Posts by Russell Brown
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Hard News: Autism and celebrity, in reply to Kate D'Anvers,
I have added an article about some RDI friendly communication tips to the FAQ page of our website. Not sure if self promotion is allowed here so will post the address but totally understand if you want to edit this post.
Well, I did ask!
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Hard News: What rules are these?, in reply to Dastardly Bounder,
Which is exactly what Lorde was doing by posting a picture of him and linking to his FB profile. Hopefully her faithful followers will use the power of the masses to bomb him to smithereens…
I wouldn't like to see it descend to persecution, but let's be clear that she has exactly the same rights to photograph Runting and distribute the pictures as anyone else. Bleating on his behalf that this has happened is quite bizarre.
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Hard News: What rules are these?, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
Well ultimately the media interest is in the public interest. As annoying as the cry of “we’re only giving people what they want” can be it is ultimately true.
I get that it’s easier and cheaper to fill a page with the tosh of Runting and his ilk, or a lightly fluffed press release, than a well-written and fully-reported arts/culture feature. But that’s a choice, and one I think it’s just a little glib and self-serving to blame on some nebulous entity called “the audience”.
Yes.
I should re-emphasise that I'm not demanding a change in the law -- the fact that we can photograph events in a public place is an underpinning of a free press. But we sure as hell should be able to discuss the ethics of any particular case.
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The Star Times also ran a story on the issue:
There’s even a case to be constructed for snapping celebrities going about their daily business.
“A lot of those celebrities are super-managed by their agents,” says an Auckland photographer. “You don’t see the real them. They have picture and copy approval.
“People like to get beyond the veneer sometimes and see a real moment. That’s why pap photography has a place."
Lorde is papped constantly when she’s on the job – followed from the hotel to the venue by fleets of photographers. She doesn’t complain about that. But being followed when she’s just trying to live? It’s different.
And it also bears noting that this is a performer who tweeted an unretouched picture of herself in performance, after the original was photoshopped by a magazine. That’s fairly beyond-the-veneer.
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Hard News: What rules are these?, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
To be fair, this should be for a five year minimum, so that people don’t toggle themselves in and out of public status when they, for instance, have something to sell.
No. There is a material difference between doing interviews about your work and consenting to be followed around by a photographer.
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Hard News: What rules are these?, in reply to Simon Grigg,
She was well on her way long before the SST or any such similar “media” bothered with her name. Two years ago I was in record company offices where her impending success was touted. As always, these people follow, they don’t create.
Yes. There’s an undertone of “she couldn’t have done it without us” which is ludicrous. For months after she became a name, there was one Lorde interview (with Jim Pinckney in The Listener) and they were scarce for some time after that.
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Hard News: Autism and celebrity, in reply to Gill Higgins,
On the matter of Geoff and the timing of his album release, I’d like it known that he approached me to do this story over two months ago, well before the release. It was due to TVNZ priorities and workload that the story didn’t come to air until this week. Geoff had no say in the timing and it was unfortunate on our part that we didn’t think harder about how this would look.
Fair enough. But can I ask you: did Geoff Sewell offer up the same "cures" he did in his radio interviews the same day? Did you have to make a decision on what it was responsible to include?
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Hard News: Autism and celebrity, in reply to Hilary Stace,
Thanks Kate. I remember a very good presentation you gave on ABA and RDI in Wellington a few years ago. I liked your enthusiasm for young autistic people. I think that is part of the secret.
We saw Kate with our younger son and also really liked her. The contact was valuable, even though RDI didn't really work out for us.
We felt that while a number of the key principles of RDI -- things like the difference between declarative and interrogative language -- were very useful to us, the full programme of videotaping family interactions for later critique was intrusive.
Our younger son immediately spotted that there was an active video camera in the room when we tried it and I wasn't greatly comfortable with the idea that we were trying to deceive him. I also felt that too much of the information was captive to the RDI programme and its American creator Steve Gutstein.
Kate, if you're still reading, are there any good public websites with RDI-based "tips" for parents?
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Hard News: Autism and celebrity, in reply to Bart Janssen,
As an aside we are really learning a shitload about how complex the gut is and all the bacteria that are passengers in all of us. It’s pretty clear that having a healthy relationship with your gut is important. What isn’t clear is how to do that – sadly the best advice appears to be – eat real food, lots of plants – not very specific or magical. What is also apparent is that fad diets (and supplements) are likely to do most people more harm than good.
Indeed. As I noted above, there's a little bit on this in today's Attitude doco, and it's heartening to see there's work being done on this at Auckland University.
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Hard News: Autism and celebrity, in reply to philipmatthews,
I thought that this Mother’s Day edition (deliberate or accidental scheduling) of ATTITUDE was very good, on Ros Hill’s determination for her son with autism and another family who seem more overwhelmed.
It’s very, very good – not least because there’s a short but useful part on the gut-brain factor. It seems there is a connection for at least some ASD children, but we’re not close to understanding exactly what it is.
The love and acceptance displayed by both families is best thing – but my heart goes out to the second family. Having more than one ASD child is not easy and their daughter’s behaviours are beyond our experience in even the most difficult years.
There were flashes of recognition in Claude’s habitual actions: our older son used to flap his hands and walk on his toes, and we had the experience of him gaining and losing skills in his early years too.