When will they ever learn?

Written By: - Date published: 7:04 am, August 28th, 2014 - 37 comments
Categories: blogs, Media, you couldn't make this shit up - Tags: ,

@peace’s fantasy song about killing the PM is offensive. Maybe not as offensive as Eminem’s song where he describes in detail the fantasy beating, kidnapping and murder of his wife – and National still decided to use his music for their campaign ad – but still indefensible.

But how did @peace’s song from 2013 become topical news, to take the heat off the PM amidst Dirty Politics? How did we suddenly go: that poor nice man Mr Key, he doesn’t deserve it (which no-one does to be fair), look he has dirty stuff against him from the left too!

Of course @peace aren’t ‘the left’ and have no formal ties there (let alone being fed stuff from the leader’s office), but hey, we can spin things that way…

To answer my rhetorical question: A tweet from Cameron Slater (aka Whaleoil) of course.

Who found it for him? Was it on his ‘tipline’ (aka Judith Collins), or was it his normal sources of information who are currently hiding in dark rooms and have lots of time on their hands to trawl the internet for offensive material – Jason Ede (aka Whaleoil) or Simon Lusk (aka Whaleoil)?

With a nice implication that the song was funded by NZ On Air, it had a ready angle to be spun across naive newsrooms.

And the Taxpayers Union (aka Jordan Williams (aka Whaleoil)) were ready to push that line happily misreading it to insist that NZ On Air apologise for funding this offensive song.  When NZ On Air refused to apologise on the grounds that they hadn’t funded it, the ‘Taxpayers Union’ pushed harder.

David Farrar pushed hard that the left was tied to them because they hadn’t denounced the song and the people behind it.  And by the left I obviously don’t mean the politicians, because they did denounce it, just the blogs. And not Public Address who had denounced it, the political left blogs and oh dear, even they did…

But the question has to be: how did newsrooms still follow such a discredited source?  Knowing that it is such planted spin and lies?

They need to take a leaf from David Fisher’s book.

Then they need to unfollow, remove the css feed and stop giving attention and credence to such a toxic source.

37 comments on “When will they ever learn? ”

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  1. Psycho Milt 1
    28 August 2014 at 7:32 am

    But how did @peace’s song from 2013 become topical news…

    More to the point, how did this ugly, rapey piece of shit not become topical news in 2013? I expect the Nats saved it up for a rainy day, and don’t blame them because it’s exactly what I’d do if I were them. My recommendation is, if you call yourself a Green voter, don’t help the Nats by creating ugly, rapey shit they can use as propaganda.

    • Tom Gould 1.1
      28 August 2014 at 1:53 pm

      Word suggests the Tories have dozens of these stored up ready to fire. Little more difficult now Hager blew their cover, but propaganda is propaganda and spin in spin, and they have invested a lot of money and effort to assemble all this dirt and sleaze for the on-going smear campaign.

  2. Lanthanide 2
    28 August 2014 at 7:33 am

    So your suggestion is they shoot the messenger?

    • Tracey 2.1
      28 August 2014 at 7:42 am

      As journalists they need to assess the credibility of the messenger, research the message itself and determine within the scheme of things, their role as educator of public (especially in an election campaign) is it worthy of pushing something else aside to go with it. At least that is what I reckon they should be doing

      There is too little of this going on.

      • Lanthanide 2.1.1
        28 August 2014 at 9:03 am

        And how do you know they didn’t do this, and they then decided it was worth publishing?

        It seems to me that this post is just saying “media reported something I don’t think is news, I’m going to say they didn’t do their job properly” when really we have no idea what they did or did not consider before publishing this story.

        • Tracey 2.1.1.1
          28 August 2014 at 9:21 am

          OK. I don’t know that anymore than you know they did go through that process.

          I do know that newsrooms are stretched to create a better bottom line for shareholders and thus the propensity for sweeping on Press releases rather than doing much background work.

          Circumstantial evidence may carry less weight than other evidence but we are permitted to utlise it.

          So a song, not the one about kill the pm, was made with NZ On Air money and played, when Lanth? And yesterday a newsroom in the middle of an election decided was newsworthy?

          A couple of decades ago TVNZ didn’t show live minor sports, like hockey and basketball. I spoke to the ED and he said it was because the public werent interested, they wanted rugby and cricket.

          YET, when SKY swooped in and took rugby and cricket, up popped live minor sports like basketball and hockey on TVNZ. Turns out people did like it, the ED and his team did not.

          Our TV ED’s like political journalists live in a very narrow and particular world and they start to believe their view is shared by many more than it is.

          The media also seriously misreported the Hide blackmail in Hager’s book. Hager’s words are very clear to those for whom English is a first language and yet they reported his book as stating that Hide WAS blackmailed to resign. Not true. Perhaps they struggle with reading comprehension, our journalists and accordingly I have little faith that with a reading impairment they would go through all the processes I outlined above?

        • Blue 2.1.1.2
          28 August 2014 at 10:07 am

          All the articles I have read about this song clearly imply that it is new and has just come out. They do not say that it is an old song from 2013. There is a YouTube video of this song posted on 2 January 2013 of it being sung live at a festival in Whitianga.

          Some media also reported that it was funded by NZ on Air when it wasn’t. Seems they didn’t do any kind of research. As if NZ on Air would ever fund such a song. It didn’t even pass the sniff test.

          If the media knew it was old and didn’t get public funding, the only remaining ‘interest’ in the story is to distract the public from the Dirty Politics scandal. I’m sure the right-wing media think that is a worthy goal.

          • weka 2.1.1.2.1
            28 August 2014 at 10:48 am

            Yep, they’re either intentionally misleading or incompetent. Now who does that remind us of?

          • Tracey 2.1.1.2.2
            28 August 2014 at 1:56 pm

            the song that got nz on air funding was from 2013 or 2012 and is not kill the pm song.

    • lprent 2.2
      28 August 2014 at 7:43 am

      Ignore the black ops. Do you think it wasn’t deliberate? It follows their usual pattern right down to John Key doing his usual brush off.

      What do you think the newsrooms should have done? Given the arseholes a knighthood?

    • You_Fool 2.3
      28 August 2014 at 8:07 am

      When the messenger is deceiving them about the truth of the matter, yes.

    • Murray Olsen 2.4
      28 August 2014 at 11:56 am

      Yeah, shoot the messenger. The messenger recommends gut shots.

      When a certain messenger has delivered lies, smears, and threats for the last few years, and has shown no signs of changing, of course they should be shot. Metaphorically, of course.

  3. Tracey 3
    28 August 2014 at 7:46 am

    Did Slater say/write the following without a touch of irony?

    “they believe in bullying, intimidation and now death threats…”

  4. Scott A 4
    28 August 2014 at 7:46 am

    Unfortunately, you are incorrect.

    ‘Kill The PM’ was released on Monday 25th August 2014 by @Peace. It was publicised by the band itself, via Twitter and Facebook. A simple check of their Facebook page will see it there, in a post titled “New!”

    You might be thinking of ‘Listen to Us’ from Home Brew’s self-titled debut 2012 album. Which also took a swipe at John Key, but less aggressively.

    While @Peace is a side project of Home Brew, ‘Kill The PM’ and ‘Listen to Us’ are different tracks, released two years apart.

    Home Brew – ‘LISTEN TO US’: http://youtu.be/8AjgWyxJAGQ

    • Lanthanide 4.2
      28 August 2014 at 12:18 pm

      Yip, so looks like this whole post is completely wrong on the facts and this is a genuine news story for the media to be reporting on.

      • MrSmith 4.2.1
        28 August 2014 at 1:02 pm

        I’d hardly call it a news story Lath, at best a tabloid story.

      • Tracey 4.2.2
        28 August 2014 at 1:55 pm

        so kill the pm was not made using public funding a song from 2013 did. how xoes that make it more newsworthy

    • Puddleglum 4.3
      28 August 2014 at 3:18 pm

      Now I’m confused.

      It was released on 25 August, 2014 and yet performed at a concert in 2013 (as tvnz footage apparently showed)?

      Surely, at best it must have been re-released on 25 August?

      • Lanthanide 4.3.1
        28 August 2014 at 5:55 pm

        “Surely, at best it must have been re-released on 25 August?”

        Yes, and that means that it wasn’t Whaleoil et-al “saving” this up to dump it in the middle of the campaign.

        • Tracey 4.3.1.1
          29 August 2014 at 11:50 am

          and farrar, taxpayers union and slaters claim it was funded by nz on air was wrong.

          Further proof the media didnt research it first, a quick call to NZ on AIR would have cleared it up.

          I havent seen a retraction and apology from farrar, taxpayers union and slater for getting it so wrong.

          So much for farrars short lived desire to tidy himself up after dirty politics.

          My point remains Lanth, and is borne out by nz on air, this was a non story made a false story by glibly relying on slaters “word”, despite that not being worth much thesedays

      • felix 4.3.2
        29 August 2014 at 5:26 am

        “Released” generally refers to a recording being made available to the public, usually for purchase. Performing a song live does not necessarily indicate that it has been released.

  5. crocodill 5
    28 August 2014 at 7:52 am

    “How did we suddenly go: that poor nice man Mr Key, he doesn’t deserve it (which no-one does to be fair), look he has dirty stuff against him from the left too!”

    Tracey just pointed this out in open mike: threats to the group from outside the group/tribe are always more serious than crimes from inside the group/tribe.

    You won’t convince these people they’re wrong using an hierarchical scale of morality they don’t recognise. To them, they are right. On the right I mean, them on the right, well they think they’re right, but not right as in Right, well that too… ah forget it. You get the picture.

    • Tracey 5.1
      28 August 2014 at 8:03 am

      Absolutely. isnt the fourth estate supposed to be the mirror, to reflect behaviours back to the people so they may make an informed judgment? The Fourth Estate has largely chosen which aspects to make “important” and which to ignore. Rather than shining the light as it were, they are part of the problem, closer to the behaviour of politicians yet tainted by it too?

  6. Sanctuary 6
    28 August 2014 at 8:29 am

    It is because our entire mainstream media circus is now socialised into being addicted to Slater as a source.

    Simply acting as repeaters for the right has made them lazy, because it saves them the labour of investigation. It hardened, brutalised and complicit (“All Antenna no Compass”). They are now all hard core junkies mainlining what their pusher Slater is selling them. Oh, they may wake up one day after a particularly hard night and look guilty when a health worker like Nicky Hager berates them and look in the mirror and be appalled at what is staring back and resolve and declare that from now on they are going to be clean, go cold turkey man, but like any junkie 99% of them can only last three days, or until the weekend max, before they are back being BFFs with their dealer.

    And once one journalist becomes acclimatised to the poison Slater is pushing it spreads like an infectious disease right through the MSM, making addicts of those who have grown accustomed to visiting Slater’s shooting gallery for their fix of stories for the 6pm news, and driving them to debase and prostitute themselves for more.

  7. Papa Tuanuku 7
    28 August 2014 at 8:30 am

    would someone please complain to the bsa and announce that they are? its very topical and newsworthy right now.

  8. adam 8
    28 August 2014 at 9:07 am

    Can I use the Frank Zappa defence. And all journalist should know this one – That includes you MR Armstrong.

    Sorry, Paraphrasing from “The Real Frank Zappa”.

    “If music actually changed anything, we would all live in a world full of love – because 90% of all the songs on the radio talk about love in some way.”

    Meanwhile, in the real world – The irony is,
    we get another sermon – from a bunch of
    amoral,
    godless,
    egoist’s.

    • One Anonymous Bloke 8.1
      29 August 2014 at 6:50 am

      Zappa was wrong. Love songs may not foster love, hate speech certainly begets violence.

  9. infused 9
    28 August 2014 at 9:30 am

    Its just not fair is it. Stupid post.

    • framu 9.1
      28 August 2014 at 10:50 am

      so highlighting idiocy and dishonesty from the MSM in falling for the exact same trick that slater and co have pulled on them – again, and in the process making staggering errors that can be easily refuted by already published and provable facts is stupid to you?

      i would call it a valid critique of highly un-professional behaviour

    • weka 9.2
      28 August 2014 at 10:52 am

      And you’re another one of those people who prefers ‘win at all costs’ (aka the person with the biggest stick gets to be in charge) instead of valuing things like fairness, integrity, honesty.

  10. philj 10
    28 August 2014 at 11:45 am

    Nicky Hagar is too kind to the ‘journalists’ imho. He says they are under time constraints to do more stories to meet deadlines etc. With respect Nicky, and I applaud your courage, dedication and integrity, but, that justification wouldn’t wash for plumbers surgeons or garbologists etc. A job is done properly or not at all. Small wonder the profession of ‘journalism’ is held in such low regard, when the opposite should be the case. MSM Journalism in NZ has been Key- rupted.

    • Sable 10.1
      28 August 2014 at 1:33 pm

      Yep its not too much of a stretch to say the MSM are really just a glossier, better syndicated version of Whale Vomit. In fact I’m amazed Slater is even needed. It gives some insight into how incompetent, shifty and generally hopeless this government really is.

  11. Sable 11
    28 August 2014 at 1:17 pm

    Sounds like someone is trying very hard to play the victim…

  12. Jrobin 12
    28 August 2014 at 9:20 pm

    What ever happened to freedom of expression, you know that old hat idea of free speech.
    Even if its a crappy song in poor taste, censorship is worse. Ms Key has made herself a very public figure too which in her situation was bound to be a bit edgy. Not that I condone sexist lyrics, but if she wanted privacy her art was a bad way to go about it. So we don’t love you anymore John….. Must be a shock, but better get used to it. As David said , you look like the past……yippee!