Posts by Russell Brown
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Interesting: Crikey's Paul Barry reckons the Fairfax board might be happy to see Rinehart spit the dummy:
Supposing you had Genghis Khan and his army camped outside your gates, threatening to go home if you didn’t let him in for a bit of r-pe and pillage, what would you do? Hard question, eh? Well, not really.
And it’s no harder to decide what the Fairfax board should do in response to Gina Rinehart’s threat to sell her 19% stake if they insist on getting her to sign the pledge not to interfere in editorial policy.
It’s possible, of course, that a Gina withdrawal could open the way to a full takeover of the company by someone who might want to break it up and sell off the parts. But in the immediate term it would remove a huge amount of pressure that is currently destabilising Fairfax.
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Hard News: Strange days for journalism, in reply to Angus Robertson,
So you agree Fairfax is basically worthless in its current state. That is is unprofitable and unlikely to become viable.
And you seriously think Fairfax losing money year after year is a sustainable model? Okay …
The threat is to dump nearly 20% of the company on the market. That would simply destroy the stock.
She is a right wing nut job flush with $millions in loose change who wants a soapbox from which to espouse her views – I agree.
However Rinehart wants a BIG soapbox and Fairfax is a big unprofitable soapbox that needs lots of her cash. She wants to employ lots of journalists to espouse her views. She, and almost she alone, is in the position to save the jobs of Fairfax employees.
But institutional investors don't agree. They're concerned that turning Fairfax into Rinehart's vanity publishing house would destroy their equity.
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Hard News: Strange days for journalism, in reply to Angus Robertson,
Without Rinehart the shares would be worthless. Fairfax don’t make any money. The shares would become so worthless the company would probably be asset stripped and sold off piecemeal with thousands more people losing their jobs
That would certainly happen if she dumped her shares, yes. That’s the basis of the threat.
This “damage” has nothing to do with Rinehart. She does not control seats on the board that made the decision to downsize Fairfax operations.
And you seriously believe her campaigning has had no impact on the board’s decisions? Okay …
And these are strange days for journalism.
They are indeed, but don’t worry about that – because a scapegoat has been found. She is Australian, a mining magnate, has disagreeable politics, resembles a fat interstellar slug creature and apparently its her fault.
Oh, for god’s sake Angus. Rinehart wants to do away with Fairfax’s charter of editorial independence. She’s made plain that she will dictate editorial lines if she gets the opportunity. She wants to turn Fairfax into a megaphone for her commercial interests.
She is already promoting Andrew Bolt, an overtly racist columnist best known for his creepy denial of the “stolen generation”. She is currently enmeshed in a court action that will probably sent the editors of West Australian newspaper to jail for refusing to disclose their sources. (Her belief is that the paper spoke to her son, who she slapped with a gagging order.) She would use board power dictate an editorial line on climate change that is anti-scientific balderdash.
She has, according to her biographer, a contempt for journalism and journalists.
Yeah, I’d be a bit worried about someone like that controlling the majority of New Zealand’s newspapers. It would be delusional not to.
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Hard News: Strange days for journalism, in reply to Merrin Macleod,
Gina Rinehart has also just increased her already substantial investment in Network Ten – an interesting media mogul in the making.
"Interesting" is perhaps not the word I'd choose.
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Hard News: Hip Hop Voices 1: Meet the Kingpin, in reply to Simon Grigg,
To be fair too, there was loads of hip-hop happening in both South and West Auckland before Proud, and most of it had strong Polynesian roots – like the extended Three The Hard Way posse, based Henderson/Te Atatu, who were NZ hip-hop’s first superstars (with a Top 20 hit in Australia no le
Ha! In the little bit of interview with Tom Scott I have lined up to publish, he says that the first Auckland hip hop he was aware of was ... Three the Hard Way. And that all he knew about them was that they were "superstars".
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Hard News: If wishing made it so ..., in reply to Sacha,
To be fair, the Budget’s investment on rheumatic fever is big enough to make a significant difference (though I’d be surprised if it is as steep as that graph makes out). Ministry of Health details here.
Thanks for that. It was your earlier tweet that made me want to explore it a bit further to see what was fo' real.
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Hard News: If wishing made it so ..., in reply to Rob Stowell,
Brilliant ideas keep leaping forth from the top-notch thinkers in our govt, eh? Can’t wait for the details.
The early leader in the race to identify the most risible government gibberish. Jesus wept.
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Hard News: Friday Music: When there were…, in reply to Steve Barnes,
Those big dogfood cans, 100mm dia, are perfect for making a Cantena to improve wifi gain.
Oh cool. We did wok-fi -- worked absolutely brilliantly.
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Hard News: Hip Hop Voices 1: Meet the Kingpin, in reply to Simon Grigg,
Great piece Russell, I remember it well and we actually quoted a few pieces from it in the first OMC bio we sent around the world in 1996.
My small part in NZ pop music's greatest victory ...
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Hard News: Hip Hop Voices 1: Meet the Kingpin, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
The cover story (thanks Gio) is about where the whitebread people should send their kids, while your piece is about where they *don’t*.
Can’t deny that. But I should point out that Simon Wilson was delighted about having my story in the issue that the entire eastern suburbs buys.
The other thing that occurs to me is that at least the tables are based on NCEA results – which reflect the actual curriculum. Unlike national standards.