Written By: - Date published: 7:03 am, April 16th, 2015 - 52 comments
On Alastair Thompson’s “Media Bloodbath” piece and more. Privately owned media will not in the future have a hope of delivering quality news services in this country. If we think that matters, then a strong publicly funded media presence is the only way forward.
Written By: - Date published: 8:39 am, April 11th, 2015 - 140 comments
So it’s not just loonie leftie bloggers noting the political element to the attack on Campbell Live.
Written By: - Date published: 8:47 am, April 10th, 2015 - 112 comments
The attack on Campbell Live appears to be political.
Written By: - Date published: 9:00 am, March 26th, 2015 - 109 comments
The most egregious feature remains the sheer banality. Its like John Key can’t help himself. Because most National Ltd™ voters really don’t care and because the MSM just accepts the deceit as “one of those things,” he’s been able to get away with it scot-free for more than six years.
Written By: - Date published: 10:16 am, March 6th, 2015 - 13 comments
The lies and media pap being distributed for public consumption by the boys down at “The Club” are old and worn out now. Politicians, public commentators, and media heads who really think they can get away with this flimsy “rinse and repeat” justification of the indefensible are treated us with contempt.
Written By: - Date published: 10:32 am, January 18th, 2015 - 24 comments
The team at Scoop are running a series called “The State of the NZ News Media – A Public Conversation”.
Written By: - Date published: 10:54 am, December 16th, 2014 - 56 comments
In a land far away from here and behind a curtain of iron, it was said that to understand anything, it was necessary to first of all discount the fictions that were being presented as truth.
Written By: - Date published: 10:32 am, December 6th, 2014 - 42 comments
Snippets from a detailed and interesting report on the ownership of NZ media, media trends and issues, and the role of blogs post dirty politics. One major quibble – not all blogs are created equal, no more than all TV is game shows, than all radio is talkback, or than all websites are porn.
Written By: - Date published: 4:58 pm, March 3rd, 2014 - 5 comments
Looks like Mark Ames really has lost the plot viz a viz Glen Greenwald and ‘The Intercept’
Written By: - Date published: 1:41 pm, February 28th, 2014 - 15 comments
When did the left leave the left? Or, perhaps more accurately, why do we continue to regard liberals as being of the left?
Written By: - Date published: 10:59 am, February 19th, 2014 - 38 comments
Glenn Greenwald, Laura Poitras, and Jeremy Scahill have launched a new on-line investigative journalism site.
Written By: - Date published: 12:55 pm, January 29th, 2014 - 202 comments
Sometimes I despair for our media. I mean, the latest parroting of Key’s line on Best Start is the stuff of black comedy. Apparently Key’s claiming David Cunliffe misled people about eligibility because they don’t get the payment while they also get paid parental leave. And the media are trumpeting it all over the place. […]
Written By: - Date published: 1:33 pm, May 17th, 2013 - 56 comments
Nigel Farage went to Scotland to promote UKIP. What the hell was he thinking?
Written By: - Date published: 9:44 am, August 17th, 2012 - 141 comments
Pagani wrote it. Robertson cleared it. And Shearer uttered it. To summarise; those living by sickness entitlements are probably dodgy b’stards. Nice. Before I go on, I should be clear that this post isn’t some insightful fiction. This is the reality of getting by with a sickness benefit.
Written By: - Date published: 11:47 am, December 23rd, 2010 - 13 comments
Do the wikileak cables illustrate just how stupid the diplomatic community is? What’s it all about? And why is our media not focussing any attention on this strange state of affairs where governments are seemingly informed by deaf and blind diplomats mouthing off?
Written By: - Date published: 6:30 pm, September 29th, 2010 - 63 comments
After picking up my award for worst ever ‘Standard’ post title, I’d just like to say that there seems to a penchant these days to leave too many things up to higher powers, or perceived authorities. And authorities and those who are ideologically aligned with them or reliant upon them, naturally enough encourage such a giving away of agency. It’s not always deliberate. And it’s certainly not a conspiracy. It’s just the way it is and is borne of habit. This morning afforded a fairly clear example of it.
Written By: - Date published: 8:48 am, December 3rd, 2009 - 59 comments
Here’s a wee gripe in the morning. John Key. Did you ever see such a prima donna? Headline on Newsroom this morning: “Key And Copenhagen – Prime Minister John Key is preparing to relent on his refusal to attend the world climate change conference in Copenhagen”. In The Herald: “Key books flight to Copenhagen – […]
Written By: - Date published: 11:52 am, October 14th, 2009 - 4 comments
The Herald can be bad, but it’s not yet a patch on Fox News. From The Guardian: “What a bunch of warmongers we have in the White House. America is fighting the war in Iraq, they’re fighting in Afghanistan, Osama Bin Laden, al-Qaida, the Taliban. And now these people have taken on another enemy: Fox […]
Written By: - Date published: 9:16 am, June 16th, 2009 - 45 comments
During his time in parliament Richard Worth has cost the taxpayer well over a million dollars yet John Key won’t even be straight with the public as to why he’s gone. First Key wouldn’t tell us because he claimed he didn’t want to contaminate a police investigation, now he won’t tell us because, having resigned […]
Written By: - Date published: 11:24 am, May 24th, 2008 - 62 comments
Key’s best trick is to answer questions with impressive or technical sounding assertions that stop the line of questioning but don’t actually tell us anything. When he does that, interviewers need to push him to explain himself. Here’s a few paraphrased examples from the last couple of week: Q. ‘What don’t you like about the […]
Written By: - Date published: 2:04 pm, May 10th, 2008 - 15 comments
A great interview by Jon Stewart on political blogging. Well worth watching. The part about evolution of blogging in the US is particularly interesting. New Zealand obviously lags behind in some ways but, as is often the case in this small polity, things also have a tendency to move faster once they get going. I […]
Written By: - Date published: 12:39 pm, May 7th, 2008 - 42 comments
In some ways, there’s little to tell New Zealand First, other than let Winston Peters be himself. Peters has been (along with Helen Clark), New Zealand’s most successful MMP politician he has survived and run good campaigns every time except in 2005. He needs to remember to play the charming rogue a little more often, […]
Written By: - Date published: 12:01 pm, May 7th, 2008 - 3 comments
The Daily Show’s John Oliver goes behind the scenes at the Pollies, the US awards ceremony for political ad consultants. Hilarious. Watch the nominees tell Oliver how to destroy hope, make voters fear black people and hang your fragile ego on a yard sign. I’m sure our mate John Ansell would feel right at home. […]
Written By: - Date published: 9:58 am, May 6th, 2008 - 54 comments
This morning’s performace on breakfast TV by Paul Henry was a disgrace. His complete lack of objectivity on the rail and ferry buy-back was even more biased and partisan than we have come to expect from him. Despite Guyon Espiner’s best efforts to provide some objective analysis of the government’s decision, Henry simply shouted about […]
Written By: - Date published: 9:51 am, May 6th, 2008 - 84 comments
Here’s the first par of National’s release on the rail deal: National Party Leader John Key says at a time when householders are struggling to pay the weekly bills, Helen Clark’s decision to spend the thick end of a billion dollars to buy back the rail rolling stock does not make any sense. Here’s Fran […]
Written By: - Date published: 12:15 pm, May 5th, 2008 - 7 comments
Wat Tyler at KBB has an interesting comment on Agenda’s dreadful panel discussion yesterday: Agenda on Sunday was awful. The panelists didn’t want to listen to the people they were interviewing (both Russell Norman and David Parker did very well) and had their own agendas to pursue. Jenni McManus was a disgrace. Argumentative and rude, […]
Written By: - Date published: 11:53 am, April 28th, 2008 - 79 comments
Last week, Campbell Live ran an article about the framing of Key as slippery. It could have been an excellent piece on the merits of such attacks, the wisdom of them, and their effectiveness. In parts it was, but then Campbell did this: The shallow premise that politics is only identical brands competing for popularity, […]
Written By: - Date published: 12:42 pm, April 26th, 2008 - 36 comments
This morning’s Dom Post buys into National’s “Aussie exodus” spin with a lead story claiming “A staggering one in 10 voters are considering a move to Australia” in the next twelve months. The facts, of course, are somewhat different. As we’ve shown before, as few as 0.67% of New Zealanders actually emigrate to any country […]
Written By: - Date published: 5:45 pm, April 20th, 2008 - 61 comments
In the Herald today, Bill Ralston sticks up for poor John Key who has been the subject of personal political attacks recently. Like Key, Ralston wonders what is “the cost of the Government using countless bureaucrats to endlessly scour records in an attempt to discover inconsistencies in any utterance [Key has] made”. Ralston needs to […]
Written By: - Date published: 10:25 am, April 18th, 2008 - 14 comments
As predicted by The Standard earlier this week, the Press Council has upheld the Coalition for Open Government’s complaint against the NZ Herald’s Electoral Finance Bill campaign. The Press Council found that the Herald’s front-page editorial last year contained a “mis-statement of fact”, which the paper should have promptly corrected. At heart was the paper’s […]
Written By: - Date published: 10:18 am, April 16th, 2008 - 74 comments
John Key’s latest line is to whine that Labour and others (including this blog) are launching personal attacks on him, and would we please stop. Our attacks are not personal, they are political. National wants to be in control of the Government, control an operation with a budget of near $60 billion and quarter of […]
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