Written By: - Date published: 4:11 pm, April 15th, 2008 - 17 comments
Word has it that the Press Council will tomorrow uphold the complaint laid against the New Zealand Herald by the Coalition for Open Government that the Herald’s December 4 front-page editorial headed “Speak now or forever hold your peace in 2008” was misleading. The Herald’s editorial attacking the Electoral Finance Bill implied that anyone who […]
Written By: - Date published: 11:17 am, April 8th, 2008 - 16 comments
The Herald could barely contain its self-satisfaction when National’s David Farrar complained to the Electoral Commission that the country’s largest private sector union, the EPMU, which comprises 50,000 working New Zealanders, should not be allowed to register as a third party under the Electoral Finance ACT. ‘ Law gags friend as well as foe‘ proclaimed […]
Written By: - Date published: 12:22 pm, April 3rd, 2008 - 61 comments
Now this is what Campbell needs to do more of. Last night the man ripped poor old Peter Brown to shreds over his racist comments about Asian immigrants, and it was brutal. You almost had to feel sorry for the guy:
Written By: - Date published: 1:02 pm, April 2nd, 2008 - 17 comments
Keith Ng of Public Address has a long-standing commitment to improving the quality of journalism in this country. Now, he is proposing a non-partisan wiki-style forum for fact-checking politicians’ statements. It seems like a great idea. We constantly see politicians making statements that are not backed by the facts but have time to only cover […]
Written By: - Date published: 11:37 am, March 31st, 2008 - 19 comments
There have been a number of stories recently about the number of doctors heading overseas but they are usually sensationalist and lack context. The most important questions are how many doctors do we have working in New Zealand, and how does that relate to the size of the population? Fortunately, the Medical Council produces an […]
Written By: - Date published: 10:18 pm, March 27th, 2008 - 36 comments
Ever since the Herald lost its rag over the EFA I’ve come to expect little more than half-truths and inaccuracies from its editorials, but today’s effort was particularly disappointing. Business NZ press release in one hand and a keyboard in the other, the Herald had itself all wound up over suggestions that proposed minimum entitlements to meal […]
Written By: - Date published: 11:34 am, March 20th, 2008 - 21 comments
With Barack Obama doing so well in the Democrat primaries and being seen as the candidate of change, National wants to paint John Key as the kiwi Obama. And some in the media have lapped it up pointing to such amazing similarities as: ‘they were both born in 1961!’, ‘they both have two children!’, ‘they’re […]
Written By: - Date published: 11:04 am, March 18th, 2008 - 6 comments
This week’s NBR editorial, titled “Smarten up, John Key”, frets that Key keeps showing himself to be a slippery, policy lightweight (can’t have people seeing that side of him until the election is safely won). They have three recommendations for how Key can smarten up: ‘First, is to keep his mouth shut when asked questions […]
Written By: - Date published: 12:28 pm, March 17th, 2008 - 7 comments
Rob Stock apparently holds several awards for personal finance reporting but looks unlikely to win another based on his rehash of National Party lines in the SST this weekend. I can understand the desire to get these pesky articles to the publisher when the sun’s shining and there are better things to be doing outside […]
Written By: - Date published: 4:34 pm, March 15th, 2008 - 8 comments
I imagine this by-line is an error, but given the way the Herald’s been evangelising for the Right lately you do have to wonder… (Hat-tip: gobsmacked)
Written By: - Date published: 3:33 pm, March 13th, 2008 - 58 comments
Yesterday in Parliament, Winston Peters tabled a letter of protest from the Herald journalists’ chapel to APN chief executive Martin Simons. The letter related to Simons’ meeting with John Key to draft a ‘clarification’ for the Bay Report’s quote of Key saying he “would love to see wages drop.” The Bay Report was then forced […]
Written By: - Date published: 11:02 am, March 11th, 2008 - 54 comments
Speaking of humour, that joke of a newspaper the NBR has had a crack at us again. According to them The Standard is “a blog which tests Labour lines in advance”. So much for the NBR’s self-lauded connections: we don’t test Labour’s lines, we write them with Mike and Helen in a secret bunker under […]
Written By: - Date published: 9:50 am, March 11th, 2008 - 32 comments
Tomorrow – ‘Slavery: it wasn’t so bad when you think about it’
Written By: - Date published: 2:54 pm, March 10th, 2008 - 45 comments
In an article on the economy that would have had my high-school economics teacher in fits, Bill Ralston says that it is hypocritical of the Government to block the sale of Auckland Airport because it is a strategic asset while the Government-owned New Zealand Superannuation Fund (the Cullen Fund, as National dubbed it, I guess […]
Written By: - Date published: 3:27 pm, March 8th, 2008 - 45 comments
On the 20th of December, John Key was reported in the Bay Report as saying “we would love to see wages drop” while talking to a Kerikeri businesswoman. The story broke nationally three weeks ago and Key offered several, conflicting explanations – he was joking, he was misquoted, he was talking about Australia. The Bay Report stood […]
Written By: - Date published: 11:58 am, March 7th, 2008 - 61 comments
There is more to the John Key “we would love to see wages drop” story than you have been able to read in the blogs or the mainstream media. We’ve been in contact with a large number of people who have been connected at various levels of this story as it has developed. Unfortunately, none […]
Written By: - Date published: 11:08 am, March 7th, 2008 - 21 comments
The two major dailies have been running bizarre editorial lines against the government’s intervention to block the sale of Auckland Airport, even as their letters columns fill up with people supporting the move. The Herald called it ‘xenophobia’. Of course, the Herald would know a bit about xenophobia having enthusiastically supported the anti-Asian campaigns by […]
Written By: - Date published: 11:39 pm, March 6th, 2008 - 38 comments
Last night we published a tip-off saying the New Zealand Herald planned to report that its APN stable-mate the Bay Report would be correcting its story where John Key said ‘we would love to see wages drop.’ That story was published by the Herald this morning, hours before the Bay Report had even gone to […]
Written By: - Date published: 9:51 pm, March 5th, 2008 - 57 comments
Today in Parliament Bill English made a very interesting comment which, if true, raises some very concerning questions about either his own honesty or the editorial integrity of APN, publishers of the New Zealand Herald. Referring to a quip from Michael Cullen about John Key’s statement that ‘we would love to see wages drop‘, English […]
Written By: - Date published: 5:56 pm, March 4th, 2008 - 53 comments
Michael Cullen made an interesting remark in the House today in response to a question on John Key’s statement that he “would love to see wages drop“. Here’s what Cullen said: I think they would be appalled to learn that the Leader of the Opposition proposed that New Zealand wages should drop, then tried to […]
Written By: - Date published: 11:13 am, February 29th, 2008 - 30 comments
I’m as sick of the Owen Glenn saga as the next guy, but Winston Peters’ tussle with failed National Party candidate and Close Up presenter Paul Henry last night was highly entertaining. There’s been a bit of comment about the interview around the blogs, so here it is for those who missed it:
Written By: - Date published: 11:40 am, February 28th, 2008 - 39 comments
The Herald reports that after questioning by the media, ‘Prime Minister Helen Clark says her criticisms of the New Zealand Herald bear no similarity to the ejection a newspaper publisher from Fiji by that country’s military regime.’ That the Herald believes this is in need of clarification, or is even worthy of publication in a […]
Written By: - Date published: 11:28 am, February 19th, 2008 - 31 comments
The Press has a good article on the political blogs. The Standard and our mates Kiwiblogblog are referred to as “Labour with its claws out”. As has been explained before, we are not Labour: we are a loose group of Leftwing writers, some of whom are associated with the labour movement, but the image is […]
Written By: - Date published: 8:33 am, February 19th, 2008 - 65 comments
John Armstrong’s opinion is that: It is inconceivable that Helen Clark would have blithely offered a wealthy donor to Labour Party coffers a seat at the Cabinet table… Anyone who knows what makes Clark tick knows she is far too clever and far too cautious ever to trap herself into making such promises of patronage. […]
Written By: - Date published: 9:09 am, February 18th, 2008 - 24 comments
Mike Hutcheson has somehow made another appearance, this morning, on TV3’s Sunrise programme. This is the guy who told viewers late last year that New Zealand’s problems were caused by a “girltocracy” – presumably a reference to too many women running things for Hutch’s liking. This morning he offered up some obscure research apparently showing […]
Written By: - Date published: 10:49 am, February 16th, 2008 - 49 comments
Fran O’Sullivan’s continuing her ongoing philosophical project of interrogating the notion of truth in her latest repetition of Kiwiblog talking points Herald column. In it she picks up on the Owen Glenn interview and from a few disparate facts weaves a story of intrigue and mystery. Or rather provides us with an insight into the […]
Written By: - Date published: 7:10 pm, February 13th, 2008 - 27 comments
Is tax really the answer to housing affordability? The editorial in the NZ Herald today motivated a reader to send us these observations: ‘It has long been a dream for New Zealanders to own their own home and it is not a dream that we should dampen. Helping families own their own home may increase […]
Written By: - Date published: 7:56 pm, February 10th, 2008 - 17 comments
The decision of TVNZ’s CloseUp to pay to assist Tame Iti to travel to Waitangi this year was the focus of Media Watch this morning. Ever ready to offer an opinion the PM stepped in with her view that: “I think it is a waste of public money.” (Dom Post, 7 Feb 2008) And the […]
Written By: - Date published: 8:07 pm, February 9th, 2008 - 2 comments
From CNN earlier in the week – Jeanne Moos presents her very own Super Tuesday Political Video Awards. A good summary of some of the hottest and some of the most cringe inducing items on the download circuit. What will be our NZ equivalent? Meantime fresh controversy is set to rage with the news that […]
Written By: - Date published: 3:30 pm, February 5th, 2008 - 27 comments
Jordan Carter has a great post up on the confusion evident in the Herald’s simultaneous endorsement of Republican John McCain for US President – one of the chief sponsors of the American Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 – and their opposition to New Zealand’s recently enacted Electoral Finance Act, a piece of legislation with […]
Written By: - Date published: 2:46 pm, January 28th, 2008 - 34 comments
Hidden away today at the bottom of the Herald’s story on further data from the latest DigiPoll is the news that only 3.8% of those surveyed rate the Electoral Finance Act as a vote influencing issue. You can just about feel the Herald’s despair that despite an unprecedented, wholly unbalanced and misleading campaign against the […]
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