Posts by Andrew Geddis
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
OnPoint: Sunlight Resistance, in reply to Keith Ng,
Even if, as you suggest, people thought the government was taking NZ in the right direction therefore Dirty Politics didn’t fly, it is still true that the media failed to hold Collins to account, failed to hold Katherine Rich to account, and more or less failed to hold Ede/Key to account.
Well, this presupposes there was a "correct" outcome. I assume you believe (as do I) that Dirty Politics really ought to have seen Collins immediately sacked, Rich shamed from her various roles, and a large voter swing to the left of politics. You're then saying that the fact this has not in fact happened represents a failure of the media (despite the media trying to do what it should have).
But why? Why isn't it the voters or the people of New Zealand that failed? After all, they were given chapter and verse of the allegations Hager (and Greenwald and Snowden) raised. The media pounded those responsible (well, most of them) for days and days on end and showed the results on TV/in the papers/on the radio. And 48% of those who voted shrugged and said "meh" - with more people voting this time than did 3 years ago. So, just who "failed" here?
Which raises a nasty possibility, Whisper it just quietly in your inner voice at the dead of night: maybe it's people like us and what we see as being "correct" who are ... wrong? Or, at least, in a small minority that is unable to affect national politics ... which amounts to the same thing? And if so, what right do we have to demand that the institution of journalism/media "reform itself" to produce the "correct" outcomes that we desire?
-
OnPoint: Sunlight Resistance, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
I wouldn’t go as harsh as “if you don’t vote, don’t complain” – because I think even if you don’t vote, you’re still a citizen and have a right to curse your employees in the legislature as incompetent malign numpties, fairly or not, even if it gives me a migraine in the process.
Oh, sure ... you can complain. But don't expect to be listened to. Case in point - why do policies so markedly favour old people over young? Which may be terribly unfair and all that ... but it's what you get when you (or, rather, your age/class/ethnicity cohort) aren't active participants.
My point then is that saying "National only got the support of 30-odd percent of New Zealand" is potentially as misleading as "National got the support of 50 percent of New Zealand". There's no such thing as "the proper figure" here, because "proper" depends on what purpose you're using it for.
-
OnPoint: Sunlight Resistance, in reply to Greg Dawson,
On the other hand, we can have a productive argument about what that mandate allows them to get away with.
Agreed.
-
OnPoint: Sunlight Resistance, in reply to Bart Janssen,
That’s about 40% of eligible voters
Oh ... and it's not. It's about 29.8% of eligible voters.
-
OnPoint: Sunlight Resistance, in reply to Bart Janssen,
No, the point is just over a million New Zealanders voted for National on Saturday. In a country of 4.4 million people. That’s about 40% of eligible voters and 48% of those who bothered to vote.
And so ... ? If the point is to be pedantic about figures, then OK ... I guess Graeme Edgeler is busy elsewhere. But if the point is to somehow undermine National's claim to be able to govern alone, then I cry foul.
As was repeated ad infinitum in the run-up to the election, if you don't vote, you can't complain. By the same token, the losers on election day (which, if we're honest, is everyone commenting here except Eric and Craig) can't try to insinuate that the winners don't "really" have a mandate because a whole lot of people didn't bother voting.
We spend millions of dollars telling people how to enrol and vote. We have the easiest ballot access laws in the world. So, yeah - winning 48% of the vote means that half of the only people New Zealand who count supported you.
-
OnPoint: Sunlight Resistance, in reply to Katharine Moody,
Given in this case, it is Otago University academics, perhaps Andrew might represent them.
Can't, sorry. Not a real lawyer.
-
OnPoint: Sunlight Resistance, in reply to CJM,
I thought The Herald giving its whole front page (large border around three sides, large square advertisement within actual page) to the National party on its online edition on friday before the election was pretty nakedly partisan.
It didn't give National anything. It sold that space to it.
Media companies are companies that seek to make money. If Labour's fundraising efforts weren't completely in the toilet, it could have done likewise. But it couldn't, so it didn't.
-
OnPoint: Sunlight Resistance, in reply to CJM,
Take Vance out and slip Paul Henry in instead of Campbell and I think you’ve got a pretty uniform looking horses arse right there.
Which kinda proves my point, thanks.
Albeit that you're being a bit unfair to Wallace!
-
OnPoint: Sunlight Resistance, in reply to Bart Janssen,
Because as Craig and you both know the public responds to the messages coming from that media. Pretending the media is innocent of all influence over the election result is beneath you.
I have two problems with this.
First, the idea that the public are simply passive recipients of whatever the media dish up to them and so are manipulated into believing one thing over another strikes me as deeply implausible. People get information from all sorts of sources. And they make their calls on what "matters" based not on what the media tells them is important, but on their own metrics. After all, weeks - literally weeks - of Dirty Politics coverage didn't move the polls at all. If the media are so incredibly influential, how do you account for this?
Second, even if the media has some influence, the fact is that Keith starts his post by saying that "the media" actually worked really hard on chasing the Dirty Politics story and tried their hardest to get the PM, etc to answer the questions. And Glenn Greenwald praised the NZ media for doing a good job on chasing up the mass surveillance issues that he revealed in Auckland.
So, again ... exactly what should "the media" (that mythic united beast) have done different?
-
OnPoint: Sunlight Resistance, in reply to Russell Brown,
The media were after all the vehicle for what turned out to be a successful pushback -- the "everyone does it/the left briefs its own attack bloggers", bullshit that muddied the water enough so that most people accepted that it was all dirty politics and turned away from it.
What do you mean by "a vehicle"? If you mean that the media quoted Key, et al saying this, then ... yeah. That's what the media does, unless you really want it to stop reporting things that the journalist in question happens not to believe. But if you mean that the media actively promoted this meme ... I'm not convinced.
Also, this lumping of "the media" into a seamless whole strikes me as deeply implausible. To what extent can Wallace Chapman on Radio NZ "Sunday" , Andrea Vance in the Dom Post, John Campbell on Campbell Live, John Armstrong in the Herald and Mike Hosking on whatever he's on be said to be "the same thing"?