Posts by simon g
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I'm commenting here before Ardern speaks in Parliament, but I'll happily bet that one change will be very welcome: the Prime Minister's speech won't be the horror-comedy that John Key delivered on Budget day every year. It was an infantile rant that he turned into a ritual. And imagine for a moment if Ardern DID behave like that. No "blokey banter" free pass for her ... she'd be "shrill". "Hysterical", even.
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Today's news (and "comment") on Clarke Gayford is a text book example of how and why dirty politics works.
For "balance", various media report not only on the squashing of the lie, but on the PM's response to it. Which (for "balance", of course!) must then be critiqued.
Imagine that happening in the reporting of court cases. "So, how did the victim of the unprovoked assault respond after the guilty verdict for her assailant? Well, let's give her 5 out of 10 for her response, because we're balanced!"
So the dirt works, because our media let it work.
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Leading your Herald "news": Kiwis divided!
Tomorrow: Herald reports on the NZ Lunar Science Conference: a noisy guy in a funny hat said the moon was made of cheese, and everyone else pointed out that it's not. So, Kiwis divided, again!
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MMP Ignorance Update: still as strong as ever.
TVNZ Colmar Brunton poll shows government (would be) comfortably re-elected. But National WIN!!11!
Of course they do.
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Unfortunately coverage like that from Todd Niall is in the media margins, while a visiting celeb who looks over at Rangitoto and says "Auckland is awesome!' will get the front page.
We (or at least, our media) are more interested in assessing Auckland superficially, through meaningless international surveys ("5th most livable, says press release we've copied and pasted!") than in facing up to our long-term problems. The people who make the decisions need our votes first, and they're not encouraged to get elected by telling hard truths.
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It's a familiar and tiresome pattern, isn't it?
1. NZer gets international recognition for achievements. So they are Doing Us Proud, and we get the "not bad for a kid from Hicksville" stories, and possibly annoint them New Zealander of the year. Hooray!
2. The international recognition means they appear in overseas media, saying stuff (Catton, Castle-Hughes, Lawless, Lorde, countless others).
3. But in NZ the people in charge of Reckons are not appearing in overseas media. They are radio hosts and columnists and assorted People Who Say What They Think, but nobody outside NZ ever cares what they think. Mike Hosking's opinions are inexplicably overlooked by Time Magazine and CNN.
4. So the various mini-celebs who do get their Reckons reported by foreigners are especially culpable, not only for what they say ("Boo!") but for being reported at all. And what have they ever done? Compared with, say, churning out fact-free columns for clickbait?
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Speaker: Are we seeing the end of MSM,…, in reply to simon g,
The poison is posted (some of it vile), and then deleted (moderation seems to be random, and certainly late). And then suddenly – the piece is no longer open for comments at all (not just closed, the comments simply disappear, as if they were never there).
Stuff have done it again, with the Israel Folau story. Harvest the homophobes for a couple of hours, then suddenly - delete all.
As I said before, this is not just the usual online platform for nastiness, justified in the name of free speech. The speech simply disappears - but only after the damage has been done. It can't be rebutted, it was "never there". Except, it was.
Horrible, irresponsible, and Stuff should bloody well be explaining why they do it.
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Legal Beagle: A submission on the…, in reply to Neil,
Neil, please don't crowbar irrelevant Simon Bridges' talking points into this thread. Cheers.
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I'm sufficiently cynical to kick principles into touch if there's a prize worth winning (Andy Haden line-out dive? I saw nothing, only the final score).
But this won't work. In summary, a waka-jumper who stays in parliament is the bad guy, a figure of media mockery, who taints his new party by association. But an MP who gets expelled will be transformed into a victim, even if s/he is entirely without merit. So the narrative is turned on its head.
I don't want to create martyrs out of molehills.
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Why do organisations like the NZDF deny, dissemble, distract? Why do they run down the clock?
Because they know it works. They know it won't be leading the news for long. Even though it is far more important than many "big" stories of today, it won't be leading the six o'clock news. But credit to those who still remind us ...
The story has not become less important. It's just got older. And of course ... it's changed.