Hard News: All this and more
79 Responses
First ←Older Page 1 2 3 4 Newer→ Last
-
You will also notice DPF collecting stats for "media bias". Now there's an old canard about to rear its ugly head
Mr. Pot, let me introduce you to Ms. Kettle you have so much in common. And with all due disrespect to Colin, he gets rather spiky when accused of being the tame bitch of either National or Labour -- or any aspersions being cast on the editorial independence of The Press.
Perhaps any further posts of this nature could be headed with this disclosure. The Press is owned by Fairfax New Zealand, which happens to be a direct competitior of APN, which owns The New Zealand Herald. Read into that what you will.
-
Craig, that would be news if RNZ offered a retraction, sorry, correction. People are always contacting media organisations to offer "clarification" and further comment.
No, Don, it's news because shareholding ministers in state-owned broadcasters don't ring the chief executive to bitch about interviews they don't like. Radio New Zealand and TVNZ are subject to the provisions of the Broadcasting Act, and have a process for complaints that is fully compliant. You'd think Mr. Maharey would be well aware of that.
And I'll ask this question again: Will Doctor Cullen tell us where he got the impression that Key tried to get the journalist concerned fired, a charge both the journalist and editor concerned have refuted.
Cullen was either misinformed (and we deserve to know who by) or was just making shit up. Shonky Mike?
-
I prefer to think of them as Kraftwerk crossed with the B52s.
Jeez, steady on Russell - they're good, but not quite as good as that makes them sound.
-
You will also notice DPF collecting stats for "media bias". Now there's an old canard about to rear its ugly head
And on a second read, you either totally misread the comment or (again) are just making shit up.
Here's what DPF actually wrote.
Colin you said:
“That’d be the same APN whose Herald newspaper ran a full-frontal attack on Labour last year over its Electoral Finance Act and whose editorials haven’t had a good word to say about the Government in over a year.”
That is an extraordinarily bold claim to make, and extremely serious attack on the ethics and neutrality of the Herald - claiming not a single good word in an editorial in over a year.
You may want to consider that the Herald actually counted up their “political” editorials in 2007 and found:
# Labour 18 positive, five neutral, 20 negative
# National five positive, six neutral, five negativeSo either:
1) You are totally wrong in your assertion
2) The Herald lied in its editorial of 27 Dec 2007 when it said there had been 18 editorials in 2007 supporting the Government or a Government policy.Now I haven’t gone back through all 250 Heralds in 2007 to verify their claim. I presume you have? They claim they praised:
“Policies or actions of the Government which we endorsed included its KiwiSaver policy, Michael Cullen’s courage in seeking new ways to redirect investment away from a property boom, the new immigration law, its sustainability and carbon emissions trading proposals, the changes to NCEA, the crackdown on real estate issues, using school tuckshops to target obesity, the October Cabinet reshuffle, sanctions against Fiji, the Royal Commission on Auckland, help for Kiwi companies setting up overseas, the separation of Telecom, the new school curriculum, and Helen Clark’s visit to Washington.”
Presumably they just invented these editorials, and were hoping no one would check back to see if they actually printed them.
It seems to me that Colin made a rather dopey assertion (and one often repeated around here) that DPF - and The Herald itself -- were perfectly entitled to respond to. Then again, I don't really see the point of trying to rationally engage with people in the grip of a conspiracy theory.
-
Oh man, Robbery is not going to like this...
peter made a funny.
as a consumer, I love it, but I'd be more excited if dentists started giving away free fillings, Ive got a third from the back that's been annoying me lately. -
Gosh Craig, you claim to not be privvy to the National party lines sheet, and yet you have the "they must be conspiracists" line down pat.
APN: Always Promote National. -
It seems to me that Colin made a rather dopey assertion (and one often repeated around here) that DPF - and The Herald itself -- were perfectly entitled to respond to. Then again, I don't really see the point of trying to rationally engage with people in the grip of a conspiracy theory.
The Herald will never be shy about defending itself.
I would have thought a more accurate analysis of the Herald's editorial stance would include the selection, position and prominence of stories as well as editorials.
-
I can only hope that the Herald is able to apply such diligence to all matters in need of clarification. I will in due course be contacting them to see if they will correct some pretty shoddy reporting regarding one of my clients.....
Craig: This is about the Herald not about Cullen.
-
Oh, great shout out to Foisemaster too! My brother Tim mangled guitar for them for a few years._
It should also be said, the talentless git most improved the band by leaving it. Awesome hideous noise merchants they were.
-
I would have thought a more accurate analysis of the Herald's editorial stance would include the selection, position and prominence of stories as well as editorials.
I suspect that the most interesting analysis of the editorials themselves would be of their language. But I'm not about to blow my weekend doing it ...
-
It seems to me that Colin made a rather dopey assertion (and one often repeated around here) that DPF - and The Herald itself -- were perfectly entitled to respond to. Then again, I don't really see the point of trying to rationally engage with people in the grip of a conspiracy theory.
I feel very confident indeed in saying that had the shoe been on the other foot, DPF and his readers would be going absolutely fscking mental right about now.
I'll go as far as saying I find the whole thing quite odd. Exactly what purpose does this "clarification" serve, and who decided it should be made?
-
And with all due disrespect to Colin, he gets rather spiky when accused of being the tame bitch of either National or Labour
Tame Bitch? Isn't that Tame Iti's drag name?
:) -
I feel very confident indeed in saying that had the shoe been on the other foot, DPF and his readers would be going absolutely fscking mental right about now.
Sure, and I think we've both tired and failed to have a fact-based, civil exchange with the likes of D4J or Redbaiter. Not really the people I want to use as a baseline for reasoned discourse. :)
If The Herald does have a bias, it doesn't seem to be political in nature but an assumption that its readers are a pack of chimps with ADHD and early onset Altzheimers. I'm a damn sight more worried about the kind of junk science and basic scientific illiteracy displayed in stories headlined "anti-depressants don't work" than Colin Espiner, Andrew Little and Michael Cullen stirring shit for political ends.
I would have thought a more accurate analysis of the Herald's editorial stance would include the selection, position and prominence of stories as well as editorials.
Which in the end may prove little more than the eternal pertinence of the old saw "if it bleeds it leads, if it's dead its read -- especially if there's suitably grotesque pictures to hand".
Tame Bitch? Isn't that Tame Iti's drag name?
Not if I get there first. :)
Craig: This is about the Herald not about Cullen.
61stcolumn: Sorry, but when Cullen has gotten endless media play asserting that Key tried to get a journo sacked -- an allegation I actually take seriously -- I think it's quite legitimate to ask whether its true. As all parties involved have denied Cullen's claim, I also have to say its equally legitimate to ask whether he was misinformed (and by who) or whether he was just making shit up.
Or do we have a sliding scale of ethics for politicians now?
Gosh Craig, you claim to not be privvy to the National party lines sheet, and yet you have the "they must be conspiracists" line down pat..
But you make it so easy, Snowy.
-
Or do we have a sliding scale of ethics for politicians now?
You must be new around here.
-
Craig -
I reckon you do have a right to be concerned when Cullen seems to be doing a winstard. I guess the kind phrase is disappointing. I won't concede however that the Herald's activities are without bias and depending on your ideology, without menace in the political domain. To my perhaps inexperienced eyes they seem to have upped the ante with recent events.
-
Lesbian FemiNazis Go on Cocaine-Fueled Legislative Rampage, Further Undermining The Family, Traditional Values, Christianity and All That Is Sacred
The Windsors are actually anthrophagic lizards. Wishart is boring. We really need David Icke.
And now for something completely different.
And surprise, surprise, the computer starts discovering extremely powerful spam features that we have trained ourselves to ignore, like the color used in an HTML tag, or just exactly how often spammers use some fairly common word. And the nice thing about that is it's much harder for the spammer to notice it either.
Ah now, that's fascinating. I've noticed that a certain kind of businessman always says "ladies", "girls" and "babes" (or "b*tches") but never "women". Would all the tics and biases constitute a specific kind of cognitive pattern?
Sorry to go on about Watts all the time, but he's currently my fave sf living author (Wells and Lem being dead, Stableford too affectedly cynical, Russ too retired, myself too obscure), but there's a neat throwaway in one of his novels about an AI managing a subway system watching patterns of light and dark on the clock face of the train platform as an indication of the transport system's basic operation and ignoring things like oxygen levels...
In one of Temple Grandin's books, interviews, whatever, she said that she noted that the reflection of a rotating fan on a shiny wall could freak out a cow on its way to milking while no human could figure out why the cows were refusing to move. The fan was irrelevant, or so they thought.
Now Grandin's observations/interpreations have recently come under attack, but the criticism seems to boild down to the position that "autism is pathological but this is supposed to be the norm and therefore it cannot be" while forgetting that it's "pathological" or rather unusual in humans.
On cognitive difference, there is this interesting podcast from CBC wherein the analogy is made between high-functioning autistics and cast and dogs: don't complain that your dog has poor tree-climbing skills and good slipper-retching skills and never meows, because it's simply not a cat.
Now, two autism researchers in Montreal are arguing that maybe autism isn't something that needs to be cured. Maybe it isn't even a mental disorder.
It's a rather controversial position.
Anyway, I can't quite articulate what I'm on about, but I'd appreciate any input from someone who actually knows more about this debate. I guess my point is that there is not abstract, neutral Kantian logic, but rather systems of cognition conditioned by perception and therefore physiology. If wer're looking for aliens, let us look first at cats, AIs and other people.
Anyone else read an essay by J.B.S. Haldane, "Possible Worlds"? It is more or less on the topic of physiology-determines-perception-which-determines-cognition. "Quaint", perhaps (pre-WWII) but fascinating.
-
I won't concede however that the Herald's activities are without bias and depending on your ideology, without menace in the political domain.
I certainly hope you won't. Just as I don't think Colin -- who I have a lot od respect for, BTW -- is exactly a disinterested by-stander, or that Fairfax New Zealand occupies any part of the ethical high horse other than its arse.
I just don't define 'bias' as 'anything I don't happen to agree with'. Here's where my ideological filter lies: If politicians don't like being disagreed with, they're in the wrong line of work.
For heaven's sake, for the last year our host has given me three minutes a week to editorialise, with some very basic (and totally reasonable) restrictions regarding broadcast standards. If anyone believes I have breeched those standards, Radio Live is obliged to follow the Radio Code of Broadcasting Practice and the relevant requirements of Parts I to III of Broadcasting Act 1989.
Politicians have exactly same ability to lay a formal complaint as anyone else -- no more, but certainly no less.
I'd close with three observations:
1) Embarrassing or Irritating Politicians is not considered grounds for a formal complaint.
2) I've not noticed Helen Clark ever being short of an opportunity to lash media outlets that raise her ire -- because one thing you can rely on is that no media outlet will pass up the opportunity to head schedenfreude on the competition. And as Teddy Roosevelt famously pointed out, high political office is one hell of a bully pulpit.
3) And, finally, I'm not the first person to note that there sure seems to be a correlation between those Parliamentarians who bitch the loudest about media bias aren't terribly scrupulous about smearing others from behind the skirts of parliamentary privilege. And how often have we seen a piece of sin-sational sleaze get front page treatment, leading every radio and TV bulletin, because media outlets are covered by qualified privilege...
... but the qualification, when the scandal turns out to be as substantial as cotton candy in a monsoon,
-
WH,
If The Herald does have a bias, it doesn't seem to be political in nature
If I am understanding him correctly, Colin Espiner asserted that the paper has both a conservative tilt and a conservative agenda (ie, it is actively promoting the election of a National Government). I share that assesment. Espiner's response to DPF's Herald's statistics was the right one IMO.
I would add that the Herald's editorials are of an embarrassingly low standard. I'm sure there is a coherent conservative critique to be made of Government policy, but the Herald's confused leader writers seldom make it.
There are good conservative writers out there, but they are not writing for the Herald.
-
Hell, today we have Herald columnists using their columns to advise John Key how to lie to the public.
What happened to the media and journalists holding power to account?
-
Hell, today we have Herald columnists using their columns to advise John Key how to lie to the public..
Oh, yes, Fran was in particularly fine cock-sucking form today. Not.
If I am understanding him correctly, Colin Espiner asserted that the paper has both a conservative tilt and a conservative agenda (ie, it is actively promoting the election of a National Government). I share that assesment. Espiner's response to DPF's Herald's statistics was the right one IMO.
I would add that the Herald's editorials are of an embarrassingly low standard.
And I would add that I'll be a damn sight more impressed if Colin wants to take on the embarrasing lack of editorial standards on display at Fairfaz New Zealand. Sorry to keep banging on about it, but I think (at the very least) Cate Brett should have lost her job over the 'Operation Leaf' debacle, with her last act as editor of the SST being putting her signature on a groveling front page apology to Helen Clark. I'm just one of these cranks who thinks accusing security agencies of spying on the political enemies of the Government of the day is incredibly serious. And it not only wasn't true, but appears to have not gone through fundamental editorial filters.
-
1) Embarrassing or Irritating Politicians is not considered grounds for a formal complaint.
And yet we're led to believe either Key or the party complained directly to APN executives and extracted this mysterious, superfluous "clarification".
No journalist likes that kind of thing, and I suspect there are a few on the Herald staff feeling quite unhappy about it.
You can hardly hear yourself for people screaming "move along, nothing to see here" at Kiwiblog, but it is weird, and, as I said, DPF would be all over it if the shoe had been on the other foot.
3) And, finally, I'm not the first person to note that there sure seems to be a correlation between those Parliamentarians who bitch the loudest about media bias aren't terribly scrupulous about smearing others from behind the skirts of parliamentary privilege.
Or just stick it in their email newsletter, as McCully did to me.
-
I've linked before to the remarkable YouTube work of Amanda Baggs, a non-verbal autist, but Wired's story on her is occasion to do so again. Her In My Language video offers a profound truth about difference. If you haven't seen it before, take eight minutes and 35 seconds minutes and watch it. Quite seriously, you will never think the same way about thought again.
I know it's a cliche, but I'm almost lost for words having watched the Baggs video. I guess like many, I've not had a lot to do with people with autistic disorders and so have very limited insight into their thinking and this is quite a revelation. Not only is Baggs highly intelligent, but she's wise - wise enough not to be embittered by the failings of others however I feel somewhat humbled having seen this.
Thanks for reposting this Russell, I'd not seen it in previous posts and it's one of the more profound insights/experiences I've had in quite a while.
-
No journalist likes that kind of thing, and I suspect there are a few on the Herald staff feeling quite unhappy about it.
And I don't think many journalists like having their reputations being dragged into PR bitch-fights (and I think we've seen both Three and TVNZ confusing PR spin with news in recent months) or political bitch-fights.
In the end, my point is that can we just stop pretending that Colin Espiner or the EPMU are exactly disinterested observers here?
You can hardly hear yourself for people screaming "move along, nothing to see here" at Kiwiblog, but it is weird, and, as I said, DPF would be all over it if the shoe had been on the other foot.
If the shoe had been on the other foot, perhaps there'd also be a little more healthy scepticism shown around here if Jerry Brownlee was alleging Helen Clark personally tried to get a journo sacked, or monstered a whatever-the-fuck you call it out of a media outlet. (Which is different from saying Clark has a very aggressive media team that will do their best to get the appropriate angle on every story.)
I'm pretty sure you'd assume Murray McCully was full of shit until proven otherwise. :)
-
ironic, since I write spam filters
Interesting. I used to work at Marshall, though I wasn't the guy who did the constant incremental refinement on the spam filter.
-
Coming from the UK, I'm used to newspapers having a political position: the Telegraph is right-wing Tory, the Guardian is left-wing Labour and so on. But they have *eight* major national dailies, so you can more or less pick one that matches your political orientation and literacy level.
I think in a country with one paper per city, there has been a tacit agreement that newspapers at least pretend to be apolitical, no? (and that in return, the words "monopoly" aren't mentioned too much.)
This has always been a bit empty - all the papers have a tacit conservative authoritarian bias without being outright partisan. (e.g. the Dom Post led this morning with "Crims text messages wiped" - on a story that Vodafone are no longer providing police with the ability to browse through everyone's text).
Since the spring, it seems that even this convention has been dumped and the Herald is now fully lined up behind National. I'm not sure why; maybe it was felt that even with a new face and friendlier policies, the Nats could again choke at the last minute without a more solid peanut gallery behind them?
Post your response…
This topic is closed.