Posts by izogi
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
Access: Being Inconvenient, in reply to Sacha,
Yes. But surely nearly everyone I listed has access to a highly skilled PR team, and these non-apologies must have been authored by more than just themselves, often after days or more to reflect and consider. It's hard to believe people and companies in these positions, sometimes the PR departments themselves, wouldn't be being guided by PR experts, yet it still results on non-apologies.
Especially in the political cases, it's like there's an innate fear of absolutely acknowledging having really done something wrong. As well as everything else, we really need a societal shift to acknowledge that mistakes sometimes happen, and to make it acceptable to apologise for things.
Sorry to detract even further from the original topic.
-
Thanks for a good summary.
Then came Nicky Wagner’s half arsed “apology”
This frustrates me to no end. With a speedy search, Countdown's done it. The NZ Herald's done it. Farmers has done it. Nuk Korako's done it. The Board Chair of Fenwick School has done it. The list goes on and on and on. Google. Stephen Fry. And on. And on.
Is there a terrible PR consultant out there who actively advises clients that even when there's obvious offence, they should act as if they still can't see it for certain? Is this a real strategy that "works" for someone's ulterior motive, or is it just PR blindness and incompetence?
Perhaps I'm preaching to the converted in this forum, but what's so hard about acknowledging that something actually did cause offence, and honestly saying sorry to those people who were offended? I guess that's why it's called a non-apology.
-
Like others here it’s been the pay TV model that killed it for me. I’ve never played the game but used to enjoy following the All Blacks matches, Super 12 and NPC. That habit died overnight when I shifted out of the parents’ house and had no desire to pay for television.
It almost seems like an anomaly that there’s so much free media coverage of the game that I now ignore because it means so little when there’s no practical avenue to actually watch it. For comparison I see my nephews growing up religiously around rugby: they have ubiquitous access to Sky TV thanks to living so close to the grandparents.
These days when I glimpse it I haven’t a clue what’s going on in the format of the Super Whatever league. If I see parts of the occasional game at any level then I might still loosely enjoy bits, but typically have no idea who the players are or what the stakes are in the same way as I used to. I no longer bother considering going to the occasional game as I did in the past. Usually the only indication I have that they’re even happening locally is the public transport alerts, on the day, about timetable changes.
Not that I mind. I have more time for other things and that’s probably for the best, but my introspective impression is that rugby culture in NZ, and perhaps its base, seriously changed from the moment it turned its premium matches into a privileged experience which people had to either pay for, or otherwise at least make an effort to leave their homes for.
Through some reminiscence I'm trying to be enthusiastic about the Lions tour which free media keeps telling me about, but realistically I just don't care.
-
The only gripe I would have with RNZ is that while the likes of The Panel do at least feature opinions stretching the length and breadth of New Zealand
It that what The Panel is meant to be for? I thought it was just a space for Jim Mora's friends to express opinions on topics they often know nothing about.
Granted they've made some changes, like the One Quick Question bit, where someone who can actually explain something is often called in.
-
Speaker: Britain: the crisis isn't…, in reply to martinb,
But it seems also intransigent and unable to provide such an ‘elegant solution’ as creating a left party outside Labour that could express its own personality, yet work so closely with it when required.
It causes me to think plenty about how the likes of Douglas and Prebble infiltrated NZ Labour in the 80s, despite having polar opposite ideologies from typical Labour policies. They weren't exactly going to get anywhere under Muldoon, and joining Labour was the only realistic option for getting into parliament at all. Never say never, I suppose, but under MMP things seem to have completely changed. It's no longer a two party system and so it's feasible to get into parliament without joining the only other party that has any hope whatsoever of replacing the government.
Does the UK have any realistic appetite for reviewing its electoral system? Or is it highly content with what it has?
-
It’s an odd thing to do because it takes more work. You have to estimate how many women are going to attend, in order to work out how many pink (not even kidding) loos you’re going to need.
I guess it's a diversion, but this clip from Upstart Crow made me laugh (from 10m:59s). :)
-
Hard News: Mt Albert: Cooperating,…, in reply to Hilary Stace,
Do you think he helps Labour get elected, though? Unless Labour's actually forming a government, having someone who'd be an excellent Speaker doesn't seem like a priority to me. Voters seem to care about who might be PM, or in charge of the Finance portfolio, but as far as I can tell from the last few years, they don't seem to care much about the person who's controlling the House. There must be a plan for him not being available unexpectedly anyway, and in a room full of politicians is there really nobody who'd make a good substitute?
Also what's the advantage in being elected himself in order to mentor other new MPs? The Labour Party could presumably still keep him on a payroll somehow if that were needed, couldn't it?
I was really just meaning to use him as an example, and perhaps his continued candidacy is well worthwhile, but I'm struggling to see what the benefit is of keeping him on the list if it's going to deny the ability of someone else to establish themselves, and who'd be far more likely to be part of Labour's long term future.
-
Hard News: Mt Albert: Cooperating,…, in reply to Walter Nicholls,
Annette King has just resigned and Ardern the blessed successor..
I'll be interested to see how far Labour takes this.
I guess there are arguments on both sides around this around the value of experience, but especially after the last election with such a low Party vote, it really seemed as if some great potential young candidates were locked out while people such as Annette King and Trevor Mallard stuck around.
Even with Mallard retiring from his electorate, I see he's still planning to stay on the Labour List. Unless he's content with a low ranking, what would he hope to accomplish there besides taking up space that someone else might make better use of? It sounds as if he really likes being the Speaker, but if Labour were to actually form a government, surely it could find any number of adequate people for that.
-
Hard News: If this was ever funny, it's…, in reply to Adam H,
I have noticed that English appears to be clumsily but probably successfully using some Trump techniques - today he dropped in some baseless comment about drug testing... the other day it was half a billion dollars for more coppers (because crime must be, like, out of control man). I recall that such methods are especially effective on older brains.
If he is then he's not pioneering the technique in his government. Key and several of his Ministers were doing plenty of that previously. The way he utterly spoke directly a the public through the centre of media during the 2014 election, when there were a series of highly critical (yet non-simple) questions about his conduct, is a prime example. So far many of those questions about him and his government have still gone unanswered, and they'll probably now be ignored because at the time when it mattered, enough people were convinced that everything was fine.
Politicians have probably been doing this to some degree for ages, but it's intensified. People don't need to rely on traditional media for their info any more, because they can so easily subscribe to politicians and their apologists directly. Are your views challenged? No problem -- just fund someone to explain to you why you're right. Hell, find a support group of like-minded people and you'll never need to challenge your views again. Concerned about water? Fed Farmers will agree with you that dairy farming's environmentally okay. Forest & Bird will agree with you that it isn't. To get the reasoning of either is trivial.
Conway was rightfully mocked when she justified Spicer's lies in January by calling them "alternative facts", but to appreciate the mocking it's necessary to realise that the entire concept of an "alternative fact" is stupid. Not everyone realises that, so for many people, as long as they're hearing the term "alternative fact", it creates an excuse to believe something which they might desperately want to believe, even though it's an outright lie.
-
Speaker: Broadcasting and the Public Interest, in reply to Sacha,
Territorial content licensing restrictions could be a big part of that, I imagine.
Yes, I guess so. RNZ tends to produce much of its own content whereas TVNZ, except maybe for journalism, seems to sub-contract production of much of its content to other parties... or simply buy things.
It's really getting back towards my final sentence of that comment though, regarding comparison between TVNZ and RNZ.
They used to be clearly distinctive by the presence of pictures (or not), but if Radio New Zealand starts producing lots of local video content in line with its adaptation to new mediums, as it seems to be leaning towards doing, then what's the real difference between Radio New Zealand and what so many people seem to want TVNZ to be?
Maybe there is some sense in ditching TVNZ, and instead focusing on funding RNZ to expand what it's already doing to make even more of its locally focused content, and to make it more accessible and available to people regardless of how they want to access it.