Island Life: An appetite for scandal
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He thought NZ's geographical isolation might also be partly to blame for its longevity here
Yup, it's an artefact of prohibition, and specifically the ability of NZ to interdict imported drugs and precursors. Meth and dope are the only drugs that don't rely on illegally imported substances and are thus cheaper here.
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TV1 or TV3 could choose to deliver news at 6 pm
I don't believe enough news happens in NZ to fill an hour, so the space has to be stuffed with trivia and beatups.
This mornings top 4 headlines in the Herald
- minor power cut in outer Auckland suburb
- insider trading case from five years ago
- armed blag at a dairy
- persistent heavy drizzle in AucklandThis mornings top 4 in the Guardian
- China becomes world's largest carbon emitter
- early release scheme for prisoners
- opposition proposals for GPs pay
- US offensive in IraqI think the Guardian would relegate 2/4 of the Herald's top stories to inside page 18. I don't think they cover heavy drizzle at all - it would lead to a lot of repetition..
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While I like the London newspapers I sometimes get a little shocked by their unashamed advocacy of some issues. I guess it is honest, but I kinda prefer them at least trying to hide it.
Anyway - saw Taking Liberties today at a local cinema. If you haven't heard of it, it basically catelogues all the changes Blair has made to civil/political human rights while in office as PM. It is a pretty depressing film, but worth watching, given how influential UK trends can be in NZ.
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I don't believe enough news happens in NZ to fill an hour, so the space has to be stuffed with trivia and beatups.
You don't really mean that do you? What you [perhaps] mean is that TV1 & TV3 don't have enough resources/commitment to go out and get the news/stories. I'm sure they could fill an hour if they really tried.
I've taken to watching Al Jazeera on Triangle, it really is quite amazing. Kind of like BBC World but from another perspective.
Why does Freeview have so few channels RB? Is there are limit to capacity? Surely not? Sky and overseas set top boxes have 100+ channels. Why don't they show Triangle or Al Jazeera on Freeview? -
I don't believe enough news happens in NZ to fill an hour, so the space has to be stuffed with trivia and beatups.
I'd agree, although the point that spending effort/money might uncover more NZ news. But I doubt the accountants would approve. Gossip is cheap to report news is expensive.
But there are more people on this planet than just those that live in or were born in NZ. Or are you suggesting that it ain't news unless there was a kiwi there?
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Since when has anyone south of Portsmouth been involved in a "blag"?
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Drizzle is such a toilet word. Like Dahl with his awful, coy, "pizzle". Just say "it's pissing down in Auckland as per bloody usual" and be done with it.
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What's the kiwi slang for robbery then?
Yes, more world news would certainly fill the hour. But how many non-sport reporters does NZ media usually have overseas? Three or four? So "foreign" news tends to be a bit detached - or it's a straight grab from ABC or CBS of a story that's trivial there and even more trivial 12,000km away.
And I think that it's better to be able to pick up a paper and know it's got an agenda then to have a basically conservative monopoly with a thin veneer of claimed impartiality.
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Not enough news in NZ? Of course there is. The newshounds just need to unblock their noses.
With a nod to the other thread, imagine this happening:
American Secretary of State / British Foreign Secretary says, before the Senate / Commons, that leading figures in business, with strong ties to previous administrations of both parties, are crooks. Not off the top of his head, but after a major investigation.
That's your lead story on CNN / BBC, and all over the media. Accompanied by pages of background, interviews, analysis, the works. Even our own networks in NZ would pick up their drama and run it. Well, it would be ready-made imported footage, no additional work required.
But when it happens yesterday, under our noses ... we barely bother with it. The stories are there, we just have to give a damn.
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Ralston got his butt kicked when he went after the Winston Peters Scampi story ... hence no-one bothers anymore ...
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this from http://www.nybooks.com/articles/20339 (hat tip: dr nabil zuberi) regarding similar concerns in the indian context seems relevant:
Nussbaum is right to say that the "level of debate and reporting in the major newspapers and at least some of the television networks is impressively high." In fact, India is one of the few countries where print newspapers and magazines, especially in regional languages, continue to flourish. But the most influential part of the Indian press not only makes little use of its freedom; it helps diminish the space for public discussion, which partly accounts for what the philosopher Pratap Mehta calls the "extraordinary non-deliberative nature of Indian politics."
On any given day, the front pages of such mainstream Indian newspapers as The Hindustan Times and the Times of India veer between celebrity-mongering—Britney Spears's new hair-style—and what appears to be "consumer nationalism"—reports on Indian tycoons, beauty queens, fashion designers, filmmakers, and other achievers in the West. Excited accounts of Tata, India's biggest private-sector company, buying the Anglo-Dutch steelmaker Corus make it seem that something like what The Economic Times, India's leading business paper, calls "The Global Indian Take-over" is underway. Largely reduced to an echo chamber, where an elite minority seems increasingly to hear mainly its own voice, the urban press is partly responsible for a new privileged generation of Indians lacking, as Nussbaum points out, any "identification with the poor."
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I've heard of Paul Holmes...wasn't he a television guy once? Or was it radio? Nah, TV for sure. Or was he famous for being on the Woman's Weekly cover - nose dived an aeroplane or something. Maybe he was a pilot. That's it! Pilot. Like John Travolta. Was he ever in an ad for Breitling? Did he give his undies to the head of TVNZ under the table at lunch? Sex tape - I hope not - doesn't seem the sort we want to see in infra red. Darn, it's bugging me now - he seems so familiar.
....was he one of the 9/11 pilots?
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