Author Archive
TV ‘ad hopper’ … um, yes please.
OK, so it’s not a one-sided argument, but still, put me down for one of these … the equivalent of AdBlock in my web browser: The disruptive technology at hand is an ad eraser, embedded in new digital video recorders sold by Charles W. Ergen’s Dish Network, one of the nation’s top distributors of TV […]
John Key’s media whack-a-mole ‘tactical’ — Gavin Ellis
I said yesterday in Setting a narrative: ‘aggressive’ ‘hostile’ ‘antagonistic’ ‘tabloid’ media that I thought the prime minister’s comments criticizing the media (and especially the NZ Herald) were an oh-so-deliberate attempt to characterise future criticism of the Key administration as an aggressive, sensationalist news media lowering standards to desperately chase sales/readers/viewers. Defensively denigrating the news […]
I’d double-check if they told me what day it was
More on the negative credibility of bloggers ‘seeding’ controversy in the mainstream media … Following my brief mention of bloggers who make sh*t up (Negative credibility sux, eh @whaleoil? eh @dpfdpf?) I was interested last night to read NZ First leader Winston Peters’ speech notes for a Wintec media lunch yesterday where he pinged the […]
Deliberately cryptic
What about a blogger’s? — What defines the public interest? … It’s an important principle that can be used to defend journalistic activities that go beyond what is normally considered acceptable behaviour – such as the use of subterfuge – to obtain a story, where complex moral and legal arguments are at stake. However, it […]
Setting a narrative: ‘aggressive’ ‘hostile’ ‘antagonistic’ ‘tabloid’ media
Fairly carefully thought-out impromptu comments? … Lost that loving feeling? John Key interviewed by Leighton Smith on his perceptions of change in attitude by ‘the media’. Immediately reported as: and this:
Oops. ‘Secret’ document published, then declassified.
From Secrecy News… Great title for a secret report: Maybe You Had to Be There: The SIGINT on Thirteen Soviet Shootdowns of U.S. Reconnaissance Aircraft. Who knew cryptologists had such a sense of humor? NSA Declassifies Secret Document After Publishing It May 14th, 2012 by Steven Aftergood The National Security Agency last week invoked a […]
“Well, he would, wouldn’t he?”
Similarities While giving evidence at the trial of Stephen Ward, charged with living off the immoral earnings of Keeler and Rice-Davies, the latter made a famous riposte. When the prosecuting counsel pointed out that Lord Astor denied an affair or having even met her, former model and showgirl Mandy Rice-Davies (right) replied, “Well, he would, […]
BYOB and self-direction
I don’t always agree with VC Fred Wilson, although I find him worth reading. He’s got this right: It’s one thing to build your business on the infrastructure of someone else. Publishers do that all the time (hopefully adding value). It’s quite another to be their poodle. Dependent. This is not just an ‘attitude’ thing. […]
The snort of recognition: Happy Mother’s Day
We’ve been chuckling at this all day…
A polite request from Plunderbund: ‘Please unblock our ads’
As we’ve discussed, a lot of web browsers (people not software) — including me — have installed ad-blocking software. In my case, I was driven to it by feverishly animated Air NZ ads on the NZ Herald website and whirling dervish property spruiker ads on PropertyTalk. So, look what I spotted following a search result […]
Negative credibility sux, eh @whaleoil? eh @dpfdpf?
We’ve discussed before Dan Gilmor’s concept of ‘Negative Credibility‘ — the idea that sometimes information can have an appearance of LESS VERACITY because of its source. Gilmor pointed to Andrew Breitbart’s exposé of the Weiner/underpants/twitter ‘scandal’ (triggered by Rep. Weiner accidentally tweeting a photo as a public reply when he meant to send a DM, […]
Chris Trotter on the Urewera Four. Wow!
I’ve held off making any comment about the Crown decision, announced this week, not to retrry the ‘Urewera Four’ on charges of ‘belonging to an organised criminal group’ after their original trial jury failed to reach a verdict on those charges. This, despite my own (default?) views of police powers, disclosed here before. But wow! […]
