Posts by Alfie
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There's a good piece in the Herald from Grant McLachlan. He's a former Parliamentary researcher and surprisingly, given the context, a National Party campaign director. The first para tells you exactly where he's coming from.
New Zealand Idol should never have been used as a template for the Flag Consideration Panel.
He goes on to list numerous conflicts of interest in Key's flag debacle, including a few I wasn't previously aware of. What a corrupt, expensive, badly-handled vanity project this has turned out to be.
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Hard News: A better thing to believe in, in reply to Katharine Moody,
I came to rugby later in life than most people. I played soccer as a kid and hated the stop/start nature of rugby games... let the action flow! Sometime in the early 90s I discovered the joy of watching good rugby. It's now the only sport I watch on a regular basis and I'd never miss an ABs' match.
But of late one can only wonder how All Blacks management have allowed this politicisation to get quite out-of-hand.
Ditto. I hate the way Key constantly makes a dork of himself hoping All Black mana will somehow rub off on him. That infamous three-way handshake which made him the butt of jokes around the world might have taught him a lesson. Sadly it didn't.
His recent blathering about Ritchie making a good MP was poorly advised. Luckily McCaw had the good taste to squash that idea saying something like (and I paraphrase)... When you're an All Black the whole country loves you; but when you're an MP half the country hates you. Well said that man.
Unfortunately that gem of common sense was lost on NZRFU management. Their embarrassingly staged announcement of the world cup squad at Parliament with Key making sure he was standing front and centre throughout, was truly awful.
I will watch all of their world cup games, but I have to admit that my previously unbridled passion for the All Blacks died just a little that day.
Thanks for that, John Key.
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Hard News: A cog in the Mediaworks machine, in reply to David Hood,
In fact, it is getting to the point where if you don't want Facebook to send you targeted ads, you have to enable a cookie that indicates who you are in order for them not to target ads to you based on everything else known about you.
Alternatively, just refuse to have a Facebook account. Like me. ;-)
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Hard News: A cog in the Mediaworks machine, in reply to Russell Brown,
A very interesting Stop Press story on Scout.
Most interesting, especially when it comes to the stats.
He says the site performed phenomenally well on its first day, with, as of 5pm yesterday, 85,000 page views, over 30,000 unique browsers and an average site duration of two minutes 15 seconds. The most read story was the 25 most influential Kiwis under 25 list, which received 16,500 page views, the overall split was 57 percent female, 43 percent male and 50 percent of the audience came from mobile.
While most of those figures are derived from servers stats, I find TV3's breakdown by gender fascinating.
Presuming that the majority of visitors on day one will not be registered users, how is user gender recorded? I reckon it's those nasty little Facebook cookies which most people will have on their devices. Even when you're not logged into Facebook, certain sites are allowed to share that information. If that is the case, then Glucina and Co don't just know your gender, they know who you are.
Just saying.
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Hard News: A cog in the Mediaworks machine, in reply to Trevor Nicholls,
"small but perfectly formed" was the way Private Eye mocked Donald Trelford, editor of the Observer from 1975, whenever it referred to him (which was practically every issue while I was in the UK through the 1980s).
Ah... Private Eye. Now we're talking real satire, crafted with integrity and humour. If I remember correctly they initially coined the phrase for Sunday Times editor Harold Evans then used it quite freely to denigrate any person of lesser stature who was in their sights. I don't think Cook & Ingrams had anything in particular against short people, but the phrase took on a life of its own.
Likewise expressions such as "Ugandan relations" (extra-marital sex), and "Tired and emotional" (pissed) became an integral part of the Eye lexicon. I was a happy subscriber for many years.
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Slightly off-topic but as we're touching on media studies... I see The Independent has an interesting typo on its front page. Or maybe the world has forgotten about Abbott already.
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The name of Mediaworks' new venture has upset the NZ Scout Association whose values of "have respect, do what is right, and be positive" do not align with Glucina's "sex, scandal and gossip" offerings. The Association is taking legal advice.
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Hard News: A cog in the Mediaworks machine, in reply to Deborah,
/taxnerd
Thanks Berinthia and Deborah for that clarification. It's nice to learn something new every day. ;-)
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Hard News: A cog in the Mediaworks machine, in reply to Russell Brown,
As you say Russell, the fact that Glucina mentioned the "large house" in the interview makes discussion of the subject relevant.
It would be interesting to know if this is an LAQC (Loss Adjusted Qualifying Company) -- they're incorporated and approved by the IRD to record losses.
The house is owned by a company, we're told that the company has no clients so we assume that implies no income. Therefore the "residents" pay rent to the company, but not enough to cover the outgoings. So the company makes losses every year which transfer to the company directors to offset tax. When the losses are large enough, the directors legally pay no tax at all.
If this is the case, and I'm not saying it is, it's not an unusual setup and LAQCs are a known vehicle allowing wealthy people to minimise tax.
Of course the downside comes if and when the property is sold and any profits become taxable.
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Glucina's insistence that she's really a journalist rings about as hollow as Hosking claiming he's not one. It must be depressing to be one of the genuine journalists at TV3.
Simon Day's story blames Weldon for bringing her to Mediaworks and one suspects his hand is behind some of the "names" lined up for the show. Like Paul Henry's daughter (I kid you not) who will host a Tinder dating show amusingly called Bella Finds a Fella. Surely Meet the Meat would have been catchier?
Never one to undermine the self-importance of his office, Key senior will appear in something called Celebrity Mansions -- a little thank you for Glucina's trashing of Amanda Bailey perhaps?
God help us all.
