Posts by Sacha
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Hard News: The shaky ground of…, in reply to BenWilson,
because you'll probably lie
screws the aspies
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Hard News: The shaky ground of…, in reply to wasabicube,
Experience and skill in interpretation should be brought to bear by suitably qualified people
and there's the weakness
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Hard News: The shaky ground of…, in reply to Andre Alessi,
Many NZ organisations do not actually know who creates value for them. Accordingly they get rid of the 'unimportant' people who quietly raise everyone else's performance, glue the place together, and get on with their job in a non-chest-beating fashion.
Investing in - and insisting on - better managers would not only help our economy but reduce the social and personal damage that dunces with power cause.
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Hard News: The shaky ground of…, in reply to Bart Janssen,
Perhaps their greatest value is in identifying managers who should be made redundent.
Bravo
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Hard News: Jonesing, in reply to Rob Stowell,
Whose time was he wasting? Not just his own. Did he feel entitled to throw it away?
This
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Hard News: Jonesing, in reply to Stephen Judd,
..and Grey Power and the tertiary students' associations. The coalition was heartening.
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Hard News: Jonesing, in reply to Hilary Stace,
with all things Wellington seen as particularly negative
all things caucus, perhaps
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Hard News: Jonesing, in reply to nzlemming,
You're right and I apologise. Reckon Mallard makes a good Minister but poor opposition member. Closest equivalent is probably Murray McCully, on reflection.
However I fell into the trap of regurgitating speculation. Our lack of hard evidence to link to about Mallard and others undermining their caucus over the past few years is a natural conclusion of increasing 'access journalism'. Alex Coleman tackles that superbly beneath the Pundit post - can't link directly to his comment, so here it is:
I'm sort of aware of how the game is played. My point is that the way it is played has effects on both the output, and the 'game'.
It's all very well to criticise news consumers for being ignorant about how the news is produced, but the sort of transactions that occur in access journalism are real. Those relationships are mutually beneficial and it astounds me, frankly, to think that senior journalists appear to pay so little attention to the fact the politicians get something out of those relationships too. Or at least to minimise that benefit when criticised.
That's what I mean by 'carrying water'. There are loads of 'off the record' comments reported that are clearly in the interest of the politican to have out there. Reporting them is a decision made by journalists, and I'm certainly not disputiung that it's their call to make. In return, readers, (remember them?) are wanting insights into what is really going on. Un-named sources being reported uncritically, make getting that insight nigh on impossible much of the time. We don't know who is putting the message out. So what are we supposed to think? Of course we are going to speculate as to who and why.
I accept that I'm quite probably being very unfair, and even wrong. But that's the point. We, as consumers, are left in the dark about what is going on in terms of the transactions involved, and even the people involved. We don't just have to work out what the politicians are getting away with, we have to try and work out what the relationships are between individual journalists and politicians. That's not our fault for being ignorant, it's a reasonable reaction to the way the game is played in the bubble.
In this example, we have Jones seeking the leadership. His claim is that he will be able to hawl in the votes of the 800,000 and bring over those in National who don't like the pointy headed feminists and gays from the 'common room'.
In order to do that he wants to present an image right? Analysis of whether he could actually do that, is a different question, and one that requires polling us out here.
It's not about what journalists think about him, or what National party mps think about him. Because that question isn't really about Jones at all. It's about the electorate. It's about us ignorant folk out here and what we think about Jones. And we get our information from journalists.
So journalists play a huge roll in whether or not he would succeed. He needs a certain image to be portrayed, and the story to be framed in a certain way,and he is not an idiot. Right now, in a campaign for the leadership of course he is going to want a certain type of coverage. Which he seems to be getting. The idea that National fears him, fits the narrative perfectly. But whether or not they really do fear him, the question that needs analysis is 'do their reasons for fearing him stack up'? And that's a question that is about us out here, not what people in the bubble think about what we think, but what we actually think.
Journalists spend quite a lot of time telling us that such and such a politicain 'connects with us'. Maybe they do, maybe they don't, but that is a question answered by polling. When the bubble starts declaring that such and such is popular, that has effects. It's hard to quantify of course, but that's no reason to just ignore all this stuff.
It's these sorts of issues that feed the 'meme' that 'journalists are awful'. So I'm sorry I don't understand the trade, I try. I read a hell of a lot of journaslitic output, and follow several journo related things in the attempt. I'm a big fan of the things Jay Rosen talks about for example.
It's just frustrating that it seems, often, to be so needlessly an act of reading chicken entrails. Maybe that's all my fault, but there are elements of the 'trade' that don't help. A code book for users would help sometimes.
And again, I'm sorry if this comes across as being harsh. I love journalists. I love journalism. If I had to live in a society that only had one of 'the vote' or 'a free press' I'd take the free press every time. I know it's hard, and I respect the work you all do in spite of all that I've said here. But these are issues that bear thinking about and letting the consumers in on, surely?
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Hard News: Jonesing, in reply to Keir Leslie,
as well as he could
verily
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Hard News: Jonesing, in reply to Keir Leslie,
I think it’s disgraceful to call him a “bitch”
and that makes you a saviour of the left sir