Negative campaigning

8 Comments »

• Craig says:

  18 June 2012 at 9:45 pm

  Slater is trying to have a foot in both Camps when it suits him.
  So do you consider your self a Journalist or a Blogger?

  • Peter Aranyi says:

    18 June 2012 at 11:03 pm

    Good question. I try to bring a journalist’s sensibility & approach to the richly opinionated world of internet commentary.

    This site is, without question, intended to be a blog (that’s why it says BLOG in big letters at the top) and the ‘about’ page says:

    “My posts here are MY personal opinion — Peter Aranyi’s blog.”
    http://www.thepaepae.com/about/

    But I really try to be truthful and fair … and not a treacherous propagandist … like, well, you know.
    As I said here http://www.thepaepae.com/lying-compounds-the-crime/8037/ :

    I maintain there is a way to criticise people and their arguments: cleanly and directly. It’s what I try to do. Truly. (Do I fail? Yes, sometimes I fail.)

    – P

• Craig says:

  19 June 2012 at 12:04 pm

  You have just made the same argument. That anyone including Cameron Slater can use.
  Except without question you handle detail with far more maturity than the likes of Cameron Slater who often end up slagging people off.
  But there are a lot of similarities.
  So this journalistic approach you try and bring by applying truth and fairness.

  Find me a Post you have done here. which has either has had painted a positive picture on National or a negative picture on Labour and its hangers on.
  I will save you the effort. In my time reading here. I cannot recall one. I may be wrong but this weighting would be 90s to 1’s So I am sorry to say you cannot claim to be Truthful and or fair.
  Hiding behind the but I do it so nicely does not undo the hypocrisy.

  • Peter Aranyi says:

    20 June 2012 at 9:21 am

    Yeah, I know that’s your opinion Craig.

    But your inference that (in your opinion) I’m ‘Labour’ because you’ve noticed some criticism of the government is like declaring I must be a vegetarian because I criticised a burger from McDonalds.

    I’m not ducking and diving. I’m just not a party political animal. In fact I’m repelled by the partisan-to-the-point-of-sectarian trash-talk that passes for political discourse in some quarters.

    I hope we can disagree about this, you and I, or Ivan and I, poormastery & I, etc, as we do about other things, without resentment.

    – P

    http://www.thepaepae.com/media-bias-in-the-eye-of-the-beholder/19166/

• Craig says:

  22 June 2012 at 10:15 am

  I don’t have any resentment. But is rather important considering the large part (like 90%) of your topics here. I see exactly the same criticism you plaster on others happens right here. The difference you do it more articulately and more eloquently.
  I just find hypocrisy to be so frustrating.
  Your analogy is way off base.
  If your analogy was I must like KFC because every article/opinion I have written on Fastfood was critising McDonalds, then I would agree more.
  The Vege vs McDonalds comparison you use is Non Sequitur
  I know your not ducking and diving but it does not change the reality of you claiming to applying truth and fairness.

  Don’t you even find it even slightly hypocritical you claim to be Truthful and Fair. and yet you have not critised Labours nor its partners and on the flip side I fail to remember any positive reflections to National and its partners. Might aswell throw Apple in there as well.

  • Peter Aranyi says:

    22 June 2012 at 6:25 pm

    Thanks for sharing your concerns Craig.

    Despite your inference, in my view, there’s no politically motivated agenda in my choice of subjects for this blog (or ‘targets’).

    Part of the miracle of the human brain is the aspect of ‘pattern recognition’. Combined with the problem of paradigms — where an observer starts to filter reality to support or confirm his or her supposition or theory of how things are – it’s easy (for you and me) to engage in self-reinforcing ‘noticing’ of other people’s biases … irrespective what’s actually happening out there.

    I think we’re all hypocrites to a certain extent. We’ve talked before about the very human tendency to give amnesty to those with whom we tend to agree.

    Telling the truth (not the Truth, Craig!) rather than the half-truths or spin I sometimes detect is an important value to me. And I try to be fair, by which I mean not distorting or misrepresenting what someone else might be saying to make my argument easier.

    I thought you had let me off the homework assignment to locate posts which don’t fit your perceived pattern?

    Here’s a couple: http://www.thepaepae.com/sis-bosss-slow-resignation-letter/17973/

    http://www.thepaepae.com/a-dignified-response-to-labours-complaint/19144/

    and this comment stream, in which you featured:

    http://www.thepaepae.com/nationals-desperados-get-perfervid-about-peters/20513/comment-page-1/#comment-12355

    … but I really don’t have time to get bogged down in the forensics of the question.

    You’ve outlined your impressions. Fair enough.

    – P

    re Resentment: No, I don’t think you do. That was my point. We already disagree about other things.

• Declaring where you’re coming from | The Paepae says:

  5 July 2012 at 1:20 pm

  […] my choice of topics here that I am [allegedly] in the Labour Party’s camp. (Er, nope, as I explained, but he’s entitled to his […]

• “The more information partisans get, the deeper their disagreements become.” | The Paepae says:

  8 April 2014 at 10:39 am

  […] from?) our paradigms which act to filter out facts that don’t support them. See this post, Negative campaigning and comments […]