Posts by insider outsider
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I just heard Hagar on Nat Rad. What a load of hyperventilating nonsense. He was practically claiming that the 'rumours about HC's private' life, are coming from NAts and C/T.
He said he's hearing more talk and attacks on HC personal life swirling around the country like mad and being fed deliberatley in an attack campaign. Note he flat refused to provide any substance for this smear.
maybe he needs new friends or to get out more. Didn;t these rumours start within Labour 25 years ago? They are hardly new and dramatic and to use this as evidence of a malign influence is undramatic to say the least.
He also claimed CT were the blackest of the black political advisers anywhere, yet relies on some old and fairly ordinary examples. Again he can't get out much because he has obviously never heard of Swift boating or other pretty nasty attack campaigns.
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Helen, PM and lesbian, I'm annoyed
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Shep
Would food production and distribution, and petrol production and distribution count as essential infrastructure? The US particularly has plenty of power infrastructure developed by private business. I believe a lot of the utilities in the UK were private till nationalised. I read about a company this week planning a new power grid in Texas. COntact and Trustpower are building new power stations here.
i'm not sure you can say Telecom has failed BTW. There are plenty of companies investing in fibre where they can make money and not over commit financially. You only have to look on PA to see that fibre to homes is not a no brainer, so if it is a debateable investment how can it be a failure not to do it?
What's Telecom to do in that situation? Key's effectively saying there are benefits he can see that business either can't or the investment is too risky for any individual company, so the taxpayer is going to underwrite that risk.
I'm not sure if it is good or not, but we have plenty of examples of politicians and central planners thinking they know best and we end up paying the bill for a generation and either never use the capacity built or the market shifts and we are left with a white elephant.
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I'd just like to point out that someone from APN is watching this thread closely.
It's not me. It would be nice if they sat and had a chat...
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It's corporate vs an individual.
That's why I think corporates should not be allowed to sue for defamation (gawd remember the Oprah defaming beef issue?) it should be for individuals alone.
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Uhhh... is that a compliment? Sorry, my sarcasm detector is playing up.
yes and a criticism of current media practices.
In terms of fronts groups, i see them as more groups that are created by special interests to have the veneer of independence and concerned citizen sponteneity. Happens all the time in the US on all parts of the spectrum.There is no evidence I've seen that CSC are such. I think they are genuinely likeminded. I don't know of any funding they get from indsutry. Perhaps wealthy individuals support them as they do Owen McShane's CRMS.
I think it is a long bow to draw that, because some of them have been cherry picked by overseas groups because their views coincide, that they are therefore a front or that their views are being dictated from overseas and less than genuine.
And just because ExxonMobil give some money to the Heritage Foundation, and because the HF ran a conference at which Owen and Brian Leyland spoke, it doesn't follow that Exxon is funding the CSC. People such as Dave Hansford and Greenpeace who push this line conveniently ignore all the other people who fund these organisations and seem to forget that for their logic to be true, then every other HF is also equally funding the NZCSC - (as I am as an Exxon Mobil customer if you want to take it to an absurdity).
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Don't go into journalism Josh, your research of primary sources is too scary - what you really need to do is say "he said.... but she said no he's wrong". You can fill pages and pages doing that. ;-)
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If it was pointed out that the CSC (and their ilk) are a front for conservative think-tanks in each story they were quoted in, you could provide "balance" whilst simultaneously pointing out that they are crackpots. Their credibility would, I think, diminish accordingly.
Joshua
I don't think there is any evidence they are a front. I think there is a bit of fevered imagination going on and fairly tenuous links are made and overweighted inferences drawn.
I think it is misguided and bordering on offensive to doubt their views are anything but genuine. As Rob Hosking said "The idea that someone could have in good faith reached different conclusions to [your own] doesn’t seem to feature at all."
What you want is turn opinion into fact. You don't need to. Facts speak for themselves.
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Joshua
you have to be a member of the PC to be subject to it. Bloggers and individuals generally aren't. I suspect this wasn't an option for the Listener, hence my comments about the rules not applying.
RochelleYou're in a logic loop. You can't claim defamation if you can't prove it. But you can't prove it without first claiming it.
I think I understand what you are saying but defamation is one of those 'reasonable person' proofs and context can be important - patents might be a bit more clear cut.
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Russell
I think we are talking past each other. The risk is that journalists and bloggers are considered the same. Correct me if I’m wrong, but you seem to want the journalist ‘rules’ built up over years to apply to bloggers.
I don’t agree. Bloggers aren’t journalists and so the rules don’t apply. If they want them to apply they have to sign up to them and act accordingly. Journalists who blog should not ignore their professional and ethical standards on balance and accuracy and fairness.
Unless you see this case as a seachange in the rules, I don’t see how a journalist acting professionally and ethically would be affected no matter what medium they operate in. I was taught that facts were sacred and that if you acted professionally/ethically you were pretty much safe. Craig pointed out Maxwell’s past antics and that has not had a chilling effect on media overall. But perhaps in this crazy online world the rules are anachronistic and that is the issue that requires debating not whether they apply or were followed.
Gareth
Thanks for the response. Your interest is in the efforts of the CSC. IMO they are fringe and the more attention you pay them the more credibility they get.
My interest was in the way you reported their interactions with the Listener and the fall out. No ulterior motive, it’s just an interesting subject. The big difference I suspect with your NZI review (not read it) is that you probably attacked the analysis not the people and their motives, and so was fair comment. I think you crossed that line in the climate cranks post for reasons already outlined and so exposed yourself. We obviously differ on that interpretation, and that must be one of the great challenges of defamation law.