Posts Tagged ‘Media’

Daily Show on financial news

Written By: - Date published: 3:00 pm, January 25th, 2008 - 14 comments

Jon Stewart had a good piece last night on why we shouldn’t just trust the economic and financial “experts”. People deserve better from the media than the dehumanising econo-speak about ‘soft labour markets’ and housing ‘corrections’ that dominates our Business pages, so it’s good to see Jon poking a bit of fun. Fox News also […]

The Herald still campaigning for National

Written By: - Date published: 9:26 am, January 22nd, 2008 - 99 comments

Yesterday The Herald reported that: Demographia, an international survey business run by Hugh Pavletich of Christchurch and Wendell Cox of the United States, today issued its fourth annual report, showing New Zealand has slipped drastically on an international scale. Now quite aside from the shoddy methodology of the study to which the PM has already […]

Spinning the spin.

Written By: - Date published: 2:11 pm, January 20th, 2008 - 279 comments

Ruth Laugeson has an article in the Sunday Star Times about the increased numbers of communications staff employed by ministries. Entitled “Spinning govt yarn costs $47m”, the article is in many ways a lovely piece of spin in its own right. The basis of the article is that the number of spindoctors employed by the […]

Desperation from the Herald

Written By: - Date published: 10:59 am, January 18th, 2008 - 31 comments

Yesterday’s supposed scandal over an email exhange between Michael Cullen and a National Party activist was an absurd piece of political activism from the Herald. Recently the paper has been running almost daily attack articles on the government, but this was surely scraping the bottom of the barrel. Nat activist John Middleton was painted as […]

More shoddy reporting from The Herald

Written By: - Date published: 8:00 pm, January 17th, 2008 - 25 comments

Move over Mediawatch. Thesproutandthebean have outed more biased reporting in Granny Herald: the abysmal attempt at rationalising the retention of a monarchy in this herald opinion piece was made interesting by what was omitted rather than included. the authors were Sean Palmer and Simon O’Connor and this was the declaration we got of their interests: […]

What’s National cooking up for 2008?

Written By: - Date published: 11:58 am, January 13th, 2008 - 195 comments

Well, I saw my first Farrar billboard in the real two days ago and I gotta tell you I laughed. I was with a companion who is politically aware and has a pretty good idea about the EFB and when I pointed it out to her she was baffled. When I told her the story […]

Granny Herald (finally) outs Julian Robertson as National donor

Written By: - Date published: 8:58 pm, January 1st, 2008 - 78 comments

In a front-page article about New Year’s honours focussing on expatriate Kiwi Owen Glenn’s contribution to the Labour Party, Auckland University, and numerous other New Zealand charities, the Herald stated that wealthy American billionaire Julian Robertson, “who contributed to National last election”, is now banned from giving money to political parties here. Until this admission, […]

The Hutch

Written By: - Date published: 9:59 pm, December 23rd, 2007 - 35 comments

One morning last week I stumbled upon TV3’s early morning Sunrise programme. It’s a bright and cheery little show providing an easier alternative to Paul Henry’s more acerbic version on TV One. The breezy presenters occasionally host a couple of people called the ‘All-Stars’ and on this particular morning one of the guests was Mike […]

Dom Post: “Kill the krill”

Written By: - Date published: 4:51 pm, December 19th, 2007 - 11 comments

Not content to let the media moguls over at The Herald have all the campaigning fun, it was great to finally see The Dom get in on the act this morning – and finally a newspaper campaign that I can get behind myself! This morning’s front page announces the launch of A Dominion Post campaign […]

Turning attention inward: looking at the media

Written By: - Date published: 12:30 pm, December 14th, 2007 - 8 comments

Some interesting observations from Steven Price on DomPost editor Tim Pankhurst’s keynote address at the Jeanz conference called “The Power of Print”. His speech included this interpretation on the NZ Herald’s Electoral Finance Bill campaign: “He was a bit bemused. “Good on them,” was his attitude. But he thought it would be boring the Herald’s […]

Nats ruin the party

Written By: - Date published: 9:54 am, December 13th, 2007 - 3 comments

Well I might be drawing a long bow there but last night’s press gallery party was the worst I’ve ever been to and I suspect the Nats’ filibustering of the EFB might have to take the blame. Last year the do was a raucous good time with loads of drinking, gossip and chaos. This year […]

Herald censors criticism

Written By: - Date published: 3:58 pm, December 10th, 2007 - 13 comments

From frogblog: The New Zealand Herald has censored part of a 200 word article that the Greens were asked to submit on campaign finance reform for yesterday’s edition. It deleted the opening paragraph that was critical of the Herald’s coverage of the issue, and replaced it with its own commentary at the end of the […]

A bird in the hand is worth two in the provinces

Written By: - Date published: 3:30 pm, December 3rd, 2007 - 18 comments

Fran O’Sullivan is not known as a critic of our pollies from the right. So imagine my surprise when catching up on my weekend reading I spotted these somewhat acerbic comments. On Thursday night, the man who wants to be our next prime minister was nowhere to be seen. he was off touring New Zealand […]

Fox Attacks: Iran

Written By: - Date published: 11:51 pm, November 29th, 2007 - 61 comments

This looks interesting. Fox Attacks: Iran is a new short film from Robert Greenwald, director of the excellent Outfoxed. The film focuses on the parallels between Fox’s drumbeat for war with Iraq and what’s being said now about Iran. It’s also a plea to other networks not to fall in behind Fox like they did […]

Granny’s blue woolly slippers

Written By: - Date published: 5:02 pm, November 17th, 2007 - 21 comments

Granny’s campaign against the Electoral Finance Bill started with a bang and ended with a whimper. On Monday there was a banner headline “Democracy under attack”, complete with a front page editorial, a fuzzy picture of a masked woman, and a serpent cartoon. By Friday our crusading heroes had reduced the protection of democracy to […]

Granny gulled by National and Brethren spin

Written By: - Date published: 4:32 pm, November 15th, 2007 - 58 comments

Granny Herald wants to run a campaign against the Electoral Finance Bill when it doesn’t understand the Electoral Act. Worse, because it doesn’t understand the Act it makes assertions that are neither true to the law or in line with the facts. So it keeps repeating National and Brethren spin. One example is in yesterday’s […]

Granny’s wail

Written By: - Date published: 1:53 pm, November 15th, 2007 - 27 comments

Today the New Zealand Herald’s waning tantrum over the Electoral Finance Bill has been relegated to Page 5. Perhaps Granny has paused, had a cuppa, and is coming to her senses. The Herald reports today, a tad ingenuously, that the government might be about to “change tack”. Anyone paying attention to the noises coming out […]

Take the blinkers off Granny

Written By: - Date published: 9:00 am, November 15th, 2007 - 32 comments

Granny Herald tries to defend itself against National Party bias by saying it ran a headline “I am not a liar” over Brash after he admitted on bFM knowing that the Brethren were going to issue pamphlets attacking labour, three days after saying he knew absolutely nothing about them. Brash’s exact words were “I knew […]

NZ Herald to investigate Nats’ funding

Written By: - Date published: 1:13 pm, November 13th, 2007 - 19 comments

Matt Robson’s newsletter has a real scoop on the Herald’s next propaganda campaign: NZ Herald investigation into large, secret party funding I have it from good sources that any day now the NZ Herald is going to launch a full, in-depth investigative report into the National Party’s use of backdoor, closed-door and behind-the-scenes sources of […]

History repeats, part II

Written By: - Date published: 10:43 am, November 13th, 2007 - 13 comments

There’s a famous line from Joyce’s Ulysses in which the main protagonist Stephen Dedalus states “history is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake” and when I opened the Herald this morning I suddenly understood what that can mean: Now look at this one from a little ways back: Spot the difference. It […]

History repeats

Written By: - Date published: 7:39 pm, November 12th, 2007 - 32 comments

The Dominion, election day 1938: If the socialist government is returned to power your vote today may be the last free individual vote you will ever be given the opportunity to exercise in New Zealand. NZ Herald, 12 November 2007: When is the Government going to get this message: democracy is not a device to […]

Tell the full story Audrey

Written By: - Date published: 6:40 pm, November 12th, 2007 - 3 comments

Grannywriter Audrey Young’s story headlined “Exclusive Brethren’s email sets stage for Electoral Finance Bill” is more National Party spin. The Brethren’s email to Chief Electoral Officer Henry on 8 June 2005 followed their letter to Don Brash and John Key on 24 May 2005 in which they wrote of a meeting the previous week with […]

NZ Herald openly campaigning against Govt

Written By: - Date published: 5:46 pm, November 12th, 2007 - 36 comments

So the NZ Herald has finally admitted it’s running a campaign against the government. Check out this ridiculous, chest-thumping, self-congratulatory piece from their website: Public opinion has swung behind the Herald’s call for the Electoral Finance Bill to be scrapped. Hundreds of people have joined the debate on nzherald.co.nz’s Your Views forum, with the vast […]

‘Political commentator David Farrar’

Written By: - Date published: 12:39 am, November 12th, 2007 - 60 comments

You do have to wonder sometimes who’s making the judgment calls in our newsrooms. Last night One News decided to use a National Party staffer, David Farrar, to comment on a poll that showed the Maori Party leading Labour in the Maori seats. As you’ll see in the picture, Farrar was introduced as an independent […]

Herald farewells fact-check

Written By: - Date published: 10:44 am, November 7th, 2007 - 12 comments

It looks like Herald journo Audrey Young needs to go back to the basics and check a few facts before going to print. Reporting on the Labour conference and the performance of Chris Knox’s song Audrey’s blog says: “What you won’t get on the recorded version are the backing vocals from tonight provided by the […]

TV One News – oh shame you pakeha palangi

Written By: - Date published: 9:01 pm, October 31st, 2007 - 11 comments

Following a perfectly sensible Cabinet reshuffle story tonight, TV One News must have had this weird rush to the head because they sent an English (really silver spoon English too), white, tie wearing suit to interview the good people of South Auckland to find out what they thought of Labour’s Cabinet reshuffle. Is it me […]

YouTube campaigning

Written By: - Date published: 1:10 pm, October 23rd, 2007 - 6 comments

Mark Torley filed this piece on “YouTube campaigning” for One News last night.

Protests

Written By: - Date published: 4:27 pm, October 19th, 2007 - 10 comments

The Herald reports that “As many as a thousand people joined a march in Whakatane to complain about children being caught up in the police operation.” The protest is one of many across the country. These protests make an interesting contrast with Trotter’s piece in the Dom today in which he writes: “It wasn’t the […]

Unions to encourage election participation

Written By: - Date published: 2:53 pm, October 18th, 2007 - 1 comment

The Herald reports that new CTU president Helen Kelly envisages a more centralised union election campaign, “getting members to talk about politics and then convince others to get involved as well”. She goes on to say of the organisation: “Our message provides a vision of a fair society where amongst other things work pays, social […]

Arrests

Written By: - Date published: 11:40 am, October 16th, 2007 - 18 comments

Indymedia reports that “In a wave of massive state repression, 300+ Police, in many cases armed, raided houses around the country today making 17 arrests.” They also claim the raids were “targetted at people involved in the Tino Rangatiratanga, Peace and Environmental movements.” From Stuff, Police claim to have found Napalm bombs, Molotov cocktails and […]

Tough but fair

Written By: - Date published: 5:08 pm, October 9th, 2007 - 1 comment

Listening to Nine to Noon on RNZ yesterday I thought there was some useful insight into the bigger picture behind Key’s “the war in Iraq is over” gaffe: Laila Harre: What this really demonstrates is a real lack of depth in terms of John Key’s own understanding not just of foreign policy issues or grasp […]

The server will be getting hardware changes this evening starting at 10pm NZDT.
The site will be off line for some hours.