Posts Tagged ‘authenticity’
Romney
I haven’t got much to say about the debate yesterday. (I watched it.) Romney, as discussed, it seems to me, will say anything, whether he believes it, or whether it will stand scrutiny or not, The ‘Etch-a-sketch’ illustration his campaign organiser Eric Fehrnstrom forecast in March (wherein Romney could pretend to be a ‘conservative Republican’ […]
The #PlanetKey ‘gag’ is going to bite John Key. (That’s my prediction)
“We wouldn’t have toilets on Planet Key” — Prime Minister John Key at Question Time. Arrogance like this looks bad. It erodes respect. Mr Key is going to have to jettison this, or be defined by it. Do you see it differently? Let me know. – P
The politicians we deserve
No charges were laid against Mr Banks. Police found that although he had filed a false election return, he hadn’t done so deliberately, because he had signed it without reading it. — ‘Police file: How Banks’ team targeted rich-list‘ NZ Herald 13 Sept 2012 What can one say about this that doesn’t read as gratuitously […]
The D-word. Name-calling in place of intellectual debate
A nice line from Stanley Fish’s New York Times review of right wing polemicist Dinesh D’Souza’s ninety minute anti-Obama campaign ad masquerading as a feature film … … While a viewer could certainly disagree with D’Souza’s analysis of the genesis and emergence of Obama’s views, it is nevertheless an analysis to which one could respond […]
Criticism or demonisation? Thoughts about The Standard’s treatment of the Paganis
I personally still don’t buy the ‘left wingers making death threats’ spin promulgated recently with faux ‘outrage’, ‘sympathy’ and ‘concern’ by certain right wing political propagandists. (see: ‘Wailing about death threats, forgetting what they’ve written themselves‘) They’re just exploiting the evident divisions between some on ‘the left’. As they do. Making hay while the sun […]
Quote approval is a defeat for journalists any way you look at it. Call their name.
Following up on my comment Flacks will always try this on. Resist. here’s an insider’s view from Ari Fleischer, White House press secretary to George W. Bush 2001 to 2003 … How Washington officials bested the media The problem with quote approval is it’s too easy. It turns the relationship between a source and a […]
John Banks ‘absolutely’ supports campaign donation law reform. With a straight face!
Following up on Laughing all the way to the Banks …
Choking on one’s own sanctimony (I think Juana has ‘issues’ with me)
On harsh criticism “[A]t its worst, the show chokes on its own sanctimony,” Thus wrote a New York Times TV critic, Allesandra Stanley, responding (negatively) to The Newsroom, Aaron Sorkin’s latest TV series. The opening line of her review, ‘So Sayeth the Anchorman‘ reads: It’s not enough to be right; everyone else must be wrong. That’s […]
Laughing all the way to the Banks
‘Insufficient evidence’ From one Banksy to another — Police have decided they won’t prosecute ACT Party leader and sole MP John Banks for [alleged] electoral law offences relating to him improperly declaring tens of thousands of dollars of campaign donations as ‘anonymous’ when he’d personally solicited those very donations … because they can’t prove he […]
Someone who asks questions for a living does a good job of answering some
From one of the most thoughtful and illuminating* ‘Twelve Questions’ columns I’ve read … NZ Herald: Knowing what you know now about the media, would you still want to be a journalist if you were starting out in 2012? Anita McNaught: It has changed, but with a few reservations I love the way it has […]
Declaring where you’re coming from
Like most people (I think), I find it interesting, at times fascinating, to speculate about WHY people do and say what they do … WHY they might express views that they hold in the way they do … and WHY they enter into discussions or debates (and sometimes flame wars) on the internet. But I’ve […]
The curse of hypervigilance
Recent angst-ridden discussion about comments published on the internet have reminded me of a conclusion I reached when I was myself the subject of scurrilous anonymous comment: It can bloody hurt. But some of the pain is, sadly, self-inflicted. We’ve seen again and again how anonymity seems to loosen people’s grip on civility. Some of […]
“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, […]
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, […]
