Posts Tagged ‘journalism’
Samsung’s walk in the park
Daniel Eran Dilger is a ranter — but a ranter who builds a persuasive case by (often sarcastically) citing facts, history and numbers. I have a lot of time for him. I appreciate his attention span. This very dense paragraph (below) is from one of his wonderful takedowns — in this case of a pliant business press […]
‘As playful as he is psychotic’
I read this wonderful line in Michele Manelis’ preview of Skyfall, the latest Bond movie: Javier Barden stars as Raoul Silva, and brings the sinister-yet-comedic element to the story. This over-the-top baddie is as playful as he is psychotic, but of course, underneath it all, he feels that he’s simply “misunderstood”. Which reminded me of […]
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 […]
A nice description of the journalist’s conceit (as in fanciful notion, not pride)
From Jeff Himmelman’s NY Times review of Yours in Truth — A Personal Portrait of Ben Bradlee. Some journalists seem incapable of seeing flaws in themselves or their heroes. They suspend their professional skepticism as if they’re not bound by the usual rules of gravity. It’s a kind of self-important higher-calling disease that has made some […]
Ask Jay Rosen …
I mentioned recently in ‘Declaring where you’re coming from‘ how thought-provoking I find some of what NYU journalism prof Jay Rosen has to say about the present and unfolding future of news media journalism. Here, via Andrew Sullivan is a link to a work-in-progress: Ask Jay Rosen Anything It’s also worth following some of Andrew’s […]
Flacks will always try this on. Resist.
The New York Times reports in a vaguely-nauseating article ‘Latest Word on the Trail? I Take It Back‘ on the increasing use of ‘quote approval’ by the US presidential campaigns as a condition of interviews with people associated with the campaigns. I’ve never agreed to that request when asked by ‘newsmakers’ at all levels, or […]
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 […]
Taking the pfiss out of John Key
Wow. The honeymoon is well-and-truly over: Here’s open comment that the NZ Prime Minister is routinely observed “fibbing, hiding something or not totally convinced by [his] own argument”. ‘How are the mighty fallen!’1 This is just as devastating, in a different way, as what a former NZ Herald editor said in John Key’s media whack-a-mole […]
Negative campaigning
There’s a fantastic article about negative campaigning in this month’s New York magazine… Frank Rich: Nuke ’Em Why negative advertisements are powerful, essential, and sometimes (see “Daisy”) even artistic. It includes this distinction, which touches on some of the discussion we’ve had here earlier about political activists like Cameron Slater purporting to be ‘media’ when […]
Two good US politics reads
Steve Schmidt (former McCain campaign manager) A Career Resurrected After McCain and Palin – New York Times 8 June 2012 Woodward and Bernstein: 40 years after Watergate, Nixon was far worse than we thought – The Washington Post 9 June 2012 Worth reading, and if you’re like me, worth archiving. I’ll fold some of the […]
Rodney Hide, boy genius.
I knew Rodney Hide back when he was still using a Cassiopeia and I was using Psion Series 3a. (We used to compare features.) While he’s a pleasant man, and I personally like him, he’s never struck me as an intellectual powerhouse… So it was intriguing recently to read in the NBR online his vapid […]
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 […]
Mike Hosking: ‘a note of some clarification’ re SkyCity
On Radio NZ’s Mediawatch today I heard clips of broadcaster Mike Hosking’s statement of ‘clarification‘ about his work with SkyCity casinos broadcast on NewstalkZB earlier this week. Hosking was responding to commentary and news reports like this and this that he’s received tens of thousands of dollars of cash and benefits from the Casino and […]
