Posts by Russell Brown
-
Nice one, Metro.
The excellent Simon Wilson editorial I mentioned earlier is now online.
-
Simon Wilson has a masterful editorial on all this in the new Metro. I've asked if they'll put it online, but in the meantime, I think this is the killer line:
The price of freedom of speech for Jackson and Tamihere on this issue would have been to remind sexual abuse victims of the futility of exercising their own freedom to speak up.
Boo-ya.
-
Hard News: Friday Music: The First Time, in reply to nzlemming,
First gig doubles (trebles) as first international and first stadium (sort of): 1973 The Sweet (and Daniel Boone) at Bowl of Brooklands, New Plymouth, with a mat and his older sister.
Didn't that make scandalising headlines when lots of drunk people got in the water and tried to get to the stage?
-
Hard News: Friday Music: The First Time, in reply to Dave Patrick,
Never got taken to a concert by my parents – Dad was in to jazz and there wasn’t a lot of that around (or that he could afford on a minister’s stipend with 4 kids). We did see Godspell at His Majesty’s in (I think) 1978 or possibly 1977 – and it was pretty damn good too.
Oh! You’ve reminded me. Mum took me and my sister to see the touring Australian production of Jesus Christ Superstar (with Jon English as Judas). I can’t have been older than 13.. Made a big impression on me – I got a tape of the OST album off my mate and played the heck out of it. I normally passionately hate stage musicals, but I still have a soft spot for that one.
-
Legal Beagle: Think it possible that you…, in reply to Graeme Edgeler,
Because they denied the existence of Amy’s rape
Well, I’m reasonably sure that didn’t happen.
Correct. Amy was a reporter, not a survivor.
But they did repeatedly deny that what Amy was describing happening to other girls was rape. So, yeah.
-
Legal Beagle: Think it possible that you…, in reply to Tom Beard,
Which raises the point: do talkback radio stations have any training or standards for how they handle their guests and callers? Many would think that basic human decency would cover an issue like this, and even though not every lacks it to the extent that Willie & JT seemed to in this case, some sort of processes should have helped. I’d’ve thought that a media organisation would have principles and guidelines for interacting with the public, especially potentially vulnerable ones. Is this not the case?
Apparently not. I’m told Jana Rangooni has never taken the simple step of gathering all the hosts together and talking to them about what’s acceptable and what isn’t. You can’t operate in that kind of editorial vacuum without things going seriously wrong at some point.
-
The slippery-slope argument:
Does this one event now herald a flood of attempts to shut down unfashionable views in the media?
I suppose anything's possible, but it's extremely unlikely. It very, very rarely happens. The only other significant example I can think of is Mitsubishi withdrawing its sponsor of of Paul Holmes' TV show in response to Holmes' "cheeky darkie" brainfart on his radio show.
(Note that it was entirely Mitsubishi's decision as to whether it wanted to continue to be associated with Holmes. What are you gonna do? Pass a law stopping them?)
It didn't happen to any of the other idiots who voiced vile and damaging opinions on the matter -- Michael Laws included. It didn't happen to Willie and JT every other time they said or did offensive things. It didn't happen when they gay-baited Grant Robertson for an hour after inviting him on their show. Because we know that Grant Robertson is a professional politician and can look after himself.
But it did happen in this case. And that was because Dumb and Dumber subjected a teenage girl to an inquisition at an extraordinarily sensitive time -- and their non-apology highlighted a staggering vacuum of editorial leadership at their station.
-
Legal Beagle: Think it possible that you…, in reply to George Darroch,
And different again from advertising boycotting advertisers, which did happen.
I don’t actually think “boycott” is really even a good word for the withdrawal of advertising in this case. A boycott is an organised campaign. The companies here didn’t organise or confer.
-
Legal Beagle: Think it possible that you…, in reply to A C Young,
The fact that the 18 year old’s speech (and any other young woman who might have thought about commenting on the issue) was in reality pretty severely curtailed as a result of this interview doesn’t factor into this at all.
A few other people called in and had their speech summarily curtailed by the hosts, too. They got hung up on. Hooton got thrown out of the studio.
-
Legal Beagle: Think it possible that you…, in reply to giovanni tiso,
I called it a sponsor boycott a number of times myself. What I meant is that the sponsors boycotted the show.
That's the meaning I took. Which is wholly different from a threat to boycott advertisers, which didn't happen.