Posts by Tom Semmens
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Actually Craig, I am sure the woman from Greenpeace thought she was going to be interviewed about some issue of public moment, not have her appearance ridiculed in public by a sneering little bully.
I think if she had told what the post interview discussion was going to be about she may have reconsidered her appearance.
I believe TVNZ owes the woman an apology, and Paul Henry deserves at least a suspension.
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BTW - Andrew Little for Mt. Albert anyone? Just saying.
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The more I think about that Paul Henry thing the more buttons it pushes and the more furious it makes me. For a start, it is appalling rude to abuse a guest on your TV show in such a public way. Common standards of decency and courtesy alone should tell him that.
In the online discussions I have been following about this awful behaviour from Paul Henry no one has thought to comment on the substance or otherwise of the issue this woman from Greenpeace was on TV to talk about. I have no idea what she was talking about because I refuse to watch Paul Henry's grostesque "humour" and the discussion that followed was nothing about what she had to say. Instead, her physical appearance was used to humiliate and belittle her. It seems to me that the clear point of her humiliation is a woman is worth nothing except as a mere object, whose physical appearance is of more importance than what she has to say. Disgusting in 1909, let alone in 2009.
If it was in a schoolyard it would be called what is really is - a bully taunting his victim.
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Speaking of Helen Clark, check out that fucker Paul Henry this morning...
(sorry I haven't worked out how to insert the video yet)
The prick is all class, it is a little window into the women hating culture of small minded right wing misogynists like of Paul Henry, and says a lot about why that other powerful woman, Helen Clark, was so loathed by dickheads who also find this sort of thing hilariously funny.
TVNZ should be ashamed that he hasn't been made to at least apologise in public for his behaviour.
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Danielle, I have no problem with the content. It is just, (if I may digress) as I've said dozens of times on here and elsewhere, I find reality TV excruciatingly boring because I find the personal trivia of foolish people of no interest. I am not lumping Russell Brown in with the true horrors of NZ's Next Top Model, but it is for the reasons I just don't find his life as interesting as he does. Hell, NO ONE finds anyone's life as interesting as they do. So therefore I have a problem with the blog being called "Hard News" when it is clearly neither hard nor news. Just rename it "Fireside with Russell" or some such.
Hard News has become like all those big company record executives it likes to criticise - a whole lot of slightly past it, backslapping insiders who are resting on their laurels and when criticised indignantly point to their record, not their current performance. If your heart is no longer in something it is better to get out and do what you are now interested in, than hang onto until Hard News becomes like a once-fine pub that has declined into decrepitude.
I know it is just anecdote, but the rumblings of discontent from others I know who used to be hardly able to wait for new posts on Hard News indicates I am not alone.
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How about media 7 do a panel discussion:
Should "Hard News" change its name to something that ore reflects its content these days? To something like "Introspective navel gazing?"
Because it has become as dull as dishwater.
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This is a very long post so forgive me!
I love rugby union, I grew up with it and it is to me the most beautiful game in the world. But last night I watched the Blues/Cheetahs and the Warratahs/Brumbies game then switched between that last game and the Storm/St. George NRL game.
Professional team sports that are hugely popular - I am thinking mainly of 20/20 cricket, baseball, soccer, rugby league, and AFL but I think it is a safe general statement - share certain characteristics. They have simple rules that are easily grasped, and their very simplicity makes it difficult for partisan analysts and tacticians to bowdlerise the game. The game has a simple scoring philosophy. And the game is highly fluid making for an excellent T.V. spectacle. They are broadly divided into three sorts of game to my mind, running games (League), kicking games (soccer, AFL) and hitting games (baseball, hockey, and cricket). But these characteristics are not pre-requisites for a successful professional sport. In the United States in particular they seem to prefer highly stylised - almost ritualised - games that revolve around set piece moves. Although less popular, test match cricket retains a large following. So I don't think that rugby is losing crowds just because its game isn't as attractive as its competition.
So I don't think rugby per se as a game is the problem. It does have some major issues, in that its rules are struggling to adapt to make it a game that can create the sort of roll up the sleeves everyday professional product that reliably entertains with good players. Is it a kicking game? Or a running game? Is it a fluid game of movement or is it a game built on the set piece move? It is neither fish nor fowl. It is game currently most attractively played at the amateur or semi-professional level, or at the very, very highest level. If rugby were to go back to the rules of the 1970's - essentially a kicking game moving from set piece to set piece - it would have a logic and coherence that would simplify the rules and give the game a similar attraction to American Gridiron. If it were to go to a fully running game then it ought to merge with League into a possibly hybridised game. Certainly, I can't see anyway to fix up the tackle ball area short of bringing back full on rucking, which is unacceptable in the T.V. era and unacceptable given the size and power of players these days.
But really, the game on the field and its rules are only part of the problem, and in my view the least part. The problem is the whole package - game, season, presentation.
The NRL season makes sense; it has a defined beginning, middle and end. The structure of the NRL season gives an almost Shakespearean flow to the off field theatre and drama, and like all good plays everyone goes home both satisfied and looking forward to the next play. It is the centrepiece competition, where these days even state of origin is a distraction. It has a season 6-8 weeks shorter than the rugby union one, an important thing since it seems to be what makes all the difference between over-exposure and just right. By contrast, the Super 14 starts a month to early, the season meanders along with several peaks and troughs and putters out a month to late with an end of year northern hemisphere tour that does little more than devalue the All Black brand to a by then utterly over it domestic NZ audience.
Rugby Union's match presentation on T.V. in this country is light years behind the NRL's. It is so far behind and so pathetically bad that people here often turn down the volume and listen to the radio commentators. The Australian broadcasters who make up their commentary packages are engaged, interested, funny and above all always entertaining. They understand that when 99.999% of your audience is watching the game on telly they are as much part of the entertainment package as the referees or players. By contrast, the Sky TV rugby commentators are a mix of colourless journeymen and has-been ex-players. Their commentary style is exactly wrong - detached, disinterested and faintly bored observers. Sky don't appear to give a tinker's cuss that they have probably the worst commentators in the world, and as long as Sky retains an iron monopoly on the local pay TV market they have little incentive to change.
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You are getting the feeling I am kidding?
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Will Nick Smith's ACC reforms still cover the hapless victims of India's long range crowd bombardment?
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Peter: Yes, but you just can't trust the Huns.