansali is known for his big-budget Bollywood production, featuring grand sets, star casts, meticulously choreographed dance sequences and lavish costumes, jewellery and furnishings. ...
Sir Robert devoted his life to disability rights after living in institutions in his younger years, says Kaihautū Tika Hauātanga | Disability Rights Commissioner Prudence Walker. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anastasia Powell, Professor, Family and Sexual Violence, RMIT University Violence against women is not a women’s problem to solve, it is a whole of society problem to solve; and men in particular have to take responsibility. Those were the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jessica Allen, Senior Lecturer in Chemical and Renewable Energy Engineering, University of Newcastle Snapshot freddy/ShutterstockPlans to revive an old coal-fired power station using bioenergy are being considered in the Hunter region of New South Wales. Similar plans for the station ...
Responding to the long-awaited release of judges’ special allowances, including free air travel and hotels for spouses, generous sabbaticals, and access to limousines, Taxpayers’ Union spokesman Alex Murphy said: “In what world does your employer ...
Analysis - The United States has unveiled plans to boost the weapons trade with Australia and the UK, on the same day that Winston Peters is expected to sketch NZ's position on AUKUS. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrea Carson, Professor of Political Communication, Department of Politics, Media and Philosophy, La Trobe University Since Australia’s First Nations Voice to Parliament referendum in October 2023, diverse commentaries have sought to explain why it failed. But what does an analysis of media ...
Lawyers representing two iwi as well as the Māori Women’s Welfare League on Wednesday asked the Court of Appeal to overturn last week’s High Court decision on the Waitangi Tribunal’s decision to summons Children’s Minister Karen Chhour. The Tribunal is currently investigating the Government’s decision to repeal section 7AA of ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra The Albanese government will introduce legislation to ban deepfake pornography and provide more funding for the eSafety Commission to pilot age-assurance technologies. The contribution of internet sites to gender-based violence was one major issue ...
Average ordinary time hourly earnings, as measured by the Quarterly Employment Survey (QES), increased 5.2 percent in the year to the March 2024 quarter, according to figures released by Stats NZ today. Annual wage cost inflation, as measured by the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dimitrios Salampasis, FinTech Capability Lead | Senior Lecturer, Emerging Technologies and FinTech, Swinburne University of Technology Clem Onojeghuo/Unsplash In the digital era, the job market is increasingly becoming a minefield – demanding and difficult to navigate. According to the Australian Bureau ...
As of the March 2024 quarter, we can now look back on 20 years of data related to youth not in employment, education, or training (NEET), as collected by the Household Labour Force Survey (HLFS), according to figures released by Stats NZ today. "The ...
Thousands of workers attended public events in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch today to celebrate International Workers’ Day (May Day), but union representatives are urging caution and vigilance over the Government’s blatantly "anti-worker" ...
The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate was 4.3 percent in the March 2024 quarter, compared with 4.0 percent in the previous quarter, according to figures released by Stats NZ today. ...
The PSA is warning the Government that the sensitive information of New Zealanders held by various agencies will fall into the wrong hands if the latest round of proposed cuts goes ahead. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Talitha Best, Professor of Psychology, CQUniversity Australia Victoria Rodriguez/Unsplash How do sugar rushes work? – W.H, age nine, from Canberra What a terrific question W.H! Let’s explore this, starting with some of the basics. What is sugar? ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Karinna Saxby, Research Fellow, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of Melbourne MART PRODUCTION/Pexels Increasing income support could help keep women and children safe according to new work demonstrating strong links between financial insecurity and domestic violence. ...
ANALYSIS:By Olli Hellmann, University of Waikato When New Zealanders commemorate Anzac Day today on April 25, it’s not only to honour the soldiers who lost their lives in World War I and subsequent conflicts, but also to mark a defining event for national identity. The battle of Gallipoli against ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark A Gregory, Associate Professor, School of Engineering, RMIT University The telecommunications industry faces a major shakeup following the release of the post-incident report on last November’s 12-hour Optus outage. Telecommunications companies will have to share more information with customers during future ...
Welcome to The Spinoff Bookseller Confessional, in which we get to know Aotearoa’s booksellers. This week: Eden Denyer, bookseller at Unity Books Auckland.Weirdest question/request you’ve had on the shop floorA mother came in looking for anything we might have on Alaskan bison as that was her little boy’s ...
NZCTU Economist Craig Renney said new data released by Statistics New Zealand shows the need for Government to act now, with unemployment rising from 3.4% to 4.3%. ...
The outpouring of anger over Maiki Sherman’s hyperbolic presentation of this week’s ‘nightmare’ poll is itself an overreaction, argues Stewart Sowman-Lund. Politicians love nothing more than to pretend they don’t care about polls. This week, deputy prime minister Winston Peters said he didn’t give a “rat’s derriere” about a TVNZ ...
Asia Pacific Report Ngāti Kahungunu in Aotearoa New Zealand’s Hawkes Bay region has become the first indigenous Māori iwi (tribe) to sign a resolution calling for a “ceasefire in Palestine”, reports Te Ao Māori News. Reporter Te Aniwaniwa Paterson talked to Te Otāne Huata, who has been organising peace rallies ...
By Dale Luma in Port Moresby “We want grants and not concessional loans,” is the crisp message from Papua New Guinea businesses directly affected by the Black Wednesday looting four months ago. The businesses, which lost millions after the January 10 rioting and looting, say they need grants as part ...
Happy May Day. Join a union. Q: What’s worse than a staff break room where the only place to sit and have a cup of tea is on a teetering stack of old pornography magazines? A: Your boss replacing the magazine stacks with chairs that are “heartily encrusted with ...
Dirty politics. Using fake news and trolls to discourage Bernie supporters from voting Clinton. With obvious lessons on things to look out for in our coming campaigns.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/bernie-sanders-fake-news-russia_us_58c34d97e4b0ed71826cdb36?63g&ncid=inblnkushpmg00000009
The is no such thing as fake news, there is just propaganda. And people who supported h.r.c. and the democrat’s need to get over losing. To live in this world you are creating, just hurts people and their chance to resist.
People will die because of this weakness deomcrats, at least 9 of these spineless flecks are going to vote to over turn health care. You could actually help stop that, rather than buy into utter b.s being peddled.
Here is a link to democrats who are in fear of losing there seats. Take down there names and write them a email.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/several-democrats-facing-2018-re-election-states-trump-carried/
Good on you Adam. It strikes me the Left are suffering the same bullshit ‘fake news’ paranoia as the Right are. You are correct…. it is all just another form of propaganda.
Hey, adam and garibaldi, we’ve got our own election coming up later this year. The result will either be a fourth term for National, or a Labour/Green led government. Yes, it is essentially a binary.
Your choice is to put your support to a Labour/Green led government (which will involve swallowing dead rats), support a fourth term Nat, or say you think they’re equally bad (which is the same as supporting Nats).
If you want to change the government, it’s a good idea to look at what tactics were used successfully elsewhere, because it’s quite likely they will be used here too. To me, one of the biggest lessons is we’re now at the point in our cycle where it’s time to support the positives in Labour/Greens, rather than picking at and amplifying flaws.
Andre, so your saying that a obvious corrupt two party system, which has been rejected by New Zealand in favor of proportional representation. Is the model you want to work from?
To Quote Mr Pepelo “Interesting…”
The working class people rejected the democrates for a multitude of reason: corruption, being conservative, in bed with the corporations, lying and cheating – not some fantasy about Russia. But sure beat yourself up about false flags, I won’t stand in your way.
Andre, I have never voted National and never will. However if you can’t see the bullshit that the Dems are pushing, and call it for what it is, then you are part of the problem.
I’m saying that for the coming election here, the choice has narrowed to “do you want to change the government, or not?”. And that the current government, having successfully used dirty politics in the past and been shown a new selection of dirty politics techniques to use, will undoubtedly do so to retain power. Inducing lefties to criticise left candidates and share fake news and smears are techniques likely to be re-used here. Even if doesn’t flip voters, it still depresses turnout.
It’s a sad commentary on our local politics that MMP has narrowed to the point that it has effectively become a binary again. But that’s the reality we have to deal with at the moment. If you think there’s a viable alternative, lay it out and explain it. I’ve asked Bill to explain his alternative vision and all I’ve seen are vague incoherent mutterings about “social democracy”. If you’ve got an alternative vision, I’m honestly interested.
When it comes to reforming government, the government has already pulled a bait-and-trash MMP review, so I really doubt there’s any chance of meaningful improvement with the current lot. Whereas Lab/Greens have both been supportive of improving democracy through implementing suggestions from the MMP review, limited as they were. Yet another reason to swallow dead ratsfor the sake of changing the government.
Unless Hone starts looking likely to win TTT AND Mana are polling above 1% (about 1.3% is needed for a second seat), then frankly a vote for Mana is wasted. No matter how moral someone may convince themselves it is. In practical terms Mana have had absolutely zero influence the last 2 years. Although because Hone had a good shot at winning TTT and Mana/IP were polling above 1%, I wouldn’t call it a wasted vote.
Similarly, a vote for TOP is wasted unless TOP are polling above 4%. But even then, TOP have no commitment to changing the government. They just want to slightly change the flavour of whatever government forms. So from the point of view of changing the government, TOP will be a wasted vote.
Hi Andre. Not quite sure what conversation you’re referring to when you write I’ve asked Bill to explain his alternative vision and all I’ve seen are vague incoherent mutterings about “social democracy”.
It’s pretty simple stuff.
Social democracy puts a tighter or shorter leash on capitalism/markets than liberalism does.
In short, social democracy seeks to protect individuals from the more egregious affects of capitalism; to rein it in so that it serves society (ie – social democratic policies would seek equal or fair outcomes across populations).
That sits in stark contrast to liberalism, that promotes the simple notion of an individual having access to equal opportunities in a world dominated by unfettered capitalism.
You really find that too vague or just generally incoherent?
And I should note, social democracy is not my alternative vision – I’m not a social democrat. My vision involves self governance through meaningful or substantive, non-hierarchical democratic institutions being developed and existing at the local or community level – ie, my vision revolves around a fully participatory democracy.
Sorry, that conversation looks to have dropped off my replies tab so I can’t find it easily.
In any case, what I’m interested in is the nuts and bolts of what kind of structures get set up to resolve conflicts over where resource comes from and gets allocated. The how and who of balancing the competing demands of infrastructure, welfare, health, education, conservation and so on.
I can stretch my mind to incremental improvements of what we’ve got now. Things like lowering thresholds for representation in parliament, adjusting tax rates and where they’re spent. I can even get my head around changes as big as introducing a UBI and funding it from new sources, such as carbon taxes and capital gains taxes.
But if you want my support for throwing out a big chunk of what we’ve got now in favour of something completely new, I’m going want a very detailed picture of what it is. Preferably with an established model elsewhere showing how it’s going to work.
Because for all the flaws in the systems we have now, they still work better than just about everything else I can point at. And the models I can think of that I’d like better, mostly Scandinavian states, are really just incremental changes from what we have here and now.
There isn’t anything new about Social Democracy.
In NZ, just look to anything prior 1984. In the UK, look to pre-Thatcher. IN the US, pre-Reagan.
You want examples of social democratic policies in action today in the English speaking world? Then look at what the SNP does (free tertiary education, more or less free dental care, no prescription charges, no privatisation of the health service etc…ie, a raft of policies putting people first or of putting society before finance).
And that’s achieved by a government that cannot borrow money or raise tax thresh-holds in any meaningful way. It works with in proscribed powers of governance and within the constraints of a formulaic allocation of monies from a Westminster government wedded to liberalism and austerity.
Thinking about social democracy versus liberalism = merely thinking about priorities.
We have come upon a very different age from any that preceded us. We have come upon an age when we do not do business in the way in which we used to do business,—when we do not carry on any of the operations of manufacture, sale, transportation, or communication as men used to carry them on. There is a sense in which in our day the individual has been submerged. In most parts of our country men work, not for themselves, not as partners in the old way in which they used to work, but generally as employees,—in a higher or lower grade,—of great corporations. There was a time when corporations played a very minor part in our business affairs, but now they play the chief part, and most men are the servants of corporations.
You know what happens when you are the servant of a corporation. You have in no instance access to the men who are really determining the policy of the corporation. If the corporation is doing the things that it ought not to do, you really have no voice in the matter and must obey the orders, and you have oftentimes with deep mortification to co-operate in the doing of things which you know are against the public interest. Your individuality is swallowed up in the individuality and purpose of a great organization.
It is true that, while most men are thus submerged in the corporation, a few, a very few, are exalted to a power which as individuals they could never have wielded. Through the great organizations of which they are the heads, a few are enabled to play a part unprecedented by anything in history in the control of the business operations of the country and in the determination of the happiness of great numbers of people.
Yesterday, and ever since history began, men were related to one another as individuals. To be sure there were the family, the Church, and the State, institutions which associated men in certain wide circles of relationship. But in the ordinary concerns of life, in the ordinary work, in the daily round, men dealt freely and directly with one another. To-day, the everyday relationships of men are largely with great impersonal concerns, with organizations, not with other individual men.
Now this is nothing short of a new social age, a new era of human relationships, a new stage-setting for the drama of life.
WOODROW WILSON 1913.
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/14811/14811-h/14811-h.htm#V
Very few people I know (actually none that I know of IRL) have fond memories of the Muldoon years. Things like Supplementary Minimum Prices paid to very-well-off farmers, carless days and no weekend petrol, wage-and-price freeze (that was really only a wage freeze) and so on leave a bad taste. I suggest pointing to the specific aspects, such as near-free tertiary education, near-free medical care etc, if you want to get traction in a New Zealand audience.
All of those things can be achieved by increments from where we are now, by supporting and pressuring a sympathetic government. Look at how far Key was able to move things the other way, without scaring the populace.
Meanwhile, we do have people active in politics advocating those kinds of policies, such as Joe Carolan. If those policies are so popular, why don’t they get a bigger vote share?
So no fond memories of being able to afford a house (either for rent or to buy)?
No fond memories of having a secure job – of penal rates – of vastly superior conditions than those endured today…?
No fond memories of going to the shops and actually being able to afford the stuff that was needed…?
No fond memories of actually getting hospital treatment when you needed it and not being required to have health insurance…?
No fond memories of going to university because going to university…?
Nah, you’re right. It was a hell zone of no margarine and no frothy wee flat whites….just like most of the rest of the world in the tasteless 70’s. And margarine and wee frothy flat whites are where it’s at.
Those things are the prize and the goal and the end point of the liberal medicine bottle marked “no gain without pain”. And my, such gains we have!!
Adam, not surprising to find out that many anti-democrats want to sweep the dirt under the carpet, as if the filth perpetrated by the Republicans never took place nor isn’t taking place. I am not a fan of American politics, but I am astonished that a pervert, like Trump can rise to the position of President of the USA.
I am not surprised that Trump became President.
Hillary crashed Bernie so he couldn’t become Trump’s challenger. If he had manged, the result could have been very different and got people who would have otherwise never thought of voting, come out and do so.
Hillary should not have even been the Democrat nominee.
In conservative America, they talk about Republicans In Name Only (R.I.N.O.’s), who are thought to be too left leaning, or forgotten what a “true conservative” is.
I would say in all honesty, then there must be D.I.N.O.’s too who are too sympathetic to the causes of the Republicans, or who have forgotten what a true socialist is.
Inverse modelling (gender bendering ) suggests that the messaging not the genitalia was the fail.
http://www.nyu.edu/about/news-publications/news/2017/march/trump-clinton-debates-gender-reversal.html
That’s interesting. Wouldn’t mind seeing the entire filmed version (their next step apparently). Anyway. Because I suspect most people don’t chase down links, I’m just going to drop the 2 min vid from rehearsals here…
The is no such thing as fake news, there is just propaganda.
What a steaming piece of po-mo bullshit. There’s a clear and significant difference between news agencies presenting actually-occurring events in ways you don’t like, and private interests paying people to flood opponents’ communication channels with made-up stories. Pretending there’s no difference helps only the left’s enemies, who have a lot of money to spend on fake news.
Accusations that Iraqi soldiers were throwing babies from incubators onto the floor to die. Fake news or propaganda?
Last hospital in Aleppo razed (lost count of the number of times that was reported as having happened). Fake news or propaganda?
Last pediatrician in Aleppo killed. Fake news or propaganda?
All of the above were stories that were pushed heavily by all major western news outlets and quite a few western NGOs (eg – Amnesty International or medecins sans frontieres). And all were used by western governments to justify actions or positions they were holding and as a way to sway public opinion or attitudes.
I can’t believe this stuff can be genuinely that hard to figure out.
Scenario 1:
Kuwaitis who’ve fled the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait describe atrocities committed by the invaders, including the accusation that Iraqi soldiers had pulled babies from incubators. News media extensively report the unverifiable accusations as unverifiable accusations and people make up their own minds how much credence they’ll give them.
Scenario 2:
Republican black ops type makes up a story about tens of thousands of fraudulent Clinton votes found in a warehouse and publishes them on his web site, which presents itself as a newspaper site but isn’t one.
Only one of the above is fake news. If people really do struggle to understand the difference, I suggest they hand in their computers as it would better if they steered clear of the web.
Scenario 1. The daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador to the US gave false testimony ie – made up a fucking story – before the US Congress and her entirely false story was corroborated by Amnesty International.
And from the NYT of Dec 16 1990 (one snippet among many that you can find using “google is my advanced friend)
In its last report, Amnesty International said that based on scores of interviews with refugees, it had found a “horrifying picture of widespread arrests, torture under interrogation, summary executions, and mass extrajudicial killings.”
Few informed observers disagree. What is at issue, however, is the number of victims. 250 Executions Confirmed
and
“Kuwait says seizure of hospital equipment caused many deaths”. Reuters News. September 6, 1992.
“Iraq equipment removal killed patients – Kuwait.”. Reuters News. September 6, 1992.
“Kuwaiti says Iraq plundered hospitals”. Associated Press. North Carolina: Charlotte Observer. September 7, 1990. p. A16.
“Official: Hospitalized in Kuwait are left to die”. Associated Press. Chicago Tribune. September 7, 1990. p. 12.
“Persian Gulf crisis – More about the Mideast”. Houston Chronicle. September 7, 1990. p. A18.
“Kuwait Says Iraq Plundered Hospitals”. The San Francisco Chronicle (Associated Press). September 7, 1990. p. A21.
“Released Hostages Tell of Kuwait Terror”. All Things Considered (Transcription of broadcast). National Public Radio. September 7, 1990. Total destruction everywhere, cars wrecked, burned, people thrown out of cars on the street you’re driving down; they just throw people over the street. They’re hitting children with the butts of the guns, taking infants out of incubators and taking the incubators.
And for some strange reason you don’t appear to want to speak to the other two salient instances I brought up. Or are you getting around to them?
I’m going to guess you won’t. And here’s the thing. Labeling some stuff as ‘fake news’ as opposed to propaganda means that propaganda that isn’t liked gets dismissed out of hand and propaganda that’s approved of slips uncritically under the radar. And that’s pernicious.
Personally, I think the distinction is that the incubator story was reported by organisations that could fairly be regarded as at least trying (although maybe lazily and with significant confirmation bias) to report an objective truth, whereas “fake news” systems dispense with any attempt to report the truth. And the distinction between fake news and propaganda is that propaganda is designed with a specific angle and frequently merely exagerrates the truth, whereas fake news is just intended to overload the synapses to produce a null response.
That’s just my personal taxonomy of thumb. It’s all just different flavours of shit.
You telling me that Hill & Knowlton were attempting to report an objective truth?
If anything qualifies as ‘fake news’ it’s that utter fabrication Hill & Knowlton knowingly and cynically compiled and peddled. And given its fake news status, and the fact it was used to impact on opinion around an invasion of Iraq….well, your distinction for what separates ‘fake news’ from propaganda seem to fall over, no?
I agree everything’s shades of shit. But I think my point about the potentially pernicious impact of labeling some stuff as ‘fake news’ and other stuff as propaganda, stands.
No, it was propaganda from hill&knowlton that was probably reported in good faith by AI and the media (with the caveats and attributions milt has raised).
This is a phenomenon distinct from fake news like RT or breitbart or even large swathes of fox news, who flood people with oft-conflicting bullshit simply to overload individuals’ ability to make an informed decision.
The objective of propaganda is to mislead or persuade, whereas the objective of fake news is simply to induce information overload in the public sphere.
Lets cut the fucking crap here McFlock. Propaganda is by definition false. There is no distinction between what you want to call fake news and what you’d rather call propaganda….except, it seems, that propaganda would be practiced by those sources you’d seek to be an apologist for (BBC, AI, CNN etc) and fake news would be practiced by those you seek to discount entirely (RT and other non-western news sources alongside a few right wing western news sources).
I mean ffs! RT “induces information over-load in the public sphere”??!!
No, it’s not always “false news”. It often takes the form of fake news, but it tries to form a single, coherent, plausible message. E.g. the incubator story reinforced other atrocity stories, some of which probably true, and the true fact of the actual invasion, in order to produce the coherent message of “Iraq = bad war criminals”
It also takes the form of true facts selectively reported in order to reinforce the intended message. The Churchill “gangster” photo with the thompson machine gun was a true depiction that was used by both sides in WW2 to reinforce their respective propaganda messages.
It can also take the form of simple opinion or editorial pieces with no assertion of fact: e.g. “keep calm and carry on” or even just the pictorial leaflets of porn on one side and a corpse on the other. The gist is there.
But “fake news” functions not by individual or even an over-arching message, but by producing an overwhelming number of conflicting messages. Propaganda tries to drive the car in one direction, fake news just tries to overheat the car’s engine until it seizes.
Look at RT’s coverage of the airliner shot down over the ukraine, up to and including obviously faked “satellite photos” of other jets in the area, conflicting statements about the possible antiair systems and their locations, and all sorts of shit about radar tracks. Each theory with its own headline and article, reported as reasonable no matter how outlandish. Just clickbait for morons.
That’s qualitatively different to say the BBC or CNN. They might have their own agenda, but at least it’s a coherent agenda, rather than just noise to drown everything else out.
Sorry McFlock but noise is just one part of propaganda, you and Psycho Milt want to limit propaganda to a fit your agenda.
Propaganda is “information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote a political cause or point of view”
A point of view, includes overload, and putting people off.
I’m all for differing points of view, and think we should have it. Look the media you seem to being holding up is only three organisations, all corporate, and have one interest, profit.
So they do propaganda well. One example is just by omitting news. Standing rock is a good example, then MSNBC and their refusal to do anything positive about Bernie Sanders, instead showing trumps empty podium. They did it for hours. Still propaganda.
I’m glad you getting a handle on what is happening. But don’t think it’s not propaganda, that is the road to a very dangerous tribalism bubble.
Look at RT’s coverage of the airliner shot down over the ukraine, up to and including obviously faked “satellite photos” of other jets in the area, conflicting statements about the possible antiair systems and their locations, and all sorts of shit about radar tracks. Each theory with its own headline and article, reported as reasonable no matter how outlandish. Just clickbait for morons.
I never really took much interest in that particular event, but all you say about it and use as a reason to condemn rt, applies equally to the framework of western coverage of Syria.
And the noise from the BBC, CNN et al is many decibels above anything rt can achieve. It’s like a solo artist playing against an orchestra…and both produce clickbait for morons. (But one obviously produces more readily available clickbait than the other though, aye?)
Alternatively, Adam, you’re redefining what a “view” is to include information overload (aka the complete absence of a view) in order to fit your false equivalence.
You think I’m only just getting a handle on things? I’d feel patronised if you weren’t such a monochromatic tool. Hell, not even monochrome: dot matrix. Thirty years out of date and with a worldview of thousands of unconnected black dots on white paper, no shades of grey.
No, it doesn’t. Nowhere near equally. That’s a false equivalence.
My point was not to be condescending, and for that I apologies.
That said, you need to read what current people are writing about propaganda. It’s not new what you are trying to point forward, people said similar things about Berlusconi and his campaigns. Then a new wave came with the rise of Putin.
So I’m not living in the dark ages, as you wish I was. As I actually read about this quite often. And have for years.
Like I said, the problem trying to spin this to fit an agenda, is the road to tribalism.
“current people”. People with their own agenda? Or just more noise?
My approach isn’t particularly new, again I never claimed it was. What it does do is provide a distinction between two logically different approaches to public information warfare.
Let’s avoid attribution to particular networks or outlets, and just work on the distinction: is “information overload” as an objective fundamentally different from “attempting to persuade or dissuade people about a particular point of view”?
I think they are fundamentally different objectives and are characterised by different tactics.
I’m just like a word which actually has a use, and we can use it. That is not that useful when you can not get an agenda out of it.
But if you want just one word that envelopes two different things, then how do you refer to just one of those things?
Let’s avoid attribution to particular networks or outlets, and just work on the distinction: is “information overload” as an objective fundamentally different from “attempting to persuade or dissuade people about a particular point of view”?
So by that definition – that ‘fake news’ is a process of ‘information overload’ – then arguably all of the sports news and the ‘girl shits on Dunedin street’ news and the endless hours of adverts that supposedly impart information, and the Hollywood gossip and the OMG! you’ll never believe what they did, said, happened next…and all of the misleading headlines and vacuous filler on websites and in newspapers and what not… all of that’s fake news.
Meanwhile, any spin (on say) a plane being shot down or on the situation in a war zone would be propaganda. And some of it will be quite slick and professional and some of it amateurish. But none of it ‘fake’ insofar as it’s all trying to sway opinion.
no bill, because although you might think it’s a pointless distraction, some people find sports interesting and want to know about it.
That’s real news, supplied in good faith to people who want it, even if it bores the fuck out of you or I.
Fake news in regards to sports would involve dozens fictional teams, injury reports, scores and fixtures all thrown in alongside maybe the occasional true report of a football match.
How was RT coverage of MH17 being shot down trying to “sway opinion”? What did they want us to believe – that it was a Ukrainian jet, an invented story, a spy plane, a Ukrainian SAM covered up by the US (who saw everything with their 100% radar coverage of the area), or a US “false flag” op? There was no attempt to persuade, just an attempt to overload.
The incubator story was part of an actual propaganda campaign where, even if the actors didn’t necessarily coordinate every piece of their material, the US, Kuwaitis, UK, and Saudis all had the basic message “Iraq bad, committing heinous atrocities, must be stopped or someone else is next”.
As far as I’m aware the reporting around MH17 was “it were the Russians that wot did it” on one side of the coin and “it were Ukrainians that wot did it” on the other.
But like I said previously, I never paid much attention to any of it since I reckoned (rightly or wrongly) that it was going to be an endless blame game of ping-pong.
So I just applied some basic questions around motivation, likelihood and what not, came to a reasonable conclusion and moved on.
Yes, sports are of interest to some. And it’s why I used the word “arguably”. I mean, adverts are important to some (I lived with a person who got annoyed if ads were interrupted by people in a room).
So are we at the point where fake news is taken to be complete smash that no-one is interested in? If so, it’s completely irrelevant and therefore not a problem.
On the other hand, if people are giving some time and energy over to it, then it’s having an impact, and is therefore propaganda.
edit – a thousand made up stories around (say) HC impacts on how people perceive HC. There’s an agenda. Just as there was an agenda when the claim was made that German soldiers were bayoneting Belgium babies during WWI…or that babies were thrown from incubators…or that the queen is a lizard.
A story about a WW 2 plane being found on the moon – well, that’s in the realm of fake news. (An actual headline story from a UK paper back in the day)
RT’s approach was to provide conflicting stories, rather than a coherent “it wasn’t us” message.
It’s noise, that’s the problem. That’s the entire problem. It drowns everything else out, either you create more noise refuting the more plausible stuff or you hope enough people notice that today’s noise is the exact opposite from the noise the same source was throwing out yesterday and will throw out tomorrow. And in the meantime, actual news has to compete for space against utter bullshit.
The goal of fake news is to stop people making an informed or considered decision, at all. The goal of propaganda is to get people to make the decision you want.
Hmm. So the propaganda we’ve been fed for years and years about the middle east is predicated on having us make decisions around stuff in the middle east? And here was me thinking that most people I know just throw their hands in the air and announce how it’s all just “too hard”.
Much the same with regards Yugoslavia from memory. And was much the same with Northern Ireland too (from the perspective of broadcasts in the UK).
Seems all that propaganda was designed to prevent people coming to any kind of informed decision. But that can’t be right according to what you reckon propaganda is and how it differs from ‘fake news’.
Libyan troops filling up on Viagra in order to rape opponents to the government in Tripoli. That one was carried ‘everywhere’ and used to generate backing for a ‘no-fly zone’ in Libya. The story was obviously bullshit and noise that crowded out any sensible discussion on Libya (maybe in the same way that Brietbart stuff is noisy bullshit)….and it had an impact.
According to what you’ve been saying, the Viagra story should rightfully be seen as propaganda and yet the same type of stuff (coming from Brietbart or wherever and focused on the Democrats or whatever instead of Libya) should be considered ‘fake news’ as opposed to propaganda.
And this is straight back to one of my first points about this so-called difference between ‘fake news’ and propaganda. The ‘fake news’ tag gets reserved for specific outlets (lists have been drawn up and circulated by liberal media), meaning that everything those outlets produce becomes tarnished and at risk of instant dismissal regardless of the actual content…leaving the coast clear for ‘our’ propaganda.
And that’s pernicious, very dangerous and a damned good reason to run a propaganda campaign around this notion of ‘fake news’.
Not necessarily.
The viagra story in the context of a campaign towards a coherent message would be propaganda.
The viagra story in the context of it being A) true and b)reported impartially would be news.
The viagra story from the same outlet that releases stories about how Libyan soldiers are all part of an abstinence cult, as well as stories about how no medicines are in Libya, and as well as stories that “Libyan” soldiers are all actors in southern Nevada, as well as stories that Libyan soldiers are all women because Libyan men run away, etc etc etc, that’s fake news. Regardless of outlet and regardless of whether one of those stories happens to be true. It’s just about noise, so nobody on the street decides that they have a strong enough onpinion on the matter to write a letter to the editor or their MP or boycott goods from XYZ.
You say the “fake news” tag is reserved for specific outlets to discredit the news from those outlets. I say specific outlets are fake news sources because their stories are completely unverifiable and usually contradictory, even if some of their stories are true. It’s impossible to verify or place any reliability on anything from those sources because there’s no distinction between opinion, fact and outright fabrication. To the point that even considering almost anything from those sources is a waste of time, you’ll find out the true stories from other sources sooner or later.
The daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador to the US gave false testimony ie – made up a fucking story…
And the news media reported it as a claim, just like they reported Trump claiming that Obama ordered Trump Tower’s phone’s tapped. That isn’t “fake news,” it’s just “news.”
And from the NYT of Dec 16 1990…
Er, yes. The NYT reported Amnesty International’s claims about widespread torture and murder, with the appropriate caveats. And of course, not completely irrelevant to the issue was the fact that widespread torture and murder did actually take place, and wasn’t made up by a party hack to put on his pretend newspaper site.
And for some strange reason you don’t appear to want to speak to the other two salient instances I brought up.
Well, no, because they’re just two more instances of the same thing: news media reporting claims from a war zone that can’t be independently verified, as claims from a war zone that can’t be independently verified, otherwise known as “reporting the news.”
If you can find repeated and egregious instances of reputable news organisations deliberately making up stories and reporting them as news, you’ll have a case. Until then, fake news is something different from regular propaganda.
because they’re just two more instances of the same thing: news media reporting claims from a war zone that can’t be independently verified
Hmm. Except any western journalist from a major outlet could have interviewed Dr Zahar Buttal, Director of the Aleppo Medical Association with regards hospitals in east Aleppo and registered medical practitioners. But then that might have interfered with the ‘official’ narrative…which has been wholly informed by “opposition” voices.
Which is not surprising in light of How Britain funds the ‘propaganda war’ against Isis (and the Syrian government) in Syria
Bracketed text my expansion for the sake of accuracy 👿
edit. Oops. Forgot to respond to the first part of your reply above. You suggest that media reported the babies and what not as claims. Did you read the list of headlines provided? The word ‘claims’ or ‘alleges’ or any other such like simply doesn’t appear. Kuwaiti says and statement of fact as headline after statement of fact as headline…. 🙄
… any western journalist from a major outlet could have interviewed Dr Zahar Buttal, Director of the Aleppo Medical Association…
Well, they could have, but claims from the government side also can’t be verified, and this particular regime mouthpiece wouldn’t have set foot in east Aleppo at least since the start of the siege, so wouldn’t have any current info to base his claims on. It would be like asking rebel forces for commentary on what was happening in west Aleppo.
Did you read the list of headlines provided? The word ‘claims’ or ‘alleges’ or any other such like simply doesn’t appear.
“Kuwait says” in a headline means the Kuwaiti government is claiming something.
and this particular regime mouthpiece wouldn’t have set foot in east Aleppo at least since the start of the siege, so wouldn’t have any current info to base his claims on.
So the head of the medical association is a “regime mouthpiece”. What you base that allegation on? The fact he’s saying stuff that contradicts what the BBC and others reporting from ooutside of the country have reported as true?
And even if he didn’t set foot in east Aleppo, he does have the list of all existing hospitals and of all registered medical practitioners for Aleppo. And they can be checked.
It would have been an improvement on western reporting had they asked their mates they were embedded with what was going on (Channel 4 ran with Al Zenka for a production that they later removed from their site – linked)
Go to 2min and 45 secs and you’ll see Mahmoud Raslan. Now, if you don’t know who Mahmoud Raslan is, well he was the guy who took the ‘boy in the orange seat’ video that all western outlets ran with and who also gleefully filmed his mates (Al Zenki) beheading a 9 year old Palestinian boy.
How do you think an authority figure got his position of authority under an authoritarian dictatorship, Bill?
I’m sure this particular one had info on all the registered medical practitioners in Aleppo at the time conflict started – how many of the ones in east Aleppo were still around in its later stages is anyone’s guess, as is the number of foreign volunteers. Likewise the hospitals – people in a city under continuous bombardment end up with makeshift hospitals and don’t concern themselves over-much about official documentation.
See…this bullshit you appear to exhibit…of excusing anything and everything western media says or claims, because to not accept what they say would apparently mean taking a side is…fucking tragic.
Nice to see you slipping slightly from the official narrative there though. So now the hospitals may not have been hospitals in the sense claimed and the pediatrician may not have been a pediatrician after all. Jollity.
Just like there’s a difference between propaganda and the more recent phenomenon of fake news, there’s a difference between taking a realistic view of news media organisations and “excusing anything and everything the western media claims.”
So the New York Times never published anything on “WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION”
Brian Williams: “The helicopter I was riding in got hit with an RPG.”
“No sailors were harmed by Fukushima radiation.”
“Eating cholesterol in foods causes heart disease.” (sugar is the real enemy)
“The Dreyfus Affair”
Vietnam’s “Gulf of Tonkin”
Ronald Reagan and the ‘welfare queen’
The Greeks are lazy and don’t pay tax. (or other racist b.s they printed)
Sheesh Psycho Milt that is just off the top of my head, I’m sure with a bit of digging I could come up with hundreds more.
The media lie all the time, it sells papers and helps make profits. You seem to be under the illusion that they are good. Is that the case?
Sure, you could go on – the list of irrelevant items is effectively infinite. The evidence requested was instances of reputable media organisations deliberately inventing false stories to serve a political purpose – what you’ve provided is examples of media organisations failing to uncover government lies, which is something else entirely.
That why Brian Williams was near the top of the list.
I’d also add most journalist knew the welfare queen lie and printed it anyway. Many on that list could fall into the same category. Again off the top of my head, without research.
I find it interesting you want to differentiate on propaganda. Maybe you should read what propaganda means. I’d say you a twisting it into to a narrow definition to fit your own narrative, rather than looking at as a whole.
Reagan’s campaign rhetoric reported as fact, really?.
So how do you know the term joe90?
MSM article on bigoted campaign rhetoric.
So the English language is leaving you now Pscho Milt? Do you understand the definition of the word propaganda?
I know Wikipedia, but the first sentence is telling.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda
Fake news is a out and out propaganda term, put out there by Muppet’s who want to mislead people.
Lies are not new, getting worked up over the latest propaganda term is also not new. Cutting through the lies and b.s, is difficult – but keeping an open mind and read a lot of different sources can help. Buying into your sides latest fetish, helps no one.
Pie on Trump’s first 50 days.
Good to see a new media player in election year.
Jennings has found his feet – http://newsroom.co.nz/
Again with countdown selling not free range eggs.
http://newsroom.co.nz/2017/03/12/8521/millions-of-caged-eggs-sold-as-free-range-in-nz-supermarkets
If you read the article it’s obvious that blame should be be on Palace Poultry, the supplier, not Countdown.
Just joining the dots – the last time this happened was at countdown.
Countdown are a good Aussie company, who are good at passing the buck. So just calling it like I see it.
In all honesty the whole free range market is untrustworthy.
It really does feel like that.
I’m fast coming to the conclusion that being an ethical consumer, will not change anything. It’s just another lie.
National are poor managers of the economy. Food retailer managers are poor sellers of goods. Going in a Tesco, etc you’d find something worth buying, NZ retail offerings are so contorted and rigged my cash goes elsewhere, its just poor management. Its always been this way, no. eight wire get something that works mentality. Good when your on the frontier but UK ruled the world eith four million people. Its like we keep digging whith a bunch of managers who just know how to did more debt.
Well depending on the fluidity of yr ethics, it could be argued that shopping at a supermarket is unethical.
You know Britain gave that bastard Pinochet protection. The guy who killed people for their art.
https://bitchmedia.org/article/material-acts/chilean-embroiderers-record-memory-stitch-stitch?
Hamish Rutherford on Stuff warns that NZ’s economy looks like it might be cooling.
Meanwhile, Bernard Hickey on Newsroom says that the big Aussie banks are now restricting lending to property developers in NZ, meaning there will likely be a drop in the numbers of new residential properties being built in Auckland.
Nationals disaster ecomonics and unchecked tax haven property speculation seems to be running out of steam.
JK’s no fool his timings impeccable.
Meanwhile, Bernard Hickey on Newsroom says that the big Aussie banks are now restricting lending to property developers in NZ. What does he mean “now” this has been the position since the middle of last year, and the consequence of less credit ? The pace of development dramatically slows both in the creation of development land and the construction of dwellings. This has been happening since the end of last year, so no matter what any govt does without the 4 banks to fund there will be limited construction of houses. But leave it to the market to solve !!! eh
By the time that the media was made aware of this was months after the banks had quietly implemented their policies. Ever wondered why the banks are so compliant with the Reserve Banks restrictions ?? So that they can reduce their risk in the sector.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/property/85468366/construction-costs-funding-squeeze-blamed-for-developers-walking-away
ps://blog.bnz.co.nz/2016/11/auckland-property-developers-feel-funding-pinch/
From the Standard and Poor report on New Zealand lending situation:
“With banks reporting a tightening in lending standards for property development, it’s conceivable that new construction will slow, despite the rollout of the Auckland Unitary Plan, applying further upward pressure on house prices.”
Our Reserve Bank will also shortly force banks to put more of their profits aside to assure against riskier lending. That will take higher profit margins. And you just know what that means ….
Auckland has already seen a few developers pull out (eg the St James, Avondale, and Albany ones) even though they had the pre-sales to go. It was simply the Aussie banks saying NO.
I sure don’t want a housing crash, or a credit crunch, or thousands more homeless, or existing rental landlords just creaming it.
But the actions of our Australian-dominated banking system says that is where we are headed. There will be no more “show me the money!”
The 2017 government has an almighty task on its hands. And it’s the biggie: a banking policy problem so big that will test the political independence of the RBA.
Grand plan?
What grand plan?
As far as I can honestly tell, if they have a plan at all it is a hodge podge mash of various ideas slapped together with a few more houses built here and there at the expense of environmental planning to glue the various bits of this bizarre looking mash together.
On e-tangata, an interview with the Green Party candidate for New Lynn:
“Leilani Tamu: Was John Key lying to us?”
Before she gets to talk about JK’s lies, Leilani describes her journey from being a PI-Māori Aucklander, growing up in a Pākehā education system, through learning the Māori and Pacific history of the country and region, to working for MFAT and McCully.
When Leilani and her husband hit hard times, he was driving a bus on minimum wage, and she saw a reality that was different from the brighter future John key was spinning.
Great read Carolyn_nth, thanks for the link.
.Good article and good on Leilani for getting active on the Left. One small point is that many thousands of us knew that Key was lying from day one and it is an indictment on how dumbed down we have become to the ravages of neoliberalism that the rest of NZ still can’t ( or don’t want to) see that.
Shonkey proved himself to be morally corrupt, but a good snake-oil salesman, all for the love of money.
OK Keyboard warriors. 177 days till the election. Labour want to be in a coalition with NZF and get Green Support. The MOU only lasts till Sept 23rd. Crazy strategy relying on Winston. I marvel at how easily the Left make assumptions of victory in the absence of any evidence. Do you not realise that National have planned the next 177 days carefully and that there will be a multiple carrots on offer. Labour’s best trick is to change leaders after June 23rd. Will it be Jacinda or Grant?
[TheStandard: A moderator moved this comment to Open Mike as being off topic or irrelevant in the post it was made in. Be more careful in future.]
[lprent: As was pointed out below, this was a blatant attempt at diversion (I was somewhat busy today). Banned for 2 weeks. If I have to ban you again for anything similar, it will be until 1 month after the election. ]
Meanwhile, is Judith going to make a last tilt at putting “PM” on her CV before the election, or will she be satisfied spending three years as a caretaker opposition leader after blinglish disappears?
I often hear Winston making statements supportive of the Government and how he could easily go into a coalition with National. Yeah right.
You’re in deep do-doo.
If you trust Winston then i have a bridge to sell you.
why not offer ten bridges ,
They’ve already done that and I’m sure that Northland are still wondering if they’re going to get them.
How’s the fishing going today Fizzy? Nice day for it?
Poor old, Act Party supporter, fisiani, goes on a lot of fishing expeditions, and seems to do very little catching, if any. His comments are meant to show there is conflict between Labour/Green and NZF, to me fisiani is just a sad comic.
If it’s a crazy strategy to be relying on Winston, that’s going to turn out badly for National, given they’ll need Winston to be in coalition with them.
@fizzy 8
Blatant attempt to derail, without reference to the post topic.
http://abc7news.com/politics/protesters-target-paypal-co-founder-peter-thiel-over-immigration/1797479/
How much has the NZ government paid out to Palantir for contracts with NZ Defence Force, the SIS and the GCSB? Matt Nippert has resorted to requesting the Ombudman to find the answer, despite the following BS statement:
https://www.ict.govt.nz/programmes-and-initiatives/open-and-transparent-government/
Also have a read of Felis Marwick’s opinion piece.
http://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/opinion/felix-marwick-no-sunlight-no-disinfectant-political-machinations-remain-behind-the-veil/
Completely off topic, but I saw this today… I wonder how many kiwis are affected by this… I know a few people who have had ‘weird’ power bills
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/hardware/millions-of-smart-meters-may-over-inflate-readings-by-up-to-600-percent/
“The study involved several tests conducted on nine different brands of “smart” meters, also referred to in the industry as “static energy meters.” Researchers also used one electromechanical meter for reference… Experiments went on for six months, with individual tests lasting at least one week, and sometimes several weeks. Test results varied wildly, with some meters reporting errors way above their disclosed range, going from -32% to +582%..”
It’s pretty thoroughly dealt with here http://www.ea.govt.nz/operations/retail/metering/
Don’t forget that the old ferranti style meters can misread too. They can slow – but they also can last 100 years
This old house is going and 17 units will be put in its place. Though that sounds positive the price for each will still be $700,000 so that volume and being on one location still can’t bring them within the reach of young hopefuls. Why can’t this be organised by the government. Low interest mortgages over 15 years or longer within the price range of a hard-working young couple. Come on Bill English take a laxative and get moving.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/property/90306690/Hamilton-1920s-home-to-be-demolished-to-make-way-for-17-new-houses
“It is in such a bad way inside, it was inevitable [it would go],” she said. “It’ll be sad, but it’s served its purpose.”
Yeoman Homes is the building contractor for the Ruakiwi Terraces project. Yeoman declined to name the owner of the property.
Managing director Andrew Yeoman said the homes will be worth around $700,000 each and include three bedrooms, two bathrooms and either a single or double garage.
Yeoman said the current house was investigated to see if it could be relocated, but it was too riddled with borer and rot to be able to be moved successfully.
Some of the materials are going to be recycled, he said.