Legal Beagle: Think it possible that you may be mistaken
394 Responses
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bmk, in reply to
It hasn't been done regularly though and Twitter, Facebook make it far easier for individuals rather than organisations to organise. In the past this could have been done too but it took a hell of a lot more work, effort and co-ordination which was why it was typically done by pressure groups rather than individuals.
The fact that individuals can easily also do it now is liberating but it also means I can see a world where there only needs to be a significant enough percentage to be offended by any statements for the advertisers to run for the hills. Then the next time they will be more risk-adverse placing their ads and so on.
My concern may be unfounded, but hearing the rationale of an advertiser's decision to withdraw has increased it.
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Craig Ranapia, in reply to
Let’s imagine we did as Graeme suggested: we rang RadioLive endlessly, to tell them how offensive what they did to Amy was, how wrong and offensive their views on rape were.
I've got a simple observation on that. Who has their fingers on the dump switch in this scenario? If you've answered that question correctly, let's stop fucking pretending that Jackson and Tamihere ever operated on a level playing field.
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giovanni tiso, in reply to
The wild-west atmosphere along with the many angry and unmoderated male voices creates a space in which most women don't feel safe.
Some of the comments have been extraordinary. They speak more of the men who wrote them than anything else, of course - but still.
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The number of women (and some men) on Twitter saying "that thread. I just can't" or variants thereof is pretty telling. If you don't want voices to be silenced this isn't exactly a perfect way to go about it.
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giovanni tiso, in reply to
And obviously if the offending comments were removed we'd reach an irony singularity.
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And where IS Graeme? Be careful what you wish for.
Very disappointing and depressing.
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giovanni tiso, in reply to
Let's imagine we did as Graeme suggested: we rang RadioLive endlessly, to tell them how offensive what they did to Amy was, how wrong and offensive their views on rape were.
We don't need to imagine it: the single people I've been trying to reach more insistently during the whole thing was RadioLive, and I encouraged others to do the same. Not a peep from them. Ever.
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Rob Stowell, in reply to
Possibly too late in a comments thread to ask this, but…
Does anyone here think that speech like that of Willie and JT should actually be banned? In the you-commit-a-criminal-offence-if-you-say-it sense?
And for those of you who answer “no”, why not?
I have trouble interpreting this question as having been asked in good faith.
Because noone has called for such speech to be banned.
Because many people have pointed out the distinction between 'the right to free speech' and the 'the right to say whatever you want on a radio show, free from all consequences' .
Because the differences between losing one's slot on Radio Live and facing a criminal conviction should be evident to a legal beagle.
And because no matter how often they're pointed out, you've failed to address these arguments. So meh. -
bmk, in reply to
We don't need to imagine it: the single people I've been trying to reach more insistently during the whole thing was RadioLive, and I encouraged others to do the same. Not a peep from them. Ever.
That is really bad. There does seem to be a real management problem going on at that station. A concerned query should always be answered. And the fact that you repeatedly tried contacting them and got no replies - does make me understand why you went to the advertisers.
I expressed my concern above about contacting advertisers, I do think a better option is first to contact the editor responsible for broadcasting the offensive speech. But if (as you did) you simply get no response then going to the advertisers may be the only possible option.
Once again my thinking is turning again. I'm really unsure so maybe best I leave it to those of you who at least can have the strength of conviction to argue their point.
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Rob Stowell, in reply to
Thank you to the women who have contributed. You are wonderful.
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Sacha, in reply to
everything will end up very bland and boring
Which is an argument for having strong public broadcasting, not just the commercial sort we're swimming in.
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Joe Wylie, in reply to
Because the differences between losing one’s slot on Radio Live and facing a criminal conviction should be evident to a legal beagle.
No longer the ‘legal beagle’, supporting his contributions with specific references to his legal knowledge. For me, Edgeler as freebagging public intellectual is, I’m truly sorry to say, pretty much indistinguishable from the standard self-important suburban crackpot.
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Supporters of the boycott of Radio Live and its advertisers were hoping to silence the speech of those they see as placing blame on victims of rape . . . .
Leaving aside the 'was there a boycott by advertisers of RadioLive or was there a boycott by consumers of advertisers' question -- no. I supported what Gio and others were doing because it was sending a great useful noisy message I agreed with. Yeah, maybe (and only maybe) it wasn't technical best principled practice in a world where our one goal is freedom of speech. But that's not the world we live in, and that's not my one goal. We live in a world steeped in a culture of rape that doesn't get discussed or challenged or combatted nearly enough; a world where I know too well what the shape of my keys feels like between my clenched fingers, where I want to weep if I hear the two words 'duct tape'.
So I felt that I was supporting an it's-about-time, let's-talk-about-this, loud-hailed statement, not a silencing. But if there was a tiny little bit of freedom-of-speech curtailment in there, well -- so? A larger, louder piece of speech was also heard. In a world with structural inequalities, I do not think this free speech thing is an inviolable monolith -- I'm down with a little bit of affirmative action, I reckon.
I'm also an editor, so I ask people to think about curtailing their speech every day. It's not that big a deal to me. Sometimes I even curtail it for them. Most of the time this is in the interests of trying to help maximize the impact other bits of their speech will have. Someone at RadioLive should have been playing this role for Jackson and Tamihere -- they weren't or didn't. A really awful thing was done to a caller, a really terrible non-apology was given, an attempt (Hooten) to discuss opposing positions was made, speech on the subject was then shut down. In this context, where not a lot of fruitful discussion was being had, and counter-arguments were not being heard, the effect of the advertisers pulling support from the programme and the station was a circuit-breaker that increased speech about the issues.
So, yeah, I guess I can sign up to: "Please don’t protest in a way designed to diminish the free speech of others, or at least be very careful before you do." But I think that's a very simplistic, and sad, and limiting, message to take away from what went on two weeks ago.
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Russell Brown, in reply to
Let’s imagine we did as Graeme suggested: we rang RadioLive endlessly, to tell them how offensive what they did to Amy was, how wrong and offensive their views on rape were.
I’ve got a simple observation on that. Who has their fingers on the dump switch in this scenario? If you’ve answered that question correctly, let’s stop fucking pretending that Jackson and Tamihere ever operated on a level playing field.
No, they didn't, and while they heard out some callers, they quickly dumped others who sought to put them on the spot. For a few hours, people were able to post comments under the online audio of the Amy interview, but that ability was removed. Mediaworks Radio CEO Belinda Mulgrew didn't make a statement in response until the following Monday.
My suspicion is that the non-apology from Willie & JT the day after the Amy interview wasn't talked through with management -- and it really did make things worse. The apology in the statement that announced they'd be standing down was, I suspect, drawn up for them (probably by the long-suffering Rachel Lorimer, who I'm sure hated the whole thing).
But the reason that statement eventually came was external pressure. The earnest entreaties Graeme imagines would not have got far, if only because the station seemed incapable of dealing with them.
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john Drinnan, in reply to
You are right about WJT non-apology not talked through . Also understand that Andrew Fagan Sean Plunkett apologies were also on their own bat - RL management missing in action
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Russell Brown, in reply to
I’m also an editor, so I ask people to think about curtailing their speech every day. It’s not that big a deal to me. Sometimes I even curtail it for them. Most of the time this is in the interests of trying to help maximize the impact other bits of their speech will have. Someone at RadioLive should have been playing this role for Jackson and Tamihere – they weren’t or didn’t. A really awful thing was done to a caller, a really terrible non-apology was given, an attempt (Hooten) to discuss opposing positions was made, speech on the subject was then shut down. In this context, where not a lot of fruitful discussion was being had, and counter-arguments were not being heard, the effect of the advertisers pulling support from the programme and the station was a circuit-breaker that increased speech about the issues.
Exactly. In the real world, there was a comprehensive editorial failure.
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Russell Brown, in reply to
You are right about WJT non-apology not talked through . Also understand that Andrew Fagan Sean Plunkett apologies were also on their own bat – RL management missing in action
Which is really unforgivable. And a matter, one would think, for that new Mediaworks board.
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A C Young, in reply to
It hasn’t been done regularly though and Twitter, Facebook make it far easier for individuals rather than organisations to organise. In the past this could have been done too but it took a hell of a lot more work, effort and co-ordination which was why it was typically done by pressure groups rather than individuals.
It was done pretty regularly though, it was done by family first, it was done the society for promotion of community standards and it was done by church groups.
It just didn't make the news because it was the world working in the way it always had.
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Craig Ranapia, in reply to
I’m also an editor, so I ask people to think about curtailing their speech every day. It’s not that big a deal to me. Sometimes I even curtail it for them.
Um, yes... I'm a semi-regular book reviewer for The Listener and arts/books editor Guy Somerset cut a joke from a recent piece because..he thought it was in rather bad taste and detracted from an otherwise solid piece. (On reflection, there was something else fatally wrong with it -- it just wasn't that funny.) I mildly disagreed with him, but didn't put up a good enough argument to change his mind.
Yeah, I guess my "free speech" was "repressed" (scare/sneer quotes intended), but I find that remarkably easy to live with.
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BenWilson, in reply to
I supported what Gio and others were doing because it was sending a great useful noisy message I agreed with. Yeah, maybe (and only maybe) it wasn’t technical best principled practice in a world where our one goal is freedom of speech.
Well said. Annamarama. There's something very odd about "that's a bit below the belt", when it comes to fighting rape culture.
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Deborah, in reply to
For me, Edgeler as freebagging public intellectual is, I’m truly sorry to say, pretty much indistinguishable from the standard self-important suburban crackpot.
Not for me. I think Graeme is wrong in this instance, but one of the reasons for engaging with him and his argument on this thread is that he's built up a long history of careful engaged thoughtful argument.
Many years ago, before I had even started on graduate study, I was at Philosophy seminar given by two eminent people at a top institution. They presented an argument to do with women and vulnerability to being victims and signalling, so the whole thing has kind of stuck in my memory. Their argument was profoundly flawed, and after engaging with the questions from the floor, after a while they said, "Ah... actually, we've gotten this wrong. We're going to have to go away and think about this a lot more."
Wow. Not often you see people do that.
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Andrew Geddis, in reply to
...but I’m pretty sure Professor Geddis would most definitely be unleashing the dogs of law if I went on the radio and made grossly defamatory allegations he faked research data, plagiarised other academics and coerced his students into fucking him for good grades.
Or, as we call it down here at Otago, did our jobs.
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BenWilson, in reply to
That's a very good article Anne R. I shouldn't have saved it up until this morning, though.
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Roger Lacey, in reply to
Does anyone here think that speech like that of Willie and JT should actually be banned? In the you-commit-a-criminal-offence-if-you-say-it sense?
Of course not. But I fully defend my right to protest about what they said. That includes e-mailing the radio station and their advertisers to bring to their attention what those two clowns said.
Radio Live handled the whole affair abysmally. Firstly they shut down comments on their website, they then removed the audio from their website and then said they would keep W&JT on air but remove ads so they could spout off for longer.
I never demanded they should be banned. I suggested to the management that they be stood down and meet with someone from rape crisis so they could have some idea of the depth of feeling their comments had generated. -
Further to my comment earlier asking why no one is speaking up to stop victims being silenced, maybe have a think about why that is.
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