Posts Tagged ‘journalism’
Bloggers v journalists
The blogosphere has been atwitter about a blogger who wanted her un-sourced ‘comments’ and denigration of a businessman to be protected under Oregon’s ‘shield laws’ — designed to stop legitimate news media from being compelled to reveal their sources. By far the best comment I’ve read about it was from Forbes’ Kashmir Hill in her […]
A shot across the news media’s bows re cup of tea tape
UPDATE: In an extraordinary display of service beyond the (routine) call of duty, I’m told the police actually rang individual news outlets last night (14/11/11) to emphasize this release/gag threat (above). Even going so far as saying “Have you read paragraph three? About the two years in jail?” Wow, what great service the police give […]
Thin-skinned media critic Cameron Slater spits dummy
Oops, I did it again. I briefly engaged in a Twitter conversation with ‘Whale Oil’ right wing attack blogger Cameron Slater, provoked by his stream of increasingly hysterical and accusatory rants against the Herald on Sunday about the bugged cup of tea … Starting about 9.40 this morning the National Party’s [avowedly] unguided missile, lap […]
Mystery object was a bug!
So. it transpires that the ‘cup of tea’ stunt was bugged, and the Herald on Sunday‘s intrepid David Fisher has the recording (kudos, David). How could that happen? And was it deliberate? Dunno. But simple almost always beats complicated … Here’s my shot as we were being shepherded out like geese by Wayne (right) and […]
Being the medium
Sorry, I’ve been a bit busy to post. Over the weekend, on Saturday I covered the Mana Party campaign launch at Otara — an upbeat, good-humoured event which spouted talk of revolution and smashing/overthrowing the system. Invigorating rap songs and anthems bookended passionate speeches from this country’s radical literati — living treasures of the left-wing […]
Is it OK for Don Brash to call a journo ‘a deceitful bastard’?
Is it OK for ACT leader Don Brash to call a journalist ‘a deceitful bastard‘ and refuse to be interviewed by him? Yes. Absolutely. Damn right it is. Is it smart? No. In an election campaign? Even less so. Never mind. This (below) is how I prefer to see Don […]
Playing whack-a-mole with ‘da media’
‘Da media’ cops a lot of flak. I heard someone complaining on the radio today about the saturation coverage of the Rugby World Cup … every possible angle explored and elaborated upon. Those who work in news and its many-fangled tributaries make a big fat juicy target. Generic criticism rains down on them. It’s instructive […]
BSA finding: PM’s hour NOT electioneering — “light flim-flam and frivolity”
I did say in A dignified response to Labour’s complaint that I thought RadioLIVE would ‘no doubt’ have sought advice before going ahead with The Prime Minister’s Hour … it seems that was good advice — at least as far as the Broadcasting Standards Authority is concerned. See: Complaints over RadioLIVE’s Prime Minister’s Hour not upheld […]
Engaging, rather than demonising
I respect and pay tribute to people whom engage with others with whom they disagree — and I try to do so myself. I’m reading veteran BBC journo Peter Taylor’s book Talking to Terrorists. It’s very good, deeper than I expected, and insightful of the motivations of people involved in struggle. This is from the […]
Media bias: In the eye of the beholder
This comment from Ivan feeds into what I think is a perception about the ‘wicked-news-meed-ya’ today … My opinion is that there is a monolithic seachange in media approach. I believe that there has been a shift toward populist shockjock opinionated and quite trite media. They look privileged – they sound privileged and they act […]
Doing the anti-MMP campaign’s dirty work
I’ve been critical of partisan attack blogging (which I called “fixated, credibility-eviscerating attack blogging“). I am troubled (but not ‘shocked‘ or ‘outraged‘) by a demonstrated lack of what I called ‘fair-mindedness’ and the occasional deployment of untruthfulness (I regard that as a far more serious breach) I observe in some political blogs, some of whom […]
An apology should cost you something
Wow. Things have been going off the rails for Johann Hari since he got ‘busted’ massaging quotes in his interviews. Now he’s issued an apology and given an explanation (again) for his lack of truthfulness, and touches on some of the points I try to make here now and then about the generalised loss of […]
Do journalists have a franchise on ‘news’? Nope.
I rate journalist Jack Shafer. He’s smart, he’s bold, he’s plain spoken. He shows you how he reaches his sometimes very tough conclusions. Here he is on CNN with Howard Kurtz discussing the way news, journalism and media criticism has changed and is changing — under pressure from economics, the explosion of internet media, and […]
A departing editor’s kamikaze attack on his crappy publisher
I’d never heard of Valley City, nor the happy sounding Horizon Publications, but heroic Lee Morris, outgoing editor of the Valley City Times-Record, somehow managed to slip this parting shot into the paper, detailing his very reasonble and well-written account of changes he sees as very negative (ahem) at the Valley City Times-Record. Morris had […]
