Posts by Felix Marwick
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Just back from a little over a week working down in my old home town. Definitely not the way I had ever wanted to return.
Anyways ....
Fair to say Kainga, Brooklands, Bexley, Avonside, and the eastern side of Kaiapoi were the worst off by a fair margin. I've never seen anything quite like it, and I hope I never have to again.
It was interesting to note how sensitised the locals were to the aftershocks. Completely understandable though. But those of us who were the Johnny come latelies (as it were) tended to miss them. I know I sure as hell did. In fact there was one when I was working out of the Civil Defence centre that I missed entirely. Everyone around me froze and I simply couldn't figure it out.
I guess if you go through a 7.1 you're definitely going to feel everything that follows.
I vaguely noticed the vulture comments made by Dunne (and later Anderton I think). I can't says as I paid them too much attention though as there were more important things to worry about.
All I can say is we all tried to do the best we could to report as equitably as we could. There's a balance you have to strike - getting needed information out, but at the same time showing the human face of what was going on
Not that it was that easy for some of us. Our ZB building was red stickered on the Monday after the quake and I know the guys at the Press had to vacate. In our case there was a period when our newsroom was down to one laptop computer and an aircard. Fortunately our techs managed to do an absolutely stellar job and got alternate studios and facilities up and running within a matter of hours. They were frickin fantastic!Interesting moments:
The City Councillor that complained at there not being predictions for aftershocks.
The Japanese tourists I ran into on Sunday who simply thought the city was going through a building boom (very shocked when I told them about the quake)
Completely missing the big 5.4 aftershock on the Wed's morning - on the road following the PM. The moment we pull over all our cellphones light up at the same time (not sure if it was concern for our safety or simply to see if something had fallen on the PM)
Covering the quake with a smartcar as transport. They have far more offroad capability than you might think and you can park them almost anywhere (though not so great for image when surrounded by 4WDs as far as they eye can see).
But kudos has to go all those people whom put up with me as I went about my job when they were in a difficult situation. That goes for members of the public and officials/emergency services. Thanks for your tolerance, help, and understanding. I know you had more important things to deal with than my questions.
And now that I'm back in Wgtn I know how royally fucked we may be when the big one hits here. At least in a flat city there's not that far for things to fall. Here, well it may be a case of going from harbour view to waterside location in 45 seconds or less.(with apologies to Kelburn, Khandallah, and Roseneath residents)
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@Craig
Re that Bill allowing police to stand for local government. It was actually a law change under the previous government (about 3 years ago I think) that took that ability away from them.
Prior to that they were free to do so and I recall, from my Chch days, there were at least two officers down there serving on councils. One on the Christchurch City Council and the other on the Waimakariri District Council. From what I recall protocol prevented them from being involved on any issue/vote where it conflicted with their policing role.
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In response to one of the points raised earlier "why didn't Labour front foot this earlier?"
There are a number of possible reasons:
1) I very much doubt many of the former Ministers kept copies of their credit card statements so may have had only limited memory of their spending.
(I also suspect a fair few of them never looked at the statements much in the first place)2) The Labour Party only got copies of the information released to the Press Gallery a day in advance. I believe Internal Affairs may have briefed affected MPs on the logistical way the information would be released but as far as I know none of them had it substantially in advance of the media
(it's hard to front foot information you don't have an accurate assessment of)3) Given the amount of information involved - and I haven't seen my office floor since Thursday - there's always a chance evidence of mistakes may be missed.
(so why hand it to someone on a plate?) -
I'd love to know how lassez faire APN is with the corporate plastic. Do share, folks.
Well I work for Newstalk ZB, which is part of TRN, which in turn is half owned by APN.
The procedure for us is that travel and accomodation is generally booked and paid for in advance. Any expenses we incur when overseas, or on the road, we pay for ourselves and then claim reimbursement afterwards.
So - no work credit cards at all and no latitude to rack up dodgy expenses. The finance department's hardly going to repay me for stuff that they don't consider work related.
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These quacking travesties who call themselves journalists are foremost among the advocates of compulsory, coercive welfarism and punitive taxation—i.e., theft from the productive to subsidise the unproductive/reproductive
Hmmm as a smoker I pay extra tax (more so now thanks to the Gummint) - I guess this makes me a raging communist.
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Wow - this is a bad thread to be a journo' in isn't it?
My 2 cents worth is this; sure there's probably a lot of stuff on TV and Radio that a lot of people here don't like. That's understandable. But I could almost 100 percent guarantee if the set up was in line with your desires/aspirations etc there'd be someone else bitching about it.
People harp on about the quality of Close Up, Campbell Live and Breakfast. There are all sorts of accusations of dumbing down and trivialising the news
On the flip side there are others who castigate RNZ for being too pointy headed, wooly minded, PC, and having delusions of intellectual grandeur.
(BTW those are just observations, not a personal opinion)
Basically in our game it doesn't matter who you work for or what product you put out - there'll always be someone who thinks you are a pile of shit.
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The thing about Chch is that its ethnic make up probably has a bit to do with the image problems it has.
For a major urban centre it is predominantly Caucasian (about 85% I think). I'd surmise the ratio of racist f/wits per head of population problem doesn't deviate that much from the national average. It's just slightly more pronounced because of the city's demographics.
Plus there's not much future in being a bigoted numpty in places like Porirua, Otara and the like. There might be a few of them there but I suspect they keep a very low profile.
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in honor of all those Top Model shows
beautilate
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@sofie
What I try to do is report the political process. It's up to the audience to determine what they want to do about the information presented to them.
I sometimes find it interesting that people in my line of work get blamed for the way we cover political policies and legislation - that we've failed to bring it to the public's attention.
May I posit an alternative view?
Invariably we do write/cover the issues but they're largely ignored by most people who, for one reason or another, simply don't care about politics. As a rule I prefer to put the information out there as objectively as I can. It's for the public to make up their own minds about it and take action as they see fit.
As a rule I try to steer clear of advocacy journalism. I'm not saying it's a bad thing as it works for some of my peers. But my personal view is to take a side just makes you an unpaid PR person for a certain agenda. My preference is to challenge those who present an issue to defend their position. Ditto for their opponents. Present the arguments and let the listeners/readers decide for themselves.
Another thing (and this is just an observation) I do notice that people to tend to criticise the media when the stories they present clash with their own personal views. For all the accusations of bias that are levelled at journalists I think you could make an argument that some of it stems from the beliefs/biases inherent in the people making the accusation.
I mean, depending on who you talk to or whose blog you read, most reporters are invariably labelled as right wing stooges, or left wing apologists.
Apologies for the lengthy rant but I just wanted to say a few words and try to give a journalist's perspective given some of the criticisms levelled. Thanks for the forbearance.
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I note a few people seem to think the DNA Bill wasn't reported. Well I can say I wrote stuff about it when it was proposed, when it passed its first reading, evidence given at select committee, and then it's passing through its second and third readings under urgency. I also referred to it in several crosses as it progressed through Parliament.
I know my colleagues in the gallery gave the legislation similar attention.
In my case I can understand why you might have missed it. At the risk of making a sweeping generalisation I suspect not many who post here are ZB listeners.
;-)