Posts by Russell Brown
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It's a pity these drop-kicks can't simply go to the Statistics NZ website and have a nosey at the crime figures. If they did, they'd see that the clear, on-going trend is that, overall, crime has dropped. It's that simple.
The other thing to note is that the jump in recorded violent offences in the latest statistics is almost wholly a good thing. It's the reporting of family violence that in past years has gone unreported, and a symbol that we're not going to stand for it any more.
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The correction and apology itself is pretty damning. You can often tell how wrong someone has got it by the level of the correction.
Note it wasn’t just a clarification but an all out correction and apology. If you have ever tried to get one from the media, you know how hard that can be.
Are you really that naive? The correction was dictated. It was run, and the original post deleted, as a consequence of a legal threat that arrived late on a Friday afternoon, allowing no time for advice. Steven is right. If you're happy to see this become commonplace you're crazy.
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OTOH, it's going to be amusing (if your taste runs to black comedy disguised as public policy) watching the pander-palooza at this year's Grey Power shindig.
Oh God yes. And it'll be a three-way ...
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I always considered it a softball metaphor. That's kiwi enough surely?
Anyone game to concoct a cricket-and-crime metaphor?
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That NDU report is extraordinary and I can't believe this is the only place I've seen to bring it up
It is truly bizarre that it isn't wall-to-wall news.
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I was living in California when they instituted "3 strikes" - it made for great polemics for politicians - but it also lead to weird stuff like people going to jail for life for stealing slices of pizza - definitely not justice
No. And they ended up with such severe overcrowding that burglars and recidivist drunk-drivers were routinely sent home without serving any time, because small-time drug offenders had been put behind bars for 20 years. So, yeah, the SST's proposal isn't quite as crazy, but it's not hard to envisage problems with it.
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It must be a joke - that's Russel waving his finger - isn't it?
http://www.righttosmack.co.nz/father.html</quote>
No, it's not me. But the site is indeed a very dry joke.
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Russell: To play devil's advocate for a moment (and since Tom drew the analogy) Pamela might have decided there was about as much point in engaging with a forum where she'd already been found guilty of whoring herself to corporate special interests, as there is for Helen Clark to try entering into a rational dialogue with Ian Wishart?
For goodness sake, Craig: read the post in question before you start throwing around Wishart comparisons.
Steven Price has a link to a copy of it, as well as some withering criticism of the legal intimidation:
I don’t say that because I’m a free speech absolutist, or because I think the internet ought to be a law-free zone. In general, I think people who defame others online deserve all they get. I doubt this is the first time internet material has been removed in NZ as a result of a legal threat, and I’m sure it won’t be the last. Nope, I object to this because I think the Listener has used a tenuous legal claim to bully a blogger into retracting some moderate and reasonable criticisms. I don’t like it when anyone does this, but it’s particularly ugly when the heavies are acting for the media ...
The correction and apology looks ham-fisted to me. It even includes a retraction of things that weren’t even in the post.
The proper response would have been a one-line letter politely telling the Listener to sit on its thumb. I doubt that any further action would have been taken. But bloggers, and those who host their blogs, can’t always be that brave. That’s what makes leaning on assertions of legal rights in situations like this reprehensible, I think. I would have been much more persuaded by a thoughtful and factual response from the Listener’s editor on the blog itself setting out the magazine’s version of the story. It would have been much cheaper. And much more in keeping with the Listener’s commitment to open inquiry. And it wouldn’t have produced what’s likely to be an explosion of interest in the criticisms…
I thoroughly agree.
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Theatre. If there's any prospect of litigation, Stirling would be a fucking fool to start entering into any correspondence on the matter with anyone.
I don't agree at all. She talked at length with John Drinnan; she could have replied to Poneke. Perhaps she might have if he'd got in touch as his journalistic alter-ego.
If Pamela had chosen to respond to either Poneke or Hot Topic, she would have been assured of a verbatim transmission of what she had to say. The fact that she immediately chose the route of legal threat and a dictated "apology and correction" saddens me greatly. No editor should do that.
Obviously, I'm a columnist for The Listener. But I've also written for AUT Media, the co-owners of Hot Topic, and the publishers of Idealog magazine.
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But just for some light relief, the Kiwiblog commenters on this case and climate change in general. Yes, you do have to laugh.
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