Archive for the ‘Media issues’ Category
The rush to certainty …
A WHOLE lot of wisdom in one bite-sized blog post from Dave Pell, internet superhero: That’s an apt description of the new national pastime: Baseball, hot dogs, apple pie and making determinations and judgments without a full set of facts. When confronted with the realtime web’s constant flow of incoming information, who has time for […]
YouTube Traffic thieves spotted in the wild
Remember my review of Geekversity spruiker Shaun Stenning‘s YouTube Traffic Thieves report… An odious little volume? Apparently news aggregator site Gawker.tv (parent of Gizmodo, receivers of stolen iPhone prototypes) recently used one of the dodgy ‘tricks’ promoted by the young guru’s mephitic ‘e-book’ i.e pinching someone else’s video and uploading it to get ‘their’ traffic. […]
Now that’s what I call ‘news commentary’!
Steve Jobs defeats Bill Gates/Darth Vader and becomes the new Dark Lord harnessing mystical powers of the Force while laughing maniacly … oh boy, it’s good. Here’s an ‘artists impression'(?) of how Apple dealt with Gizmodo editor/receiver of stolen iPhone prototype Jason Chen: Watch the video at YouTube. Thanks to John (“My linking to these […]
Lying, my dear boy, just compounds the crime …
A while ago I posted a few thoughts: Potshots from behind a mask of anonymity are, by definition, cheap, saying in part… Internet anonymity has also clearly been abused by what I call cardboard cut-outs and glove puppets who pop up in online communities to anonymously denigrate their “enemies” without declaring their allegiances (or building […]
“If you don’t want an iPhone 4 …”
OK, it’s unofficial(?) Apple PR, but as well as being entertaining (always a plus) Jonathan Mann’s song is also a nice serving of ‘Let’s keep this in perspective‘. “The media loves a failure in a string of successes / the facts won’t ever matter if they can make their bigger messes/ sure I can make […]
Say goodbye to Paul Henry the abusive try-hard
TV breakfast shock jock Paul Henry was over the line with his “retarded” comments about Susan Boyle the Broadcasting Standards Authority found, and TVNZ didn’t do enough to rectify the matter. The BSA ordered the broadcaster to “read an agreed summary-of-decision statement on Breakfast within a month.” Given his history, Paul Henry appears to believe […]
Pressure and persuasion
Cost of principles? Too pricey, it seems. ‘Tested and found lacking’ would be one way to describe Google’s push-me-pull-you relationship with the Chinese government. Highlighted first in March Google ‘leaves’ China over censorship with worldwide fanfare and admiration that they’d finally grown some stones, it started to unravel a bit (The cost of principles?) and […]
Re-touching to the point of distortion
From an eye-opening Dove soap commercial. Kudos to them! Watch it happen in high speed stop-motion below the fold.
The cost of principles?
Not a flattering headline, but I’m sure they have their reasons for the [reported] backpeddle after this brave start back in March: Google ‘leaves’ China over censorship Will Google roll over for China? By Marianne Barriaux | NZ Herald Wednesday Jun 30, 2010 BEIJING – Google has changed tack in China to address government complaints […]
Questionable news value
I can’t see what, exactly, makes this six-month-old story worthy of a front-page splash… Nonsense. Last line of the ‘lead story’: News of his daughter’s arrest has come at an unwelcome time for Phil Goff, who replaced former prime minister Helen Clark as Labour leader when she stood down in 2008. Polls have had him […]
Do your opinions invalidate your reporting?
While we’re down this ‘your opinions make your journalism questionable‘ rabbit hole, if you’re interested, in the US a reporter/columnist for The Washington Post, David Weigel has just been fired/’resignation accepted’ after email trails revealed his rather robust private-ish views of some in the right wing movement (Tea Party etc) it was his beat to […]
The new breed of journalist-commentator
There’s really good insightful ‘defence’ of Michael Hastings — the journalist who (gasp) reported now-sacked-for-his-impertinence General McChrystal’s disparaging comments about his masters. Interesting that Hastings’ ‘friend and admirer’ the writer Barrett Brown describes Hastings thus: it was written by a perfect specimen of the new breed of journalist-commentator that will hopefully come to replace the old […]
YouTube copyright win. For now.
Well, that’s an interesting turn. Looks like the judge has confirmed the rule as: Go ahead, infringe somebody else’s copyright (or provide a platform for doing so), then stop doing it as soon as the aggrieved rights-holder demands you ‘take it down’ and … ‘sweet, bro!’. Hmm, I don’t think I like that. The role […]
Take no prisoners
The canonization (OK, not really. He’s not dead!) of Jon Stewart — America’s most trusted newscaster — continues. I rate Stewart very highly indeed, which should go without saying, but hey, let me say it. His recent whack at Pres. Barack Obama’s underwhelming primetime televised oval office speech about the Gulf of Mexico oil spill sparked an […]
