Posts Tagged ‘journalism’

Eight in a row!

I celebrated last week Jim Parsons winning an Emmy for his role as Sheldon Cooper in The Big Bang Theory. Cool. This news that Jon Stewart and The Daily  Show won an EIGHTH Emmy for Best Variety Show somehow slipped past me. That brilliant, vital show deserves them all. Dumb sentence of the week award goes to […]

‘Vendetta’ and ‘hate campaign’?

Interesting to see Brian Edwards recently accused of these ‘failings’ with respect to Paul Henry by anonymous commenters on his blog. (Unless ‘Dwossie Bleu-Bleu’ is a name?) My own views of Paul Henry and his (un)suitability for TV are summed up in Say goodbye to Paul Henry the abusive try-hard. But I’m not running a […]

Transparency journalism

I hadn’t heard this term: The insider described transparency journalism – a phrase not used by the [WikiLeaks] organisation until today – as ”journalism that tells a true story and then backs it up by publishing source documents that also provide the truth.’‘ I like it. Source: WikiLeaks founder to stay – insider — Sydney […]

The truth can be harsh

Respected business journalist/commentator Rod Oram’s assessment of the collapse of the HUGE South Canterbury Finance and supremo Allan Hubbard’s role in the demise is less confrontational than Bernard Hickey’s Please say sorry and thanks ‘open letter’ piece — but in its way, just as scathing. Failing to respond to criticism has become one of the […]

Please say sorry, and thanks …

I don’t know enough to make a judgement about Allan Hubbard, and I point to this only as an example of a journalist, in this case, publishing his (strong) personal opinions … I find that refreshing and encouraging because it’s clear he’s based them on his own considerable research and experience. Good on you Bernard. […]

Facebook leaks like a sieve (Part 2)

Sorry if this reads vaguely like an echo chamber, but it’s a point that bears repeating. Everyone has something to hide — or to keep private, which is not quite the same thing. This article Tracking the cyber footprint by the NZ Herald’s David Fisher sets out to reveal something of perils of posting information […]

The future of publishing?

I had the pleasure a week or so ago of accompanying one of my authors Olly Newland on a visit to the interest.co.nz offices. The Auckland-based e-publishing business seems like a success story by any measure. Its nearly ubiquitous host, journalist Bernard Hickey provokes ALL sorts of comment — good and bad — on a […]

An apology? … Oh, that’s all right then.

Here’s how Bob Jones’s publishers handled incorrect information asserted as fact … … which is a bit different to how Gareth Morgan handled ‘a mistake in the book that must be corrected’ in the first edition of his After The Panic. I occasionally ask readers to clarify any matters of fact that may be inadvertently […]

I had to laugh …

One of my key research tools as a writer is a very flexible archiving system called DEVONThink … which its brilliant creators describe as an Information Manager with Built-in Artificial Intelligence I’ve been using it for five years (almost to the day: I bought my first version on 9 August 2005) and the artificial intelligence […]

That’s not a bad camera on your phone, buddy…

Photographer Pete Belanger used an iPhone 4 to take his cover shot of … an iPhone 4. Read all about it at his blog. There’s a photojournalism maxim: ‘Q: What’s the best camera? A: The one you have with you.’ With one of these in your pocket, well, not bad… Thanks to John Gruber (again).

‘Wretch of the week’ — that’s a nice phrase

I enjoyed satirist Steve Braunias talking with Radio NZ’s Jim Mora on his Eight months to Mars slot this week. As part of it, Steve described his own ‘The Secret Diary of …’ column in the Sunday Star Times as ‘Wretch of the Week’ and disclosed that in getting the voice of the subject right […]

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 […]

Neither one nor the other…

The profession “blogger” is still not considered “journalism”, depending on whom you ask and the time of day. Comment 42 from ‘Gus2000’ on Roughly Drafted Magazine blog re Daniel attending and asking questions at the recent Apple shareholder meeting but not being ‘allowed’ to report them. Gus has it right. (But for how long?)