Posts by Russell Brown
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Hard News: High anxiety, live, in reply to Peter Calder,
I think it has been a magnificent contribution to the cultural life of the country and I am astonished how few people have heard of it, despite my best efforts and those of the Listener and Sunday Star-Times reviewers.
Most of the small crowd yesterday were over 60.
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OnPoint: H4x0rs and You, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
Surely starting work at 8am was the easy bit? Finding something that had happened in Greymouth in the past 24hrs that didn’t reflect badly on the advertisers, your own or the editor’s friends and family would be the hard bit.
I’ve edited the abuse out of Islander’s responses but I do feel bound to observe that this is a glib and patronising comment.
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OnPoint: H4x0rs and You, in reply to Megan Wegan,
Russell is right. Writing for broadcast is hard, but being able to file to deadline, and write within those strictures is a pretty important part of the job.
I learned soon enough that I couldn’t write myself two-minute speeches in the middle of TV (and radio) scripts. It’s quite a skill to convey the point in fewer words.
A three minute piece is about 1000.
I’m assuming that’s an error. 333wpm is quite hard to keep up for three minutes :-)
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OnPoint: H4x0rs and You, in reply to Caleb D'Anvers,
Different skills; different expectations. But it’s worth asking what flaws and limitations the “economy” of broadcasting imposes on journalistic writing.
That's a different issue, but yes. There are all kinds of structural factors that compromise journalism. But economy and timeliness are usually key skills of the job.
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OnPoint: H4x0rs and You, in reply to Caleb D'Anvers,
I’m to some extent a professional writer myself (though in a different context). There is no way in hell I would think that something 500 words long written in 90 minutes was in any way ready for publication. You can’t provide any form of analysis or contextualizing in 500 words. And you can’t expect to say anything accurate or informed with those time constraints, either. Why do journalists think they’re exempt from the basic rules that govern the lives of other writers and information professionals?
Probably because we don’t work in a fantasy world where news stories are 2000 words long and there are no deadlines.
A good part of the skill of broadcast journalism in particular lies in economy.
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OnPoint: H4x0rs and You, in reply to James George,
Surely those of you who have spent time with journalists out on the piss have heard the appalling way that the hacks regard everyone who isn’t one of ‘them’; how they delight in dragging out old war stories about deceiving ‘targets or sources’ into saying something the person didn’t want to say, but which suited the angle the journo was running.
I know I have, and I find it sickening but that is the reality of competitive capitalist media enterprise.No, actually, I haven't.
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OnPoint: H4x0rs and You, in reply to Marc C,
Keith – you must have known before, at least in your gut, that the bulk of journalists in NZ are shallow, two faced, opportunistic and principle lacking folk. I am sorry to say so, but it is the bloody truth.
It's not the truth, it's your opinion. I think it's a glib and poorly-founded generalisation, but you're entitled to it.
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Then I came back via the St Mary's Bay path and met this nice lady with her wee dogs, who were very friendly.
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After dropping off the boys at Armageddon, I had an excellent ride into town and arrived at a position on Queen Street just in time to see some real riders in the ITU triathlon grand final. It’s great how close you can get to the competitors in this event.
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OnPoint: H4x0rs and You, in reply to William Ray,
Agreed but if those parties won’t front to explain themselves it’s hard to complain the story was maliciously biased against them.
If I understand Keith correctly, the target of the HDPA story is the person Keith recommended to the journalist as an expert commentator.
It's not really acceptable that the journalist would write a story re-casting that person as a villain without checking back with the person who recommended him to ask "hey, this guy you put me onto -- is he a bad guy?"
Anyway, I gather at least one person did try and directly talk HDPA out of the angle. The idea that she didn't have the opportunity to get it right doesn't hold up.
