Posts by James W
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Hard News: Time to get a grip,
BTW, I'm aware Henry will likely continue to say thinly-veiled offensive things (like when he called homosexuality unnatural and compared gays to filthy monkeys) and not be as stupid as to be blatantly racist again, so Mediaworks' PR spokesperson can always cover for him, so we'll never find out the level. But it would be interesting to know how far you're allowed to go in capitalist society, 2011, New Zealand.
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Hard News: Time to get a grip, in reply to Ken Sparks,
I'm genuinely intrigued that Mediaworks has hired Henry. It's really disappointing. I can see how it makes smart financial sense, but morally, how can they justify it? Henry is literally a racist. There's no "well, he's just controversial", or "he just speaks his mind", or "he's anti-PC" covering here, he was exposed as a racist and got fired for it. Now the competitor snaps him up? He's very likely come out of this with more money they he had before his racist comments. He's being rewarded for his intolerance.
It makes me wonder, what is the level where money trumps morality? What if Henry makes racist comments about Maori (he likely already has, I never watched his show)? What if he comes out as a Holocaust denier? Is that too far? What if on his brand new TV3 current affairs show that's rating through the roof he tells viewers that it's okay to rape your wife? Would he be fired then? Maybe someone can ask the head of Mediaworks.
I'm not saying a private company can't hire him. I'm saying they shouldn't.
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Would a new leader losing the next election automatically mean they too had to step down afterwards? This seems to be a commonly held axiom but is there any basis to it? Why can't Cunliffe (or whomever) take over now, lead Labour to a slight but not catastrophic loss, and then continue building for the next election? Surely that's better than Goff's no hoper?
I'm genuinely asking.
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Hard News: The Wall and the Paper,
Re: SST
When you're losing sales to a competitor you know what always works? Copying the competitor.
It's like all those iPod knock-offs, they've done so well. Or that singer who's a lot like Lady Gaga. Or that movie that was like Twilight. It's surely just an aberration that CNN continues to lose viewers to FOX News, despite increasingly copying FOX's style.
History really respects those who were there second, who refused to forge their own path, to take risks, to try something new. Good on ya, Sunday Star-Times.
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Hard News: The First Draft, in reply to giovanni tiso,
I’d rather they give the crackpots airtime so someone can then debunk them. Otherwise we end up with Sensing Murder being the number one rated show.
It seems a very faulty correlation to me. How about we don’t air Sensing Murder?
My point was rather than simply airing shows like Sensing Murder, I'd rather they aired them AND debunked them. Obviously, I'd prefer they not air them at all, but they do, because they're popular. But by debunking them, you don't just ignore the problem and hope it goes away, you confront it head on.
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Hard News: The First Draft, in reply to Bart Janssen,
People think there is no cost to idiots being given the time of day, well sorry there is a cost, it’s another lost cat story that couldn’t get to air because we had to waste time on a moron who couldn’t read the literature and wouldn’t take the word of someone who could.
+1
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Hard News: The First Draft, in reply to Russell Brown,
My guess is that it has been influenced by the emotional climate around the earthquake. I can’t think of any other explanation.
That doesn't explain the free food store vitriol from before the earthquake. I remember being shocked because I thought Campbell Live viewers would be more liberal than those of Close Up's usual mob.
I'm sure there's a mathematical formula about how 'low level of intelligence = more likely to complain about television show' but I still find it hard not to take responses like this as indicative of the country as a whole.
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I'd rather they give the crackpots airtime so someone can then debunk them. Otherwise we end up with Sensing Murder being the number one rated show.
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I wrote into Campbell Live praising the interview and I think more people should do the same. Not because the interview was particularly good, but because John Campbell did what I can't remember seeing on NZ television for ages – he challenged someone on their lies. First they showed some nice, normal ChCh people who believed in Ring's theories, then they briefly mentioned the scientists didn't agree, then they had Ring on and confronted him with his own words. I could quite easily see the same exact item on Close Up, except without the confronting Ring part.
Too often this type of pseudoscience is given equal weight or an uncritical airing and news organistations need to know it's appreciated when they challenge this type of belief, even if it's unpopular with some of their viewers.
(It's worth noting that a few weeks back Campbell Live did a story on free food stores appearing and then reported most of their feedback complained the starving people looked overweight and were smoking. I felt sorry for a show trying to challenge misconceptions only to have them reinforced by their viewers.)
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Hard News: Only what we would expect a…, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
Has The Herald learned nothing from the grovelling apology the Herald on Sunday had to give Sharon Shipton?
Why would it? If the only punishment is a small correction on page 3 days, weeks or months later, then why would any newspaper go to the trouble of ensuring their stories are accurate or fair? The Press Council is toothless, relying on a fast-disappearing principle of reputation to maintain its role as arbiter.