mountain slopes of the Brecon Beacons

Heh, I love the use of the word 'mountain' to describe the Beacons. Many an ambush have I set as a boy in the Brecon Beacon bracken though.

I wonder where Roland Barthes is buried. Is his monument in the shape of a laundry truck? Call me obsessed but I have also visited the graves of Sartre and Wittgenstein.

Having mentioned in passing the NYT's shameful obit of Derrida, I should point out again the genius of the…

Hats off. If you're going to take acid anywhere ...

Looks like it'd be awesome.

I wonder if Antonioni's dusty hippies were still there, fucking uncomfortably in the dirt?

Yeah, bit like turning up at Woodstock five years late and rolling around amongst the cows.

"In 1975 he took LSD at Zabriskie Point in Death Valley National Park, later calling it the best experience of his life."

OMG. I wonder if Antonioni's dusty hippies were still there, fucking uncomfortably in the dirt?

"In 1975 he took LSD at Zabriskie Point in Death Valley National Park, later calling it the best experience of his life."

Hats off. If you're going to take acid anywhere ...

The story: We detoured via Pandy (close by Offa's Dyke on the Welsh border on a trip to Port Merrion in 2004)

Lovely part of the country. As a young man, I spent a day at Portmeirion on LSD. Although I suppose that was more surrealist than post-modernist.

So... do you want us to beg? Is that how you operate?

What me? Never!

The story: We detoured via Pandy (close by Offa's Dyke on the Welsh border on a trip to Port Merrion in 2004) I couldn't find Raymond William's old home so we had lunch at the…

all kinds of dodgy

— and yet, strangely, still not as dodgy as Joe's classic phrase

"wankfest on stilts"

— that's really dangerous, when you think about it,
people tossing themselves off from a great height.

Just another tool in the academic tool-box.

Still, pretty useful if you are looking at oppression, or marginalised groups – along with other great thinkers like Freire and Marx. What they say still seems to resonate with each new generation – just take out the sexist language etc, and apply…

I have a wonderful story about visiting his home village of Pandy in wales.

So... do you want us to beg? Is that how you operate?

I gave you nothing less than a Stanley Link fish. Kindly avail yourself of it

I think I agree with him, but I'm currently busy trying to work out if there;s a cat in my box, or not.

The man wrote a delightful little essay some years ago called Is…

I gave you nothing less than a Stanley Link fish. Kindly avail yourself of it.

I think I agree with him, but I'm currently busy trying to work out if there;s a cat in my box, or not.

Better written than Phelan, at any rate.

Hey, I'm as up for discussing the creation of meaning as the next guy.

Does that mean we're just skipping past the meaning of creation, then?

I gave you nothing less than a Stanley Link fish. Kindly avail yourself of it.

Ooh. That was nice. Thank you.

and then I felt dirty

Was it the laundry van that did it? I just LOLd

Sorry, had to be done.

Totally agree.

What little exposure I've had to post-structuralism has left me with a hankering for a first-person-shooter-type game where you drive a laundry van through the streets of Paris, scuttling stray semioticians.

I LOLed, and then I felt dirty.

I just don't understand why they have to write so badly and have such narrow and intransigent politics.

Yes, uhm. You know what *they* are like.

I gave you nothing less than a Stanley Link fish. Kindly avail yourself of it.

Oh, goody, is it the point where we get to discuss postmodernism as a cultural condition in arts and society vs. postmodernism as an attitude to culture and knowledge?

I think so. Although I tend to think of it as practical postmodernism rather than theoretical ...

Hey, I'm as up…

On the contrary, I'm in total agreement.

In yo' face Sacha! Smacked down bitch!

Sorry, had to be done.

I can never work which is the more postmodern: hip hop or house?

Oh, goody, is it the point where we get to discuss postmodernism as a cultural condition in arts and society vs. postmodernism as an attitude to culture and knowledge? I generally collapse and pretend to be dead…

That's hilarious. You're not deliberately trying to get Giovanni's blood pressure up are you?

On the contrary, I'm in total agreement. Some segments of the Daily Show, where they take the latest piece of the political or media theatre and widen the lens to put it in the context of…

"Though if we're talking about post-modernism in the media then there is a bit of analysis on TV about that. The Daily Show does it fairly often."

That's hilarious. You're not deliberately trying to get Giovanni's blood pressure up are you?

See:

Jon Stewart: the prototype postmodern news anchor

From…

Though if we're talking about post-modernism in the media then there is a bit of analysis on TV about that. The Daily Show does it fairly often.

That's hilarious. You're not deliberately trying to get Giovanni's blood pressure up are you?

Except Foucault wasn't a post-structuralist.

Well I can't claim to be a Foucault expert at all. He's certainly been called that, but I note that wikipedia says he rejected both that label and postmodernist (which makes we wonder if he just didn't want to be labeled at all).

But OK.…

This one from Joseph Young. Firmly in the comments era.

My very first PAS comment is in that thread.

As you were.

If you mean cultural theories in relation to Foucault, we should probably say post-structuralism.

Except Foucault wasn't a post-structuralist. He was more a member of the old French history of science school, a la Gaston Bachelard. And the other interesting thing is that Foucault and Theory in general are, I…

Sacha, agreed on the outsourcing issue. When I first joined the Listener, there was a chief sub and a deputy editor — Tom McWilliams and Geoff Chapple — who helped steer me and other new writers. Tom, especially, was legendary for his patient tutoring.

Tom: best sub ever. And sadly,…

Maybe I wasn't paying attention when the big tv shows about postmodernism and other cultural theories were screened.

Well there's plenty of TV shows about postmodern art and architecture and literature.

If you mean cultural theories in relation to Foucault, we should probably say post-structuralism. And it would be difficult…

Academics reconstruct their academic work for a more popular audience all the time.

Belich is a good example, yes. Maybe I wasn't paying attention when the big tv shows about postmodernism and other cultural theories were screened. I guess Allain De Botton counts?

They're hoping that the rest of it — such harder to pin down qualities as news judgement — are either something you're born with or something that seeps in by being exposed to it in a newsroom.

I agree with Russell that there are increasing limitations to learning on the…

That sounds allllll kinds of dodgy.

It was never meant not to.

And Stephen was Nailing It back then too!

That sounds allllll kinds of dodgy.

I thought Thomas's paper was very good. I think it showed that those who teach journalism…

An honest argument, no. The kind of deeply dishonest and puerile invective ("stop with the Iraq war aready! It's so boooring!") that we have come to expect from our esteemed editorialists and columnists? Not so much.

Curiously enough, the Herald has always been anti-Iraq war.

I remember when in 2003,…

Trotter says:

The “professionalisation” of journalism, with its university degree courses and formal examinations, has come at…

Surely it doesn't hurt anyone to read an argument that is in conflict with their own perspective?

An honest argument, no. The kind of deeply dishonest and puerile invective ("stop with the Iraq war aready! It's so boooring!") that we have come to expect from our esteemed editorialists and columnists?…

Nope. This one from Joseph Young. Firmly in the comments era. (Had to find it with Google!).

Ah, that one. It gets hard to remember. I certainly wasn't a believer in Blair, but it was useful to to present an energetic argument against what was the dominant belief in the…

Kyle, I agree, but I'm saying nobody is writing for the non-academic audiences.

Based on what? Academics reconstruct their academic work for a more popular audience all the time.

In my area of interest, Jamie Belich presented his own, and other people's research in a reasonably good, and popular TV…

Oh yeah: this one from Joseph Young.

Nope. This one from Joseph Young. Firmly in the comments era. (Had to find it with Google!).

People who teach journalists do worry about craft, and they have a right to.

Of course, but nobody is saying we ought to stop teaching journalist how to write. At the same time, I don't think the standard of writing is what's wrong with journalism in New Zealand, the problems…

Vague as hell (although I'm sure she is less so in her actual research). The Phelan piece was a lot more concrete and to the point.

Fair enough then. I'm over being (ahem) curmudgeonly about Phelan's paper, which doesn't mean I believe he has proved his point, still less questioned…

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/2315570/Just-do-it-sex-call-sparks-womens-fury

I believe that students still require training in the skills of journalism but this must be coupled with a broad social knowledge and an understanding of how journalism contributes to the production and…

The arts of media practice require us to master three kinds of knowledge.

• We need a body of professional knowledge, including production skills. Above all else, we must be…

I just came across this, in an old essay by W. J. Cameron:

What is to be deplored is ... the general tendency to foreshorten history, to isolate geographically or culturally ... Present-mindedness, nationalism, parochialism, and anti-intellectualism abound in [New Zealand], and it useless to…

"Every journalist who is not too stupid or…

I am thinking, for example, of Galtung & Ruge's analysis of the factors which determine 'news value'; which is a good starting point for examining conventional wisdom and self-confirming practice in journalism.

Crossed my mind to give a thumbs-up to that when you mentioned it earlier. Having done a rather mediocre…

This is being rolled out in Canada next year. If it ever makes it to NZ at a sensible price, it'll offer most of the functionality of current fibre, with a portable device.

I wonder if this…

It's that journalism is both pervasive (one might even say hegemonic) and oddly unreflective as a profession

Well put. One could also say than many journalists are overly defensive when their practice/world view is challenged (the accusation that they 'can dish it out but can't take it'). There are, are…

life experience is far more useful when you're face to face with the mother of a dead child than an understanding of what some French philosopher has to say on deconstructionalism [sic].

Right, but I'd like it if trainee journalists were exposed more to the question of why such stories…

postmodernist thinkers (itself a pretty limiting label, but it will do in the context of this discussion), that complaint is used in a blanket manner,

Good point, Giovanni. As much as I am enjoying this conversation, I do have problems with the use of postmodernism or po-mo as a catch-all…

postmodernist thinkers (itself a pretty limiting label, but it will do in the context of this discussion), that complaint is used in a blanket manner,

Good point, Giovanni. As much as I am enjoying this conversation, I do have problems with the use of postmodernism or po-mo as a catch-all…

Phelan's discourse is messy but it is not beautiful.

I agree.

The plight was highlighted by a family that was asked to remove their child from an Auckland school last week because it did not have the resources or knowledge to cope, a principal…

Sometimes "clarity" does not illuminate the messy beauty of the world, despite its tempting reassurance of truth.

Ah yes, of course, it is all too difficult to talk about in terms we can understand. F.O. to that: if you can't make a point clearly, you don't have a point.

Phelan's discourse…

Academic papers aren't normally written for a non-academic audience...

Kyle, I agree, but I'm saying nobody is writing for the non-academic audiences. It's a waste when good thinking is walled off from most of the population, only to erupt confusingly like the paper that started this conversation.

That's a bigger…

Hello,

Kareem Dale, Special Assistant…

I reckon dense academic wankery reflects lack of ability or time more than a desire to obscure or to preserve an exclusive club.

I think someone has said this before, but I'll repeat in paraphrase.

Academic papers aren't normally written for a non-academic audience, so there's no point taking the…

As for those comments about journalists or historians writing history. The more history the better I say – all the more…

We don't ask it of physicists, please oh Mr Einstein could you make relativity easier to understand

Good point – and look how many decades it took for quantum experts to catch up with some of his ideas.

The comparison with Einstein is not just, because everything in Relativity is mathematical. Its claims can be demonstrated or disproved. The same could not be said of Derrida or any philosopher.

"... that complaint is used in a blanket…

It takes more work and skill to find simple words (and it is something I really want to get better…

I suspect that some theorists are just using difficult words to sound clever and to conceal the paucity of their thinking.

No doubt. But there are people like that in any field of endeavour, using the specialist's language as a bludgeon. In the case of postmodernist thinkers (itself a pretty…

What I value most from the cultural theorists I've tangled with is the understanding that culture is negotiated, and is never context-free. I just wish there were more simple ways of saying that.

Well, you put it pretty simply, didn't you? By the same token, teasing out context, what context…

In this easy-to-follow seven-step Instructable, you will learn how to turn a weightless virtual commodity into a lovingly handmade piece of artisanal craftwork fated to collapse into…

*I only said that so Gio would splutter. Italianly. Because that's where he's originally from.

Hah!

It's also why the only history books anyone actually reads are usually written by journalists. :)

Thank you Thank you Thank you for the most uplifting comment I've seen all week.

(OK, I'm a journalist in the middle of trying to write a history book and wondering whether its worth…

as for what danielle was referring to, the most dangerous situation is often when someone is writing about something they think they know pat. that way lies the tar pits.

I think it's safe to say that historians don't think they know anything pat. That's why they're always arguing with…

do think having some key historical narratives in your head is useful in doing many kinds of journalism

Absolutely agree.

And the point of the pomo theory brigade is surely that those narratives themselves need examination from time to time. How were they shaped? Whom do they serve? Do the…

yeah, sure, but I think we're talking about different things here. I was replying to danielle's 'knowing history' line.

for mine, life experience is far more useful when you're face to face with the mother of a dead child than an understanding of what some French philosopher has to say…

still, wouldn't want to do anything else. I even got to go on a ghost hunt this year. dead 'ard news me these days.

anyway, thar she blows.

cheery-bye.

it all comes down to time and i guess a sense of responsibility to your audience

Quite. I really do feel for journos these days having to balance community accountability, professional pride and established standards against the same pressure to deliver timely content in the face of steadily diminishing resources.

everyone brings their own when they're writing, as well as that of the contact list they have assembled.

it all comes down to time and i guess a sense of responsibility to your audience, as with everything, that will differ widely…

oddly enough, not even the most clever clogs of journos is a card carrying mastermind on every subject they're tossed at.

I'd be happier if they did a little more research to find out, rather than parroting the talking points in the press release.

for mine, life experience is far more useful when you're face to face with the mother of a dead child than an understanding of what some French philosopher has to say…

it's impossible to know the background of every story you're asked to write

If I'm following:

The point here isn't about their context. It's being aware of yours.

If writing "Derrida, etc." isn't a sign of antipathy, I don't know what is, and you're more than entitled to it, but I think it speaks to Phelan's argument some.

I don't see how you can claim that, given Phelan himself uses the phrase "the insights of critically engaged thinkers…

To be fair, Giovanni, there are some writers who have discussions informed by theory without the theory being so in your face. Pomo is a bit self-consciously confronting like that – and excessively turgid at times, which I wonder isn't partly a cross-cultural phenomenon in itself.

One of my tutors…

Phelan sneers at practitioners, but no activity would exist without its practitioners. Academic theory is only an interpretation of practice. What Phelan appears to want is influence over practice, a desire which is beyond the normal bounds of academic work.

It does strike me that many PoMo theorists talk about…

oddly enough, not even the most clever clogs of journos is a card carrying mastermind on every subject they're tossed at.

history and context can be dug from our archive

OK, now you're making *me* splutter.

the wankery scale

Like the Dick-o-meter...

history and context can be dug from our archive, nous and empathy have to be learned yourself.

But then again, some bastard…

THIS BLOODY CONVERSATION that I always seem to end up having with people.

Perhaps I'm cycnical, but I like this from the linked comments:

a lot of rubbish or obfuscation is talked by art people – but some of the rubbish is better rubbish than others...

Having said which, I…

Bugger the postmodernists*: I'd just like young journalists to know useful contextual things like history. It helps.

I think there's also great benefit in either working outside the bubble before starting in journalism, or taking a break and doing something else in the course of a career.

To say that…

the wankery scale

Ooh! A chance to use Joe's 'wankfest on stilts'!

Bugger the postmodernists*: I'd just like young journalists to know useful contextual things like history. It helps.

*I only said that so Gio would splutter. Italianly. Because that's where he's originally from.

I think sometimes academic cultural theorists don't go far enough to see their own tribes as a culture of their own.

Ya think?

;-)

can't quite remember, but he was deconstructing some French phrase – did everything put put the poor thing in a figure four leg lock.

as for us...

millions died.

Derrida has some useful ideas, but really, I'm sure 99.9% of people would rate him extremely high on the wankery scale.

Yeah. I warrant that 0.01% of them has read him though.

Now excuse while I go bang repeatedly my head against the desk and remind myself (if I'm still…

Ahem. Could way just say I found them more lucid, broad-minded and persuasive?

Sure. Am I allowed to question their broad-mindedness, and yours? If writing "Derrida, etc." isn't a sign of antipathy, I don't know what is, and you're more than entitled to it, but I think it speaks to…

anyway theory makes my brian hurt...

theatre...

for god's sake.

You newspaper types just have no fortitude for theory.

Or it could just be that Easton and Geering are well versed in theories that you find less threatening and more comfortable (ie *not* Derrida, etc.).

Ahem. Could I just say I found them more lucid, broad-minded and persuasive?

for god's sake.

But I preferred the interview section of the book: the likes of Brian Easton and Lloyd Geering, independent thinkers the both, provided wide-ranging and nuanced insights. By comparison, Simmons and Stephen Turner seemed stuck in a very fixed set of ideas (despite Turner's shock-and-awe prose). Derrida etcetera ...

Or it…

I think Foucault was a really bad historian who put his theory ahead of the facts for his benefit.

Based on which of his histories, out of curiosity?

The essay is entitled "A Short History of 'the New Zealand Intellectual'" and appears in the book Speaking Truth to Power, ed. Laurence Simmons (Auckland, AUP, 2007), pp.25-67.

The full title of the book is Speaking Truth to Power: Public Intellectuals Rethink New Zealand . I'm interested in the ground…

Certain disciplines are more likely to provide relevant theory about the topic.

And that is likely to mean disciplines which focus on meaning, culture and power – sociology, politics, cultural studies and so on. Physics, less likely – except quantum ones. Now how did we get back there?

Reading the discussion of "The journalist & the 'tosspot'," I thought it might be useful to mention an essay I wrote that…

As I said during the session on future of…

How about Barthes, for a start. He kills the author and so demands privilege for the critic as an interpreter of meaning.

So, the idea that we should go beyond "the works of Balzac" and the unique psychology of Balzac, but rather look at the times of Balzac, the cultural…

Its merit there was presented as a given, and I didn't think that argument was good enough.

Oh for Pete's sake. If you can't see that maybe studying media thoery might have some relevance for media professionals, than what's the point? To you they might as well be studying physics,…

New Zealand is really too small for such parochialism.

We like to think big and include the parochialism like a big country does :)

Yes, thanks. I must have had this conversation two hundred times in this country and it was never except in defence of the fact that theory has *some* merit. Wish it didn't have to be said, to be honest.

But the issue was the degree to which theory — and…

So, how about that Battlestar Galactica, then?

Geoff, Geoff, Geofff – people don't pass through Hamilton at all, they only pass by

Well, you won't be getting any feijoas--other than those hurled in your direction as you pass by.

Seriously, though--can we have an end to snide remarks about Hamilton (and Palmerston North and Timaru) as they…

And I would argue there is a tendency in this country – and seen in these very forums at times – to regard the de-merits of theory as beyond debate.

Yes, thanks. I must have had this conversation two hundred times in this country and it was never except in…

There's a tendency to regard the merits of theory as beyond debate.

And I would argue there is a tendency in this country – and seen in these very forums at times – to regard the de-merits of theory as beyond debate. Neither position is helpful.

It does strike me that many PoMo theorists talk about power and privilege in derogatory terms while demanding power and privilege for themselves.

Yeah, like for instance the guy with the hair and the arms, what's his name, you know, the one who wrote the book...

Seriously: whom?

It does strike me that many PoMo theorists talk about power and privilege in derogatory terms while demanding power and privilege for themselves. They will not even let authors speak for themselves; only the opinions of the theorists matter.

Thanks, that was what I was getting at. There's a tendency…

If anyone is passing through Hamilton East,

Geoff, Geoff, Geofff – people don't pass through Hamilton at all, they only pass by

:-p
(Go the 'Canes!)

I suppose I'm thinking of the Christchurch course, where I think Norris, Zanker and Pauling do provide their students with a flow of challenging ideas.

I agree. Indeed, I think it is the best journalism course in the country. I don't teach journalism (I teach about journalism), so I can…

I sure know which one of those I see most often. Some are more obvious like the smugly obedient editorial asides on TV1's "news",…

I don't think I'm in the tribe of academics, or post-modernists, or Marxists. On the other hand, there's the tribe of journalists...

Guilty as charged, quite possibly. But, as explored in this week's Media7, it's the likes of Phil Kitchin and Nicky Hager we rely on to speak truth to…

argue its merits, rather than merely mounting a tribal defence

I don't think I'm in the tribe of academics, or post-modernists, or Marxists. On the other hand, there's the tribe of journalists...

It's obviously a metaphor for the food industry inflitrating and subverting from within your means of meaning making. Liminally.

Rofflenui

You come back with 300 words about the perceived symbiotic relationship between cats and trees in post structural economic theory with regard to Global warming.

...and that might make more interesting reading than "the local fire brigade arrived"

Yes, but surely we don't also want them to be trained up into merely consenting to and replicating the myths perpetuated by folk like du Fresne (eg "the marketplace of ideas"--which is a claim ripe for unpicking and unpacking).

No, we don't. And I was meaning to be provocative, so…

What's postmodernism's special claim on journalism training?

If you turned up for your first day at the Levin Chronicle and the chief reporter said, there's a cat stuck up a tree and we need 300 words by lunchtime

You come back with 300 words about the perceived symbiotic relationship between…

I'd've loved some grandiose philosophising on my course, Wtgn Poly 1995, but really other than shorthand – praise be – we were more focused on how you avoid being sued.

but short courses such as mine have to be focussed on practical isses -…

I suspect it is part of a pretzel!

It's obviously a metaphor for the food industry inflitrating and subverting from within your means of meaning making. Liminally.

the very last thing we would want young people in communications jobs to do is emulate such a style.

Yes, but surely we don't also want them to be trained up into merely consenting to and replicating the myths perpetuated by folk like du Fresne (eg "the marketplace of ideas"--which…

the very last thing we would want young people in communications jobs to do is emulate such a style.

Yes, but surely we don't also want them to be trained up into merely consenting to and replicating the myths perpetuated by folk like du Fresne (eg "the marketplace of ideas"--which…

So maybe it's worth interrogating the structure of the thing, and if practicioners were encouraged to do it themselves when they're learning the trade, it might be a good thing.

Of course. But Phelan hasn't demonstrated that that doesn't already happen, or considered to what extent it does.

I remain…

Go on, argue its merits, rather than merely mounting a tribal defence.

I thought we had, to be honest – Philip, Stephen, Geoff, myself, in what I thought were fairly reasonable terms. I'm not going to mount a paragraph by paragraph defence for Phelan, not having all day and all,…

No doubt Paul Litterick will correct me, but I bet that art schools have valuable staff members who nonetheless cannot produce compelling works of art themselves.

It doubt it's that Phelan is incapable of communicating effectively, more that he is subject to a cultural expectation to be long-winded. Either way,…

Should it have to refer to the the reality of training courses — ie, how much theory is currently taught? what kind? — if it's to mount an argument for an increase in…

I am struck by how defensive some of you are in response to criticism of the paper, and by the readiness to offer excuses for its lamentable style.

Right back at ya. Only 100% reversed :-)

Actually, the genius of Phelan's article is that it produces reactions from journalists that prove the point he tries to make, which is that they hate theory that goes beyond craft.

Personally, I've been taking a strong position to try and flush out a discussion that might be useful where…

This is not the same thing as columnists having to like longwinded…

It sometimes seems to me that this kind of writing, which purports to employ a wide and sophisticated vocabulary, actually tends to revolve around a very restricted set of jargon-words that serve more as a signal to others in the club than to convey real meaning.

The audience matters. In…

Phelan's academic claptrap is a scourge upon journalism and writing. This kind of incoherent posturing also does academia no favours. It may pass 'peer review' – of course – but would it pass…

Come to that, all courses that purport to lead to "media" type jobs should have a health warning:
__Half the bright young things in…

What's postmodernism's special claim on journalism training?

It has quite a few special claims in terms of illuminating how integral to the articulation of power journalism is. But it doesn't have to be postmodernism, or Foucault – there are a lot of theorists that can be usefully brought to bear,…

Dunno about you, but the stuff in Discipline and Punish wouldn't just have occurred to me, and it's not transmitted by cultural osmosis either.

But you might say the same of classics, or physics. Or Hayek, for that matter. What's postmodernism's special claim on journalism training?

But at any rate…

What's so great about Foucault?

This Foucault?

SSC deputy stands down
By TOM PULLAR-STRECKER – The Dominion Post
Last updated 16:44 02/04/2009

Deputy State Services Commissioner Laurence Millar has resigned after being criticised by an independent review of the commission's dealings with a privately-owned consulting firm.

The inquiry was announced in December, after The Dominion Post…

How can you learn to be a journalist in 6 months?

it wasn't intended to turn out trained journalists. just people ready to be trained on the job. any longer and they might have started to read Foucault.

It was a six month course.

How can you learn to be a journalist in 6 months?

How can you learn to be anything in six months?

1. Du Fresne is a lap dog of the establishment.
2. Trotter is a mutt, but he still expects to be fed.
3. Journalism schools are dog breeders.
4. Media7 are show…

"if the poor dears haven't read Foucault, how can they really know what's going on?"

Conversely, are you saying we don't need to bother our pretty little heads with important contemporary thinkers because we'll come to the same levels of insight in the course of our forty hour week and…

But he never even attempts to demonstrate that that is in fact the case, beyond saying, effectively, "if the poor dears haven't read Foucault, how can they really know what's going on?"

eh?
nah, he isn't saying that at all. he says journalism courses need to:

reflect on, firstly, how…

The academic study of journalism doesn't have much point if its insights don't influence journalists. Current journalist training, which focuses on practice, shies away from looking at the effects which journalistic practice has on society.

But he never even attempts to demonstrate that that is in fact the case, beyond…

what's left is quite reasonable

nice piece of distillation, Mr. Judd.
as a distant observer of nz news media, i don't think it is stretch to say that a lack of self-awareness of perpetuating existing power structures is rife. (sort of remniscent of the unreality of the 2002-2003 lead-up to…