Posts by Craig Ranapia
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Hard News: The perils of political confidence, in reply to BenWilson,
Bad tone could be more damaging to Key than anything actually substantial, since they have no popular policy.
Not around here, anyway. (Sorry, needed to be said.)
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Hard News: The perils of political confidence, in reply to BenWilson,
Indeed, I find the circumstances of this recording weird. It could even be a trap of their own making, to try to make the opposition sound paranoid.
In that case, Joyce should be taken out behind the barn and shot for breaking one of the Ten Commandments of Modern Electioneering.
Thou shalt not get in the way when your opponents are doing the work for you.
As Matt Nippert pointed out on Twitter, the Herald on Sunday did commit some actual journalism yesterday, even if they buried the evidence under a mound of tea pot tape and an allegedly wet! naked! angry! so-drunk-he-blacked-out! All Black! (Memo to self: Cold shower NOW.) Might even have been a more viable attack line for Goff than chuntering on about MP smuggling, but that would require strategic competence from Team Phil which I've seen precious little evidence of.
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Hard News: The perils of political confidence, in reply to Ross Mason,
Ummm…what would have happened if there were two lip readers outside the window and giving a running commentary of the two J’s chitchat??
Apart from confirming my suspicion that Newmarket is a test site for franchising the Malebolge on Earth? Not a lot. :)
It can be argued that it was not a private conversation , that it was in fact a very well signaled media event.
It could also be argued that high profile journalists (expecially on TV) have no expectation of privacy, and a little light stalking after beer o'clock on a Friday night is in the public interest. I wouldn't expect anyone to find it particularly convincing, though.
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Hard News: The perils of political confidence, in reply to Russell Brown,
I don’t think it’s outrageous to say that the Epsom deal is perceived as a political jack-up, and that this incident fosters the immersion that the parties involved have something to hide, even if they don’t.
My (highly negative) opinion of *cough* electoral accommodations has been crystal clear, and unchanged, since '96 when Bolger fucked over his own candidate in Wellington Central. Just to add insult to injury, he didn't do it two weeks out but, quite literally in the last thirty seconds of his last television interview of the campaign.
But I just remain unconvinced that the Tea Party will materially shift any minds that aren’t already made up about whether Key is a vacuous finger-puppet and Banks Screwtape incarnate.
For that matter, I don’t think Labour’s freshly announced policy to end the scourge of MP smuggling – thoroughly fisked next door – is going to get, or lose, any traction either.
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Legal Beagle: Election Fact Check #8:…, in reply to Sacha,
At the risk of sounding like a scratched CD, too many people in National and Labour need intensive grief counseling. Yeah, I understand why you're not willing to accept that FPP is dead and move on - it served you well for a long time. However fifteen years stuck on denial, anger and spasms of bargaining just isn't healthy.
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To be entirely cynical for a moment, it is possible that:
1) Teapottapegate is the proverbial storm in a tea cup, but there’s a certain amount of (justified) paranoia in Nat circles about how rogue tape recordings will be sliced up and spun.
2) Far from being “potentially a game-changer”, Bryce Johns is trying to ‘sex up’ (to coin a phrase) pretty weak material for a reveal in the last issue before the election. Something the HoS does have form on doing – political stories where, so to the speak, the foreplay is a lot more impressive than the money shot. H-Fee, anyone? How about the SST's Operation Leaf scoop that should have been a career-killer for everyone concerned, but wasn't?
3) Yes, Tau invoking the New of the World was fucking stupid. There’s plenty of ethically sub-prime conduct that doesn’t rise to (sink beneath?) that torrent of used douche water.
4) Jonathan Milne might need oxygen at the very idea of politicians… well, talking politics. Don’t think anyone else outside the media-political complex will feel the same.
5) “The sense of political fixing in the Epsom deal has been hugely amplified by the incident.” You may wish to expand that a tad, Russell.
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As Graeme said, there is a serious debate to be had around whether you need the threshold (with or without the electorate exemption) at all. Shame our frontrunners for New Zealand's Next Top Politician aren't interested.
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Speaker: The Public Broadcasting Imperative, in reply to Marcus Turner,
Simple prejudice. I seem to remember this person making a cogent argument for the “older demographic” as a lucrative market.
Well, the example I like to keep using is from the Evil Empire of American network television. The West Wing was a pretty expensive hour of television (as shows with large ensemble casts tend to be), and not really big with the so-called 'key demographic' of 18-35 males. So why keep it around? Well, apart from being high profile Emmy bait TWW's audience may have skewed older but also higher income. Or put another way, if you're trying to sell health insurance or the new model family sedan to the Joneses - where do you think the bigger bang for your ad buy bucks will be? West Wing or MTV?
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Speaker: The Public Broadcasting Imperative, in reply to Russell Brown,
I think it’s disappointing that Drinnan couldn’t be bothered actually dragging his ass to the Spada conference.
Yes, and I once asked Drinnan why the Herald's media columnist apparently found layoffs, budget cuts and industrial action at the dominant player in Auckland's print media market beneath his notice. Shall we just say the response was terse and unfriendly. Oh, and don't even ask the Herald who gets wined, dined and lobbied by APN. Seems corporate transparency and accountability are for other people.
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Muse: Lights, Camera, Music!, in reply to Rob Hosking,
Ah, Wim... great taste in music but the actual moves are more of a mixed bag. Pina was one of the highlights of my Film Festival season this year, but also the first Wenders joint I've enjoyed since Faraway, So Close! (and I was definitely in the critical minority on that puppy).
Here's me showing my age, but I first saw Paris, Texas on television. Yes, Virginia, there was a time B.M.T (Before Maori Television) when you could see "arthouse" flicks on FTA television without it being strictly obligatory to be an unemployed insomniac.
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