Slow news day

Written By: - Date published: 2:33 pm, July 4th, 2010 - 9 comments
Categories: making shit up - Tags: ,

“Len Brown’s Smackdown” screams the headline in Carolyne Meng-Yee’s story about Len Brown today – and the first para makes it sound even worse:

A split has emerged within Manukau Mayor Len Brown’s campaign team over his controversial “Maori gesture”.

A split? This sounds serious!

Turns out it’s not. Rather it’s just the media making shit up by reporting on the last time they made shit up.

It’s all about the silly scene Brown made with the face-slapping etc and how the media reported it was claimed it was a Maori gesture. At the time I thought that was a surprisingly silly thing to say and not the kind of thing an experienced and thoughtful guy like David Lewis would try to pull.

And it turns out he didn’t. Rather he used a Maori term, kanohi te kanohi, while discussing the matter with the media:

“I said there’s a Maori phrase for that, kanohi te kanohi. Nowhere did I say he used a Maori gesture.”

So today’s headline should really be: “Len Brown and adviser not happy with quotes we made up”.

Of course that’s not the HoS style. More likely next week the’ll write another fictional story about the fictional story of the fictional story.

It might just be me but reading the paper is starting to feel more and more like taking a walk through a maze made of mirrors.

9 comments on “Slow news day ”

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  1. Draco T Bastard 1
    4 July 2010 at 3:43 pm

    To me reading the newspaper feels more like listening to idiots talking shite. It’s got to be bad for society when the best written part of the paper is the entertainment section talking about Tiger Woods and his girlfriends.

  2. G8 2
    4 July 2010 at 5:27 pm

    DTB – totally agree the dumbing down of print media is a concern, perhaps this is the reason circulation is heading south and Granny Herald and SST have to give free papers away to bump the audited circulation numbers up. As for Granny Fran the guru of the business world why dosnt she stand for Mayor – the money is better and she only has to give up boozey lunches or perhaps not.

  3. Anne 3
    4 July 2010 at 5:58 pm

    Today’s media consist mainly of shallow, stupid gits (of both genders) who’ve been to Uni. and managed to get a degree, but who actually know nothing, and have had little to no experience of political realities. So they make things up to look like they are on to something, and as long as their editors continue to put up with their crappy missives, we are stuck with third-rate journalism. It exists right across the MSM board from newspapers.. to radio.. to TV stations.

  4. swimmer 4
    4 July 2010 at 6:07 pm

    It’s not just the print, I was listening to a radio station at the weekend and they made a claim that someone said something. So I went to the net and watch the video and it turned out to be a complete lie! 🙁

  5. Bill 5
    4 July 2010 at 9:31 pm

    Can we get serious for a mo?

    ‘Everyone’ is commenting that the msm is now a bit of a joke: like Pravda.

    And ‘everyone’ knows that what Pravda sorry, the msm says has to be viewed and interpreted through a particular lens of unbelief.

    And ‘everyone’ knows that the disconnect that was Pravda was merely a sign of how untenable and lifeless the dying fiction that they were trying to maintain had become.

    And ‘everyone’ knows what happens next. Right?

  6. Rodel 6
    4 July 2010 at 10:39 pm

    I’ve said it before. The prerequisite of today’s journalists is ‘Fabrication 101’. Do they learn it in the first year or throughout the journalism course. Whatever- it’s effective and they have obviously all passed.

  7. J Mex 7
    5 July 2010 at 9:49 pm

    So today’s headline should really be: “Len Brown and adviser not happy with quotes we made up’.

    Alternatively, “Advisor’s spin attempt leads to confusion”

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