Posts by Russell Brown
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I’m fascinated by this too Philip, although for slightly different reasons.
I first became aware of the “next conflicts” phrase on Monday afternoon, when it was tweeted by Selwyn Manning, with a link to a copy of the official transcript on the 36th Parallel website he runs with Paul Buchanan. I retweeted it, and was a little surprised by the lack of response to what seemed to me to be an extraordinary statement.
I decided I’d write a short post about it for Tuesday morning, when I needed to be away by about 8am to get to the airport for a meeting in Wellington (the flight wasn’t til 9.30 but I was determined not to be rushing). I wrote part of it, finished it early Tuesday morning and announced it with a tweet:
“New post: The most disturbing thing John Key said at the Pacific Islands Forum. And hardly anyone noticed: pubadr.es/8149”
The tweet got a much stronger response than my RT of Selwyn’s message had the previous day. That included replies from two journalists who had directly covered Key’s remarks on Sunday: Radio New Zealand’s Megan Whelan and NZ Newswires’ Laura McQuillan. They were both sure that Key hadn’t said what he was reported in the transcript as saying.
I immediately annotated the blog post, and both Megan and Laura offered to send me the clip in question from their own recordings. My own departure time ticked past, but I didn’t feel I could leave the house with this unresolved. Laura tried to send me the clip from her phone, but it didn’t work. Eventually, Megan emailed hers through, I posted it in the comments, wrote a new intro for the blog post and fired out another tweet saying it as loudly as possible: Key clearly, very clearly, had not spoken the words in the transcript.
Should I have dismissed the possibility that a comment like this would go unreported by New Zealand journalists? Perhaps. But this was a State Department transcript. By the time I read it, it had been widely circulated and by Tuesday morning it had been in place for a day. No one appeared to have directly contested it.
It was understandable that journalists with their own sources wouldn’t have relied on the State transcript – but did this mean no one in the press bothers to look at official transcripts? And more to the point, that no one at all in government does? Even after the false quote was tweeted and debated on Monday? I have more than 9000 Twitter followers, and Selwyn and Martyn Bradbury, who also commented, have a few too.
No one, it seemed, noticed until I actually established that the quote was false. Had I had time, I’d have re-written the post entirely, around what was now clearly the real angle – the transcription practices of the State Department and the potentially damaging error they had produced. (I think everyone agrees that the PM’s diction isn’t at fault in this instance.)
The story ended up getting quite a bit of coverage. The TV3 online guys were first, with a story that mentioned me, followed by the Herald, with one that didn’t (and seemed to suggest the problem had been noted independently) and one on Stuff that misspelled my name. One News and 3 News both covered it that evening.
It wasn’t so much the non-mention of my name that slightly irked me, as the absence of the context in which this gaffe became clear. It appears that no one noticed there was a problem until I wrote something. It’s hard not to wonder how many other times this has happened. It casts some doubt on the quality of State’s information outreach and the attentiveness of people in our own government.
Anyway, I left the house half an hour late, encountered school traffic, roadworks and a showstopping smash on the motorway ahead of me and despite my most athletic efforts at the airport, missed the flight closure by about a minute. I was fucked off. I jumped back on Twitter and semi-jokingly expressed the view that State had made me miss my plane, which Alec Ross didn’t seem to take in good part. In retrospect, I guess he was never going to see the funny side.
Oh, and that’s the original clip at the top of this comment, if anyone missed it.
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Hi folks. Back in town. Might have to write about this in the morning.
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Now that I have a moment, can I just say that I am very glad the PM didn't say what he was officially alleged to have said? Phew.
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In breaking news, with roadworks and a show-stopping motorway smash up in front of me, I just missed my fucking flight. I'm blaming Hillary Clinton.
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Okay. Here’s the clip.
It is NOTHING LIKE THE TRANSCRIPT.
What Key actually says is: " ... we welcome the opportunity to cooperate. In that context... "
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One journalist has just told me she thinks Key didn't say "conflicts". Given that that's the official State Department transcript, that would be an interesting situation.
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Speaker: Who No : Letters From Alice May…, in reply to Rob Stowell,
The number of amateur climatologists in NZ who are passionately convinced ‘global warming’ is hooey is quite astounding.
But they're generally rude old men. Not nice, like Alice.
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Capture: Two Tales of a City, in reply to Lilith __,
Hurrah for someone pushing the pushbikes!
Coming from Auckland, Christchurch is such a breeze to get around by bike. No bloody hills! (Well, mostly.) People were amazed that I'd ridden along Avonside Drive, but it really wasn't hard on a mountain bike.
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Speaker: Who No : Letters From Alice May…, in reply to richard,
They had more time in those days. Although I suppose these things are relative.
Boom!
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Hard News: Before Lust, in reply to Sacha,
Yes . We'll be recording from 5.30 sharp.