Public Address - Hard News (Home)

Celebrity Gibberish | Nov 08, 2009 15:34

I've been quite impressed lately with the Herald on Sunday: it employs more news reporters than the Star Time, gives them more news pages to fill, and often comes up with the better haul of stories. And it was fair enough that chief reporter David Fisher came up with a story about what Mikey Havoc has had to do about his unpaid parking fines: the process of courts and corrections is a public one.

Short version: the Waitakere District Court allowed Havoc to convert ageing debts amounting to $20,000 to a community work obligation. He has been playing records to students in the university quad, a job for which AUSA normally pays $150 for three hours. AUSA is one of the agencies registered with the Department of Corrections to provide community service work.

The problem is that the Corrections rules state that "An offender should not be placed with an agency for whom they already work." Havoc doesn't work for AUSA, but he does work for 95bFM, which is operated by the AUSA Media Trust, which was established by AUSA and whose four unpaid trustees are entitled to carry out various duties, including appointing managers.

So, again, Havoc doesn't work for AUSA, but the relationship is close enough that a story questioning is it reasonable. It's from there that the HoS heads off into lala land. This is the page three lead ( it's plugged on the front page as "Celebrity justice: TV star's $20,000 get-out-free card") , and a panel on the same page lists the names and form of Tony Veitch, Chris Brown, Naomi Campbell, Brent Todd, Boy George and Lee Tamahori.

None of these really have anything to do with the actual point of the story; they're just celebrities who have been ordered to undertake community labour as punishment for assaults, drug possession, fraud and soliciting. And this, the paper blares, is another example of "celebrity justice".

Of course, the vast majority of people who receive such punishments are not celebrities. And, frankly, it's offensive to compare Mikey Havoc and his parking fines to Tony Veitch or Chris Brown – far more so when that text sits right against a picture of Claire Chitham, the wife from whom Havoc separated this year. The same Claire Chitham who would have nothing whatsoever to do with this story.

And then we turn to the page 57 editorial, where the Herald on Sunday really jumps the shark. It mentions Mikey Havoc and his parking fines in the same breath as Paul Dally, who tortured, raped and murdered 13 year-old Karla Cardno. Why? Because both "have in common ... the questions they raise about how we punish people who break the law." (Subtext: and we're not going to let the fact that they are completely different in every way, other than the reason we've made up, deter us from conflating them.)

"New Zealand's justice system," the editorial declares, "is bi-polar." Which is a bit rich, given that what follows is one of the most confused attempts at editorial writing I've read in a long time:

This is a man who makes his living at bFM by playing music to students – and by the sound of things, enjoys his job. So his punishment scarcely qualifies as hard labour.

Evidently not; although I'm sure that Mikey could have found other things to do with his day than be an unpaid DJ for teenagers. But is it that unusual for people to use their professional skills when they're ordered to community service? Does it actually say in the regulations that the work must be unpleasant "hard labour"?

Where, you might be thinking, are they going with this? Straight for the passively-voice weasel wordage, basically:

Some will perceive this as an abuse of community service, and of society's good intentions.

For goodness sake, it's an editorial. Don't wibble about the opinions of "some" people; if you think it's an abuse, say so.

Others, wrongly, will see it as an indictment of the entire system of community service, as evidence that the justice system is too soft on law-breakers.

But they'd, be, er, wrong, right?

Every time an isolated case like this brings the sentencing system into disrepute, the cries for tougher penalties grow louder.

Well, you've clicked your heels together and said the magic spell "Sensible Sentencing Trust," so who knows?

But the only thing that we can really say makes this an "isolated" case is that it's a case picked up and put on pages one, three and 57 of a Sunday newspaper, and jammed into the ridiculous headline 'Wreaking havoc with justice'.

The editorial lurches on through an argument that really could have done with some evidence, unable to decide between an argument that the Sensible Sentencing Trust is a dangerous influence (quoting the Sian Elias on the risk of judge being pushed into "hot vengeance"), and one that judges are to blame, before lurching back to a plea that "rehabilitation must play a central role":

For this to happen, "the system" must retain the trust of the public. Special treatment for celebrities like Havoc does not help.

Amazingly, the key point of the news story – that it may have been a breach of the rules for Havoc to be doing his community service for AUSA – is made nowhere in the editorial.

Obvious disclosure: I know and like Mikey Havoc. Although l wouldn't describe us as a close friends, I talk to him on the radio once a week. I cannot fathom how someone would, by failing to deal with the issue, let fines build to such a point. But he did, finally, address it, and put a proposal to the court, as anyone in his position can, and the court accepted it. If you want to limit the scope of community service to the dirty, unpleasant and manual, fine: make that argument.

But "celebrity" has not entered this case by virtue of the judicial process. It's there because a Sunday newspaper might sell a few extra copies if it gets a celebrity on the front page. Mikey Havoc has not exploited his celebrity here; the Herald on Sunday has.

And it's done so in a weird and cynical way. A politician who gave a speech laden with the kind of creepy juxtapositions employed by the Herald on Sunday would be crucified by the media.

One might even say that the paper's name might in this case be best abbreviated not as the HoS, but as the PoS.

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PS: The editorial also mentions the "high-profile entertainer" given a discharge and name suppression last week. I don't think this can be usefully discussed without at least the risk of breaching the suppression, and I ask that you don't do so here.

PPS: This week's Media7 recording is Tuesday evening, because we're off to make another show at the SPADA conference in Wellington later in the week. Our topic is Parliamentary perks and all that have flowed from them in the news. Click reply and let me if you'd like to come along from 5pm.

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It was 20 years ago tomorrow ... | Nov 06, 2009 09:15

Twenty years ago tomorrow, the Communist government of East Germany resigned. Two days later, the checkpoints in the Berlin Wall were opened, and East German citizens were allowed to pass freely to the West for the first time in decades. Within a fortnight, the wall itself was disappearing; physically dismantled by exuberant Berliners.

It was the signal point of an unravelling of order that had been in progress for much of the year. Even where blood had been shed – in April, Georgian protesters were massacred by Red Army soldiers, and Chinese students began their protest in Tiananmen Square – the momentum of freedom seemed thrillingly clear.

I was in Berlin that December, to meet with Straitjacket Fits for a Rip It Up story. I had time there either side of seeing the band, and there was still the sense of moment in the air. I heard the mayor speak in public; even my scant grasp of German was enough to know that he was saying it was a Christmas like no other.

Via an Irish friend who came to the gig, I met up with a group of young locals who filled my last night in town with bars and stories about the night the checkpoints opened. Word had gone out, they said, and they headed for the wall with whatever strong drink they could grasp.

Reality was intruding a little. West Berliners' holy right to a car park anywhere and no queues in the shops was beginning to erode. Easties were crowding through in their plastic shoes, uncertain and clutching their official West German government pocket money. But the locals were still excited to be where they were.

Of course, I went down to the wall myself and – in a blend of tourism, protest and wilful damage – managed to hack out a few pieces of the cheap, asbestos-laden concrete of which the wall was made. I still have them.

It was hard not to feel, there at the end of the 1980s, that we were entering a new, and better age. And then, on February 11, we watched Nelson Mandela's release from Robben Island live on TV. What could possibly go wrong now?

In August of 1990, central Europe saw the beginning of a war made possible by its thrilling new freedom from autocracy, as the unleashed Yugoslav republics failed to agree on their degrees of respective autonomy. It would descend into unfathomable bloodletting: neighbour murdered neighbour.

Writing in The Guardian, Timothy Garton Ash reiterates his view that 1989 was Europe's greatest year, but that the thrill for Europe is gone. Since then, he says, the US has squandered its ideological victory in a credit boom, while China has become "the most unexpected winner of them all".

At a time when economists are lining up to play Cassandra on Morning Report it's as well to remember we have lived under heavy manners before. We lived with the possibility of the world ending; we live with it now. (And the people who insisted that the nuclear arms race was nothing to worry about are the same people, at least in kind, who insist that climate change is nothing to worry about.)

But I'm not sure I have a weighty conclusion for you. Indeed, my final thought is quite frivolous. It strikes me that 1989 was not only a good year to be in Europe, but a good year to not be in New Zealand. Lange gave way to Palmer. And in the New Zealand Music Awards that year, Margaret Urlich won best album, best single and best female vocalist. Even the "best cover" prize (WTF?) went to a version of the song that won Urlich best single. Best group was adjudged to be When the Cat's Away. Honestly, people moan now …

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But that's not important right now. Because, ladies and gentlemen, I have something good for you. Earlier this year, two of my favourite people – David Haywood and Blair Parkes – convened in a shed in New Brighton to play some music with the creative assistance of a number of bottles of Monteith's Black. David sent me a rough recording, noting its liquid provenance. I realised I was in a position to help. After some to-and-fro, a substantial quantity of beer (Original for David, Black for Blair) was delivered in Christchurch to aid the conception and creation of this fine work:

David can explain further, but essentially the aim here, as expressed by Blair, was to create a natural recording; not equalised or tweaked or polished. Just put the microphone in the right place and sing and play; David on banjo and Blair on acoustic bass and other instruments. It's made under the name The Bridle Path, it's lovely and Ian Dalziel has already christened it: ladies and gentlemen, this is "plunk rock".

You can download the 'Monteith's Sessions E.P.' as a ZIP file with MP3s and cover art (7.8MB) [right-click on the link and choose "Save Target As..."]

or:

Click here to listen to streaming audio of the 'Monteith's Sessions E.P.' on the Bridle Path MySpace page.

Please raise your glasses …

[Note: The E.P. is free to copy and distribute, but it is copyright, and Bridle Path assert their moral right to be identified as the author(s).]

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