Posts Tagged ‘telling the truth’
NOT taking their own ‘advice’ … for better outcomes
Last year I read an article called How Doctors Die which I highly recommend you also read. In a nutshell, and as a generalization, Ken Murray MD finds that doctors faced with their own terminal disease seek none of the high level medical interventions they might carry out or recommend to their patients, but rather […]
Blame the Blackberry
From a very-well-worth-reading Reuters article about the News Corp/News International ‘clean up’ over phone-hacking: James [Murdoch] has consistently said that he did not know all the facts when he approved the [£700k] payment [to a hacking victim, soccer union boss Gordon Taylor] despite the revelation by the MSC in December of an email trail that […]
Media neutrality vs being truthful
We’ve talked before about my distinction (not just mine!) between being ‘impartial‘ (or big O objective) versus being FAIR — which I (naively?) primarily define as telling the truth. Some partisans (who shall remain charitably nameless lest we upset their finely-balanced narcotic calm) seem to me to frequently stoop to spinning half-truths or outright lies […]
Scrutiny and criticism starts at home
It is my belief that the writer, the free-lance author, should be and must be a critic of the society in which he lives. It is easy enough, and always profitable, to rail away at national enemies beyond the sea, at foreign powers beyond our borders who question the prevailing order. But the moral duty […]
‘public interest’ vs ‘the issues that matter’
Reflecting on John Key’s clearly-scripted talking point before he ‘stormed out’ of a media conference yesterday, it seems to me the National Party spin doctors (and lawyers?) will be emphatic that their man Key NOT under any circumstances admit to any ‘public interest’ in the cup of tea tapes. Thus, the apparent attempt to smother […]
Teflon John Key under pressure over tape
Politics is all about responding to emergencies — and I don’t mean a container ship grounding itself on a reef. From the NZ Herald’s John Armstrong today: John Key insists there is nothing on the secret tape of his “cup of tea” conversation with John Banks to cause him the slightest bother. If so, why […]
Dodgem or dipstick? The miraculous rehabilitation of Chris Trotter from scheming Labour flunky to honourable lefty
David Lange once described Mike Moore as not so much having a train of thought but ‘Dodgems of thought‘. In a way it was a compliment, because Moore was unquestionably an ideas man — he generated lots of ideas. Ideas spilling over each other. The trouble was, as someone who I can’t remember said, that […]
Whale Oil truth FAIL? A note to the Standards Committee
Ms Spanish Bride Standards Committee Whale Oil website Dear Spanish, Thank you for your correspondence of 15 October received yesterday ‘Hypocrite, your name is Peter’ which followed my requests for True Blogger Cameron Slater to advance a single shred of evidence for his allegations of ‘illegal’ campaign advertising and ‘vandalism’ which I quote below. In […]
Astonishing corruption at Murdoch’s Wall St Journal
Crikey. If this is how Murdoch’s flagship Wall St Journal operates, what’s going on in the background at Fox News? This tale of corruption, money-channelling and ‘news’ articles used as bribes to keep the conspiracy alive is devastating. It’s from Nick Davies who exposed News International’s phone hacking and police & political corruption … The Guardian […]
No weasel words
Irish rugby captain Brian O’Driscoll is an impressive man, even in defeat. Here’s how he responded to losing to Wales in last night’s Rugby World Cup quarter final. We failed to do ourselves justice. You have to earn everything you get in Test rugby and today we were off the pace – and we go […]
Eloquent Eliota Sapolu on Campbell Live
I saw this interview between TV3’s John Campbell and Eliota Sapolu — the Samoan rugby centre who faced a judiciary hearing following his angry tweets accusing an IRB ref of bias and racist decisions during the South African/Samoan pool game in the Rugby World Cup. It’s a fabulous interview which impressed me very much. See […]
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 […]
