Posts by Tom Semmens
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Andrew, why don't you read the book?
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According to the Neilsen ratings, Investigate's readership sits at about the same level as "Trade A Boat" magazine and "Lifestyle Block" Magazine. Given that, how does Investigate stay in business as high production value glossy magazine, with its limited advertising base?
One clue:
The Illuminati.
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"...Well, fine. I'm a little short on the sympathy front because they let themselves become the freak show in a media circus..."
Really? Who is using whom here though? When I saw the media in the school hall and the gasps of shock as the names of the dead were read out I first thought that maybe these poor people were unworldly Christians being taken advantage of by unscrupulous TV types. Then as I listened and read more I decided that these poor teenagers were being made into martyrs to showcase their community and their strength of their faith to the wider world. Their public grief and unshakable faith in their God despite being called upon to sacrifice their own flesh and blood is the story, and an uncritical media has lapped it up and served it on a platter to the people of New Zealand. That is what creeped me out - it suddenly became all a bit to much "Howick Hizbollah" for me.
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Emma: As anyone who watches to much of the Discovery Channel knows, disasters are a number of connected mistakes and events coming together at the worst possible moment. It seems to me that there are some questions to be asked over this tragedy. Immediately giving the adventure centre the Graham Henry certificate of Immediate Confidence is as much a mistake as seeking to blame the blameless.
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At the risk of being insensitive, the whole reaction of the Elim church people has seriously creeped me out. Is it just me, or is treating the death of your children primarily as some sort of test from God just further proof that all fundies of whatever religious persuasion have a tendency towards being death cults?
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The two things I dislike most about the Sensible Sentencing Trust:
1/ The way McVicar ruthlessly re-traumatises the victims of crime to keep the torch of vengeance glowing bright so he can showcase them.
2/ The way the Sensible Sentencing Trust objectifies criminals as some sort of sub-species, a Hogarthian unter-menschen beyond redemption and for whom no punishment is enough.
Pyschologically, I understand how its way easier to hate an object than a person, but the outcomes of such a mindset are now well documented - and McVicar clearly exhibits all the symptoms.
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I note that Owen McShane is offering the view that
"...I suspect that the Listener found they could be facing an employment court action if they did not come to the defense of the Editor..."
But as Russell says, any response would have been printed promptly, and verbatim. The subject was being discussed in good faith at hot-topic. The comments at hot-topic were nothing like the sort of sewer you get from the kiwiblog right. It seems to me that if one Helen Clark of Mt. Albert had as thin a skin as some seem to have then David Farrar's comments section would have been out of business years ago (perhaps that is something Mr. Farrar and the rest of his "Free speech Coalition" buddies ought ponder before their next bout of EFA hysteria, but thats another discussion).
Really, it tells us that the sort of robust freedom to debate small fry interwebbies have become accustomed to collapses faster than an ice sheet in an unaccountably warm summer in the face of a decision to use corporate money to pay for legal threats. To that extent its a case of "so what's new about that?"
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So the editor of the Listener doesn't deign (yet) to respond to Poneke's emails and the magazine uses the threat of litigation to shut down discussion on the internet.
Says all you need to know really. -
I don't think the foreign owners of our media have a dark conservative agenda as such. But I do see foreign owned media companies using the opportunity of the fact they have a monopoly/duopoly in the only book shop in the isolated shopping mall to screw the local shoppers for every cent of profit they can. What do a bunch of people in Sydney care if we get a shit product made up of cheap right wing shock jock opinion pieces and manufactured controversies produced by reporting the garbage spouted by climate change deniers, anti-vaccination cranks and single issue loons as (to use the now notoriously Orwellian phrase) "fair and balanced" coverage? They'll get their wallopingly fat return to shareholders and that's all that counts.
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Although Russell is desperate to give Audrey Young the benefit of the doubt, the pattern is clear. She is prepared to be economical with the truth when it suits her on this issue. Clark's "brutal" shutting down of the issue shows that Labour has identified this campaign by the Herald as very damaging.
It's also pretty clear that the Herald has decided to make sure that just the act of campaigning by Labour is linked in the public mind with some sort of vague illegality. It's an elegant approach - they can report the "news" with a straight face in the election campaign, indignantly pointing to their balanced coverage when accused of bias, having in the previous twelve months used their hysterical campaign against the EFA to taint all the water the well the campaign news from Labour comes from. As for Duncan Garner - as someone said yesterday, National gets a free ride in the media on election spending.
What Labour can do about I've got no idea.