Posts by Craig Ranapia
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Btw Craig, cant see where your coming from on your moral high ground angle especially in relation to Investigate’s funding. Its crucially important find out who’s providing Investigate the financial oxygen to peddle their nonsense and why they are doing it.
Well, we're just going to have to agree to disagree and I've really got to go do some paying work.
But there's one aspect of your moral high ground I'd like to explore when you're done: Do you have a problem with anonymous sources in general, or just in this particular case? Personally, I'd like to see the MSM take a harder line on granting sources anonymity, and refuse to run any story with no on the record attribution. But I guess it's would then become so much harder for MSM hypocrites to peddle their own sleaze, wouldn't it?
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Merc wrote:
Craig, in all honesty, I never really get what you're trying to say, rebut, refute, explain, there is always a "but" and it seems to negate what you say before it.
Here's the Reader's Digest version: If any media outlet published lies about me, I wouldn't give a shit who was paying their bills or tying them into some shadowy conspiracy. I'm just not really wired for conspiracy theories.
And, sorry, I'm trying to get out of the habit of thinking and arguing in bumper sticker slogans that must be defended to the death. The older I get, the less the world neatly divides into black and white, and I'm less certain about always being on the side of the angels.
How someone gets paid to do what they do is really important to me, and I dunno, I know how RB makes his daily bread.
Well, I don't. And I don't have a clue where Russell's income comes from beyond what he discloses here, and it's not particularly relevant to the quality (or otherwise) of his work. Just as I have no idea who you are or what you do for a living, but just assume any comment you make here is on your own behalf and made in good faith. You've given me no just case to think otherwise.
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Don, Finn & Merc:
If (for the sake of argument) this blog published a lengthy post alleging that I'd colluded in covering up a cess pool of corruption and perversity in the Police that would make the Marquis De Sade cross his legs... well, I'd be a little more focused on rebutting the allegations than musing on conspiracy theories about Russell's finances and whether he's secretly bankrolled by a vast left-wing/atheist conspiracy. You know, the kind of crap Wishart does so well.
I'm well on the record as thoroughly disgusted by the treatment the private lives of Helen Clark and her husband have received at the hands of the media in general, and Investigate in particular. (I'd also extend the same regret to Don and Je Lin Brash, BTW.) Nor do I think it's acceptable in any way, shape or form for politicians of any stripe to be (in effect) stalked by PI's, have their property tresspassed on, or their rubbish bins tossed.
But in this specific case, I'd like to see the focus stay on the real issue: Are these allegations true or not? That's a damn sight more relevant to me than trying to wade through another swamp of competing conspiracy theories - 'cause you know something, you don't make sense of them. Either you believe them or you don't, depending on what you already bring to the table.
Now, if you'd excuse me... I have to put my PA Radio piece to bed. And I swear no fowls will be outraged with a rolled-up copy of Investigate in the process of turning out three minutes of sweetly trivial ear candy.
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I didn't see much "benefit of the doubt" extended to Howard Broad by Wishart, or by most of the infestors of rightwing blogs, Craig. Craig. Perhaps we snould say, as they do "If Idour doesn't sue. it must be true"?
Certainly not, and you can if you like. I'd just ask this question: Who really wins if you sink to the same level as people you so obviously hold in contempt? I don't want to play Wishart's game according to his playbook - even though it's damn tempting, and all too easy.
I'm not saying for a moment Clark and King shouldn't defend the reputation of their government and colleagues against extraordinarily serious allegations in an outlet that I wouldn't even rip up and use as bum-wipe in a long drop. (Glossy paper - not good for the environment or my delicate townie backside.)
But Clark and King are better than Wishart - though that might sound like damnation with faint praise, it's sincere, You don't need to get down in his gutter to expose his tawdry little hit jobs for what they are. Nobody does.
Perhaps that just makes me a naive fool. but I'd rather be that than any of the alternatives on offer.
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No, I don't think he will, but his willingness to publicly muse about it (and not for the first time towards me) when criticised is distasteful and unjournalistic.
Even the threat of a defamation suit can also be an effective form of bullying. The late (and widely unlamented) press barron Robert Maxwell was infamously litigious, even by the standards of British press barons who never seem to think the public's right to know extends to themselves. If he wasn't quite so successful at legal harassment and intimidation of the media, his plundering of the Maxwell Group's pension funds would have been exposed years before, and thousands of hisbefore thousands of former employees wouldn't have been left with nothing when the companies went belly up soon after his death.
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Why am I not in the least surprised, but still saddened, by this?
Helen Clark described Investigate as an "odious" publication that specialised in cutting down "tall poppies" such as Mr Broad.
She said Mr Idour was someone "who talks big but seldom delivers".
"We have to ask the question of who funds these sorts of investigations, who funds Investigate magazine, who prints it, who pays for Mr Idour to run around?"
What is it about Wishart that makes people smart enough to know better (and I definitely include Clark in that) play his game, by his rules? Last night, I actually thought Clark was playing it smart and really keeping the moral high ground. Then we see Clark and King getting down in the gutter to combat a sewer rat.
Oh, and in the interests of fairness, it's in order to quote the last three pars. of the linked Herald story:
Mr Idour's lawyer, Frazer Barton, said his client was at the party at Mr Broad's house but "categorically denied" bringing the bestiality film along.
Mr Idour saw "bits of it" but didn't do anything about it.
"He was appalled by it but didn't act on it, didn't do anything else other than express some views to people."
Asked why people would think Mr Idour had brought the film along, Mr Barton said: "There are groups that do not get on and he suggested that might be a possible explanation".
Hum... Perhaps, until some more solid evidence comes along - or Annette King decides to disclose her source for the allegations - we owe Idour the same benefit of the doubt extended to Howard Broad?
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Russell:
Serious question - how many times have people threatened to sue you, and how many writs from Messers Run, Grabbit and Sue eventurally landed in the letterbox?
I should dig it out for you, but Warwick Roger wrote an acid Metro editorial on the subject :- he suggested that all defamation settlements be parked up in an interest-bearing bank account for a year. At the end of that time, if the injured party has been shunned by family, friends and associates and is now living under a bridge eating cat food in abject misery then they get the whole pot to salve their pain. If, as usually happens, the plaintiff's life continues much as before they get bupkis. The damages are returned to the defendant, and the interest goes to a charity. Roger tartly suggested that charities would do rather well and it might discourage trivial and vexatious suits from the well-heeled and thin-skinned who've had nothing damaged but their ego. :)
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Sorry, I should correct myself here: W, Mark Felt was not Hoover's deputy at the FBI. To quote his Wiki entry:
On July 1, 1971, Felt was promoted by Hoover to Deputy Associate Director, assisting Associate Director Clyde A. Tolson.[16] Hoover's right-hand man for decades, Tolson was in failing health and no longer able to attend to his duties.
Still, I think it's fair comment to say Felt's history in the FBI - before, during and after Watergate - was less than savoury, his motives in becoming 'Deep Throat' weren't principled or disinterested by any stretch of the imagination, but that does not invalidate the accuracy or value of Woodward and Bernstein's justly famous investigative journalism.
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Danyl:
Ta for the invite, but I think I'll wait until coffee #2 and cigarette #5 (balanced breakfast kiddies) work their way through the system.
And, Russell, yes got to admit I'm still trying to peel my eyebrow off the ceiling after hearing that. Not quite sure I think King's too smart about that -- it's like saying (even though the analogy isn't precise) the whole Watergate story is invalid because 'Deep Throat' turned out to be William Mark Felt, Hoover's deputy at the FBI - and fully implicated in the ugliness of his reign - who had a very person grudge against the Nixon Administration. (He was passed over for the Directorship after Hoover's death, and boy was he ever pissed.) If you want to run that line, there's plenty of stories that have some pretty skeezy sources.
Hey, I have a healthy sense of schadenfreude too - and it's rather amusing watching Wishart get a taste of his own tactics. But let's hope we're not going to see King weave an oddball conspiracy theory of her own.
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As a sidebar, did anyone see http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/04/19/60minutes/main2704565.shtml|this segment]] on 60 Minutes last night? (Video[ http://www.cbsnews.com/sections/i_video/main500251.shtml?id=2715238n|heret]]
The message appears in hip-hop videos, on T-shirts, Web sites, album covers and street murals. Well-known rappers talk about it endlessly on DVDs. It is a simple message heard in African-American communities across the country: don't talk to the police.
"When I was growing up, kids used to talk about snitching…. It never extended as a cultural norm outside of the gangsters," says Geoffrey Canada, a nationally recognized educator and anti-violence advocate. "It was not for regular citizens. It is now a cultural norm that is being preached in poor communities."
Canada has been working with children in Harlem for more than 20 years. He grew up poor in a tough New York neighborhood, but says the message kids are getting today is very different and dangerous.
"People are walking around with shirts. People are going out making, making music. People are saying things that if you're a snitch it's like being an Uncle Tom was when I was growing up," Canada says. "It's like you can't be a black person if you have a set of values that say, 'I will not watch crime happen in my community without getting involved to stop it.'"
Well, I do hope Commissioner Broad takes the opportunity to think very, very hard about that - his part in perpetuating that kind of culture in the Police to protect his career, and what he's really going to do to change it.
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