Posts by Russell Brown
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Good morning.
Just to note that there's a new and more detailed post from the Law Commission, titled 'Who guards the guardians?', about what a new media regulator could look like and how it might act.
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Speaker: Who are the news media?, in reply to merc,
I wonder if all this is leading to the need to police KB and The Standard as far as the Electoral Commission is concerned?
And on that note ...
Referral of alleged breaches of the Broadcasting Act 1989 and Electoral Act 1993
On 27 February 2012, the Electoral Commission referred the following matters to Police:
Mediaworks for the broadcast of The Jono Project on TV3 on 4 November 2011, which in the Electoral Commission’s view was an election programme, contrary to section 70 of the Broadcasting Act 1989.
Five comments posted by members of the public on social media on election day, which in the Electoral Commission’s view were advising or intended or likely to influence any elector as to the candidate or party or referendum option for whom the elector should or should not vote, contrary to section 197(1)(g)(i) of the Electoral Act 1993.
As these matters are now with the Police, the Electoral Commission will not be commenting further.
I hope the police can give us more detail soon. This is quite interesting to some of us.
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Cracker: Dinner and a Show (Everybody’s…, in reply to Ian Dalziel,
That makes me feel so much more unreassured about the proposed PPP Charter Schools, Prisons and probably Hospitals and ACC coming down the pike…
Uh-huh. And it's not like there aren't plenty of case studies that demonstrate the risks of such an approach.
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Cracker: Dinner and a Show (Everybody’s…, in reply to Sacha,
However venues that size do not form a genuine market responsive to bookings. Need other ways to make sure the significant money invested in them is best spent in the interests of citizens and other interested parties.
And as I note above, PPPs don't tend to provide those ways.
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Cracker: Dinner and a Show (Everybody’s…, in reply to James Butler,
Here’s the thing: I’m still planning on forking out $130 tomorrow for a show there, and I’m sure it will be pretty much sold out, so why would they bother?
Well, yeah. You could see that as one of the perils of the kind of public-private-partnership through which Vector was built.
Everyone was freaking out about cost and delays in 2006. The Australian-owned operator QPAM presumably delivered on the terms of its contract. And now it has a 20-year hold on running the business (even though $68m of the $80m cost came from ratepayers' pockets), with no incentive to spend any more on the venue.
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Cracker: Dinner and a Show (Everybody’s…, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
It’s a huge pity the Workers Beer Company doesn’t have an NZ equivalent. There’s probably a rule in the Sale Of Liquor Act banning good beer from being sold at a major event.
A complicating factor there is that "pourage" rights are a non-trivial source of income for many events. The big guys can bid large for the right to serve drinks and then serve any old swill they like.
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Speaker: Who are the news media?, in reply to Scott Chris,
I see little point regulating the news media. (whom I understand to be any publication which generates revenue and provides a narrative of current events)
When North & South's editor refused to acknowledge that its 'Asian Angst' story was biased and hugely wrong in fact, it was the magazine's membership of the Press Council that provided vindication for those (including PA bloggers Keith Ng and Tze Ming Mok) who complained. An independent regulator found that the story was wrong -- and the magazine had to print that finding.
Even where a publication (example: NBR) does not make itself subject to the Press Council, the council may still rule on a complaint, and that has similar value.
The only practical regulation outside the normal constraint of the law that I can think of would be for any registered news media publication to be required to publish a constitutional declaration of intent so that they can be held accountable by those who subscribe to their version of “the truth”. At least that would create a *relative* standard by which to measure internal consistency.
Wouldn't a common standard be a better measure of consistency that letting every publication write -- and interpret -- its own fine print? I think individual codes and in-house ombudsmen are a good idea, but there's no compulsion to do that. Do you stop reading the only newspaper in your town because it doesn't have an internal ombudsman?
Let's say a newspaper publishes something wrong and harmful about you: are you going to mount a defamation action? Only if you have deep pockets, plenty of time and a strong stomach. The barrier for a Press Council complaint is far, far lower.
Or perhaps a news media organisation has breached your privacy or acted unethically in a way that falls short of a breach of criminal law. You have few (or no) means of holding them to account without an independent regulator.
Perhaps we're not talking about the same thing, though. The Law Commission is actually recommending an end to statutory regulation, as practiced to the Broadcasting Standards Authority, and I personally favour that. Independent industry regulation, as per the Press Council and the Advertising Standards Authority, makes more sense in a changing world.
I'm also inclined towards the Commission's proposal to avoid the expense (for both sides) and grief of full defamation action in favour of a tribunal system for less significant cases. Although that would have to be carefully designed to curb the obvious risk of vexatious complaints.
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Cracker: Dinner and a Show (Everybody’s…, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
Which begs the question – why are so many venues that have “live music” in the brief from the get-go acoustic disaster zones? Yes, I know it’s tricky but if I was promoter whose livelihood ultimately depended on happy punters…
I gather it's entirely fixable: install the proper acoustic panels.
But as you say, the company that built and manages the place should have known and done that in the first place.
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Cracker: Dinner and a Show (Everybody’s…, in reply to JacksonP,
The Specials were announced yesterday to play Shed 10 in April. I really enjoyed their gig here in 2009, but seriously hope they’ve go rid of the Green Heineken bartops, and World Cup paraphernalia.
All the fittings have been shipped to London for use in Hyde Park during the Olympics.
But I will take some convincing that that leaves Shed 10 as quality space for loud live music.
I'm not so fussed about The Specials anyway. Jerry Dammers' Spatial A.K.A Orchestra, on the other hand ...
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Cracker: Dinner and a Show (Everybody’s…, in reply to Greg Wood,
Which is to say, even though the sound is genuinely shit (Foo Fighters: I couldn’t even tell which song they were playing at one stage (yes, yes, ha ha) – although Massive Attack seemed to get it right)
As ever at Vector, it literally depends on where you stand. We watched Massive attack from seats along the side, near the disabled-access entrance (Fiona was on crutches at the time) and it was horrible. Insanely loud and distorted, to the point it made me angry being there. Meanwhile, down on the floor people were shouting “turn it up!”.
a shabby bar with a single ugly not-cold-enough fridge half-full of HIDEOUS AUSTRALIAN BILGEWATER that gets hand-poured (badly!) into a nasty-to-the-touch plastic cup that has stopped me going there ever again.
Oddly enough, they’ve now switched to Heineken and Monteith’s Pilsener, at a mere nine dollars a bottle.