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Public Address — Wed, 15 Nov 2006 08:06:58 +1300

Discussion from blog post.

rodgerd

rodgerd — Wed, 15 Nov 2006 08:06:58 +1300

I was stunned when I saw the cover for this N&S, and assumed that it was one of those "lure them in with a shocking headline" jobs, not an actual bit of trash that would look well-placed in a National Front newsletter.

What, exactly, were they thinking?

Lyndon Hood

Lyndon Hood — Wed, 15 Nov 2006 09:17:46 +1300

Deborah Hill Cone was on the National Radio afternoon show and brough it up because didn't see why it should be "controversial".

Near the start of this.

Anyway, I assume we're not surprised by that, but I thought we might be interested.

Hamish

Hamish — Wed, 15 Nov 2006 09:34:31 +1300

Deborah Hill Cone was on the National Radio afternoon show and brough it up because didn't see why it should be "controversial".

It's not like it's even a matter of opinion – the math is wrong. If that is the basis of the article then the article should be retracted...

Russell Brown

Russell Brown — Wed, 15 Nov 2006 09:40:10 +1300

It's not like it's even a matter of opinion – the math is wrong. If that is the basis of the article then the article should be retracted.

Damn right. Keith's analysis is an indictment of Coddington's (a) incompetence, (b) appalling bad faith, or (c) both.

This warrants an editorial...

Phil Mackie

Phil Mackie — Wed, 15 Nov 2006 09:49:23 +1300

Don't be too upset Keith – it's only DC after all, and she don't make much sense at the best of times. The article says much more about her really.

I have a few friends from Asia (No, really!), and we frequently use the 'You all look the same to...

Andrew Feltoe

Andrew Feltoe — Wed, 15 Nov 2006 09:51:40 +1300

Keith, have you been in touch with the mag? See if you can write a rebuttal article (or just send them your post to print). I wonder if they'll dare.

Danyl Mclauchlan

Danyl Mclauchlan — Wed, 15 Nov 2006 09:58:08 +1300

Everything else aside, I'd be fascinated to hear Coddingtons practical ideas on how 'some asians' could be 'sent back'.

Does she propose some sort of lottery system? ('Congratulations Sir! You and your family have just won an all expenses paid, one way trip to sunny Myanmar!')

Or does she just...

David Haywood

David Haywood — Wed, 15 Nov 2006 09:59:43 +1300

rodgerd wrote:

What, exactly, were they thinking?

I imagine North & South's thought processes went something like this:

__Help! Our readership is plummeting. We need to take drastic measures. How about running a sensationalist story? Perhaps something like: 'Asian Angst: is it time to send some back?'. "Hey Deborah, why don't...

Tom Semmens

Tom Semmens — Wed, 15 Nov 2006 10:03:41 +1300

That article is shameful to me as a New Zealander and appalling in its shoddy (but alas, typical) thinking. But like reading Pravda in the Soviet era, its not the article that is interesting but the fact that it was allowed to be written at all. There seems to be...

Camilla Swan

Camilla Swan — Wed, 15 Nov 2006 10:08:20 +1300

Excellent post Keith, succinctly bundled up many of the issues I spent most of the day ranting about yesterday. Specifically the comparison of PI and Asian crime statistics. I think Deborah needs to enrol in STATS 101 or perhaps 7th form Statistics again to gain an understanding of just how...

Tom Semmens

Tom Semmens — Wed, 15 Nov 2006 10:15:42 +1300

Oh and BTW – my revenge in this case was to go to the bookstore, read the offending article, then HIDE the copies of North and South behind the adult magazines. Immensely satisfying as a piece of petty direct action.

Mr Black

Mr Black — Wed, 15 Nov 2006 10:22:58 +1300

"Making it even more difficult for police, says [Auckland police] drug squad boss [John] Sowter, is 'that they all look the same to us so you wouldn't know [they're gang members] if you passed them on the street. We've got Asian cleaners and I look at them sometimes and wonder."...

Sapna Samant

Sapna Samant — Wed, 15 Nov 2006 10:25:45 +1300

Well done Keith! Send your article to N&S. They should apologise for the obfuscation. Did they think us Asians were dumb too? As for Debra H-C. She lives in an ivory tower so white she has monochromatic vision. She once said that those learning Te Reo are losing their English language...

Michael Stevens

Michael Stevens — Wed, 15 Nov 2006 10:32:51 +1300

Great analysis Mr Ng, excellent! And N&S should apologise for publishing such shoddy work – Third-rate racist innumerate journalism from a failed politician.

But what more can we expect from Coddington – she's never been the sharpest knife in the drawer, and Cone is not exactly known for her insight or...

Tet Woo Lee

Tet Woo Lee — Wed, 15 Nov 2006 10:33:52 +1300

This reminds me of a letter to the Herald a year or two back, which basically went something like: Asians make up 6% of the population, but 2% of the crime statistics and therefore this must mean than 1/3 of asians are criminals. Haha, talk about totally misunderstanding stats. I...

Kyle MacDonald

Kyle MacDonald — Wed, 15 Nov 2006 10:36:01 +1300

The woman is the worst kind of idiot, ignorant, opinionated and with a forum. She did a similarly bad job of writing about how "ALL INSANE PEOPLE KILL PEOPLE" a few years back in the same shoddy publication. Honestly, she is actually just a really bad journalist. Who keeps giving...

Don Christie

Don Christie — Wed, 15 Nov 2006 10:41:13 +1300

I suspect DHC sees this tact as a way of getting herself and some of her ex-MP buddies back into parliament at the expense of NZ First. Not the first time in the last few months I have heard and ex-Act MP spout similar nastiness.

stever@cs.waikato.ac.nz

stever@cs.waikato.ac.nz — Wed, 15 Nov 2006 11:15:43 +1300

Suely there's now a law against inciting racial hatred---especially if you do it intentionally? And what reason save inciting hatred (or stoking that which, sadly, already exists widely in NZ) would there be for writing such an article, and then making a big deal about it?

Stephen Judd

Stephen Judd — Wed, 15 Nov 2006 11:48:27 +1300

It's even more fun if you mentally substitute "Jew" for "Asian". I think from now on we could refer to Deborah "Streicher" Coddington.

But more seriously, this is why I no longer read N&S, or Metro, or any NZ magazine. I'm fed up with articles whose authors clearly started with their...

Lucy Telfar Barnard

Lucy Telfar Barnard — Wed, 15 Nov 2006 13:32:06 +1300

Yes, the Human Rights Act does prohibit inciting racial hatred, but in practice the prohibition always has to be balanced against the Bill of Rights Act right to freedom of speech, which means actual prosecutions are few and far between. (I can't actually think of any. Anyone else?)

Tze Ming Mok

Tze Ming Mok — Wed, 15 Nov 2006 14:12:49 +1300

There was one case, but it was a long time ago, and not contested. (white supremacist)
In general, complaints to the Human Rights Commission of publications and speech 'exciting racial hostility' do not meet the threshold of harm required to outbalance the principles of free speech. Appropriately, it is a...

Meech

Meech — Wed, 15 Nov 2006 14:42:26 +1300

I don't know a lot about how the Press Council works – if they in fact have any powers [I''m much more familiar with the BSA] Could it be worth laying a complaint with them?

Chris Beer

Chris Beer — Wed, 15 Nov 2006 14:47:34 +1300

Stephen: I fully agree about your comments on the NZ print media – although to be fair the situation is little better in Australia... I have simply stopped buying weekly or monthly printed news and current affairs publications.

Am I really hoping for too much in wanting to be able...

Russell Brown

Russell Brown — Wed, 15 Nov 2006 15:15:31 +1300

The Press Council very rarely upholds complaints (about 7% are upheld, considerably fewer than similar bodies in other countries) and when it does, it can only oblige editors of member publications to "publish the substance of Council adjudications".

As a self-regulating body for the print media (I think there are...

Keith Ng

Keith Ng — Wed, 15 Nov 2006 16:04:07 +1300

Thanks for all the replies – this whole PA System thing is great, but a bit hard to keep track and responsed in any sort of timely fashion.

I don't really buy into the idea that either N&S or Coddington are deliberately racist, or even that their motives were purely cynical...

Lyndon Hood

Lyndon Hood — Wed, 15 Nov 2006 16:41:16 +1300

Matt Nippert on today's Nat Rad panel just had Coddington for a late lunch. Keith duly propped.

"A full 12.5% of former ACT MPs are convicted fraudsters. That's hundreds of times the rate in the general population!"

Stephen Judd

Stephen Judd — Wed, 15 Nov 2006 16:43:52 +1300

I don't really buy into the idea that either N&S or Coddington are deliberately racist

OK, so the Julius Streicher thing was hyperbolic.

But I still think the laziness and incompetence has racist roots. Neither Coddington nor her editors saw anything unlikely about her conclusions that warranted review. Why? Because those...

Moz

Moz — Wed, 15 Nov 2006 17:11:36 +1300

I do like your take on it, Keith. Humorous as well as pointed.

I suspect there's an aspect of circularity here too: asians are perceived as more law-biding than average so it's news when they commit a crime. Asian commits armed robbery! Shock! Horror! Hold the front page! Yet another...

Tze Ming Mok

Tze Ming Mok — Wed, 15 Nov 2006 17:33:46 +1300

Where Coddington went horribly wrong, of course, was failing to interview an actual recent immigrant (and pretending that one Chinese New Zealander who explicitly dissociates herself from those immigrants is representative of those immigrants)

Coddington did in fact interview Justin Zhang from Skykiwi.com and Lincoln Tan. It appears neither of...

Juha Saarinen

Juha Saarinen — Wed, 15 Nov 2006 18:01:24 +1300

Definitely disagree that putting in a formal complaint would be helpful. Codswallopington has a right to shower us with her dreck, and nobody should undermine that, no matter how unpalatable it is.

And yes, I do realise there are limits to these things. Keith's response was very much in the...

stephen walker

stephen walker — Wed, 15 Nov 2006 18:17:49 +1300

i don't think Coddington is the main issue here. a quick perusal of her past "journalism" efforts will preclude most people from taking seriously anything she writes.

no, i think this "piece" just throws into sharp relief the true agenda of the North & South editor:

trashy "Shock! Horror! Probe!" cover...

Stephen Judd

Stephen Judd — Wed, 15 Nov 2006 18:38:32 +1300

Codswallopington has a right to shower us with her dreck, and nobody should undermine that.

I prefer mockery too. But the question was asked.

Remember DC's sex offender book? Shock and horror is her MO and raison d'etre.

Russell Brown

Russell Brown — Wed, 15 Nov 2006 19:06:08 +1300

In a sense, I think they missed their own point. It could have been a legitimate story.

That's what I thought. It wasn't the topic, just the nonsense treatment of it.

I did think, however, that the politicians' professed ignorance of the Asian Crime Wave should have prompted a closer...

Russell Brown

Russell Brown — Wed, 15 Nov 2006 19:09:46 +1300

Coddington did in fact interview Justin Zhang from Skykiwi.com and Lincoln Tan. It appears neither of them gave her the message she wanted, so she had to simply quote Lincoln's columns selectively, and find someone completely irrelevant instead.

The irony, is that Lincoln, for all the tut-tutting about his tabloid...

Hamish

Hamish — Wed, 15 Nov 2006 21:04:50 +1300

We could probably dedicate a whole forum to calling out journalists on their shortcomings... (glances nervously at the majority of PA/S members who are actually journalists)

Paul Litterick

Paul Litterick — Wed, 15 Nov 2006 21:22:18 +1300

The story would not have so much heft if it were not for the cover, with its question about sending some of them back. Regardless of what Coddington has written, North and South could have presented the story in a different manner. Unfortunately, it is a magazine which thrives on...

81stcolumn

81stcolumn — Wed, 15 Nov 2006 21:23:23 +1300

My wife wearing her Tangata Whenua hat rather waspishly suggested that perhaps Maoridom couild apply the same logic to send erm um DHC back and Brash and Clarkson...I had to stop her there before she started on me....

Steven Price

Steven Price — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 10:23:44 +1300

Terrific post, Keith. I haven't checked, but I suspect that the most marked trends in crime will involve women, and white-collar (and white-skinned) criminals. Russell is a bit unfair on the Press Council: over the past five years it has been upholding 19.5% of complaints (and even more in recent...

Tze Ming Mok

Tze Ming Mok — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 11:31:13 +1300

The ruling in which North & South/ACP media did not accept NZ Press Council jurisdiction (Winston Peters vs North & South) was in 1999. ACP has since become a member of the NZ Press Council,and North & South is now subject to its rulings.

Steven Price

Steven Price — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 11:50:26 +1300

I stand corrected, thanks.

Joanna

Joanna — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 11:57:20 +1300

I'm just surprised that the article wasn't more "this is going to affect your children's education and/or the price of your house" given that seems to the jist of most North and South cover stories.

Slarty Bartfast

Slarty Bartfast — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 14:13:44 +1300

Ed's note: Sorry Slarty, the first part of your comment was a bit libellous for my taste, and maybe a bit abusive too. I've moderated out the nasty bit, although you should, of course, feel free to hold your low opinion of Ms. Coddington. RB

Perhaps readers would like to...

Russell Brown

Russell Brown — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 15:27:02 +1300

Steven said:

Terrific post, Keith. I haven't checked, but I suspect that the most marked trends in crime will involve women, and white-collar (and white-skinned) criminals.

Yes. The kind of crime that has most notably bucked the steady trend of decline since 1994 is indeed the white-collar variety. I'm still...

Yamis

Yamis — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 16:25:41 +1300

I'd like more Asians please. They make up about 20% of my high school roll but probably took out about 30% of the awards at our senior prize giving. There's some stats for DC. On top of that most of them are polite and hardworking and do not fill our...

Jeremy Andrew

Jeremy Andrew — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 16:40:23 +1300

Yamis, Oooh, yes please, send me overseas, somewhere European by preference, I can dig up genealogical excuses for just about anywhere. Somwhere scenic with good beer and beautiful women. If you go back far enough, I could make it to Italy (thanks Julius), or Scandinavia (Greatx10^3 uncle Erik?).

Russell Brown

Russell Brown — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 17:21:40 +1300

Oooh, yes please, send me overseas, somewhere European by preference ...

Good god man, you're in Hamilton – what more could you want?

Jen Hay

Jen Hay — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 19:56:33 +1300

My favourite piece of knock-down evidence presented was this little gem:

"In September in one swoop Customs siezed $5 million worth of crystal methamphetamine – pure P – at Auckland Airport. The class-A drug was packed into 43 picture frames in the luggage of two Canadian passport holders who'd arrived...

stephen walker

stephen walker — Fri, 17 Nov 2006 00:24:10 +1300

and we can all rest assured that these "Canadian passport holders" have NZ residence. yeah, right.

as an aside, i wonder who all these crystal meth users are? and why does nz have the highest meth use per capita in the world?

Jeremy Andrew

Jeremy Andrew — Fri, 17 Nov 2006 08:55:41 +1300

One reason the meth is so popular is the huge marketing campaign behind it. You'd be hard pushed to find a day's Herald without at least one mention of "P", and seldom does a week go by without something in the TV news about how widespread & popular the drug is...

stephen walker

stephen walker — Fri, 17 Nov 2006 13:19:14 +1300

DC is gonna be on Nat Rad this afternoon (snigger) defending her "article"'...pwhpwpwhpwph

slarty

slarty — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 19:39:57 +1300

Sorry Slarty, the first part of your comment was a bit libellous for my taste,

Fair point! Don't drink and blog (don't remember it – unless there are two Slarty's?) :)