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Posted at 5:51PM on 7 Dec 09. Permalink.

I wrote another blog post ...

I am also minded to wonder how many times the Family First family violence fairy tales were reported as something like fact by news organisations that could actually have asked some real questions about them.

Posted at 6:03PM on 7 Dec 09. Permalink.

I am also minded to wonder how many times the Family First family violence fairy tales were reported as something like fact by news organisations that could actually have asked some real questions about them.

Follow up question: Why aren't people who can't -- or can't be bothered -- distinguishing fact from fiction not being asked to explain themselves to the BSA or Press Council?

Posted at 6:40PM on 7 Dec 09. Permalink.

I am disappointed that this is not as I hurriedly surmised a thread lamenting Bob the baby's departure back to the fertile plains of the mainland. As you were.

Posted at 6:51PM on 7 Dec 09. Permalink.

The Prime Minister's task force has made some sensible suggestions about improving communication with some parents, and I think now is the time for journalists to focus on those

Such as? If you want journos to focus on these, could you have perhaps mentioned what these suggestions are ?

Posted at 7:41PM on 7 Dec 09. Permalink.

oh dave, russell may be many things, but he is not the source of all info for all journos.

find the taskforce suggestions yourself! you only had to listen to the 5.00pm news on national radio to hear most of them.

Posted at 7:42PM on 7 Dec 09. Permalink.

From Sccop:

The recommendations include:

• The establishment of a new parent support helpline within CYF so that parents who have questions or concerns about how they are being treated can be dealt with more quickly.
• The immediate publication of guidelines for social workers dealing with child abuse reports that involve smacking, and a subsequent briefing for all CYF social workers.
• A requirement for Police officers and social workers to provide families with specific information on what to expect, what their rights are and what they can do to question what is happening when they have to deal with Police or CYF.
• The collection of more specific information on the application of S59, so a clearer picture is available of how the law is operating in practice.

But mostly, the scare stories and cause celebres were, to one degree or another, bogus. Family First has no credibility left.

Posted at 7:44PM on 7 Dec 09. Permalink.

oh dave, russell may be many things, but he is not the source of all info for all journos.

Actually, I was busy making delicious pizzas, with mozarella from Harvest and bases I got at the Grey Lynn Farmers' Market yesterday. At least they weren't vegetarian.

Posted at 8:16PM on 7 Dec 09. Permalink.

"I should have been able to separate Latta's professional competence from his entertainment work, which I don't greatly like."

I strongly disagree. Lattas professionalism is compromised every time he does his entertainment job. The best the man can do is sooth the minds of the worried well, or good parents.

I'll eat my words (print them off and add salt) if I hear of one violent offender having a change of heart as a result of Latta's change of spots.

Posted at 8:53PM on 7 Dec 09. Permalink.

And, it goes without saying, to stop getting Bob McCoskrie on the speed-dial as if his opinion counts for anything at all.

And yet TV3 went to McCoskrie for his comments on the Latta report. If there was ever an example that demonstrated that the journalistic he-said/he-said "balance" model is broken, it's this story.

Posted at 9:34PM on 7 Dec 09. Permalink.

"I should have been able to separate Latta's professional competence from his entertainment work, which I don't greatly like."

I strongly disagree. Lattas professionalism is compromised every time he does his entertainment job. The best the man can do is sooth the minds of the worried well, or good parents.

Having seen him in the flesh with 700 other HB teachers I too find it hard to separate his professional and entertainment work. I found he tended to belittle both kids and adults and talk of and to them in a manner that I as a teacher could not possibly get away with. It was supposed to be a talk that gave us ideas on how to deal with difficult children but I came away with nothing that I could really use in the classroom that I wasn't doing already. And I soon got tired of his infotainment routine.

Posted at 10:10PM on 7 Dec 09. Permalink.

I got at the Grey Lynn Farmers' Market yesterday

Has it at all improved or is it still Kraftbomb with a different name?

Now THIS is journalism! Check the second par! Oh yes!

Surely the EMA is pumping up rhetoric against personal grievances before the Tories gut them.

BTW, no word on Stephen Cook's grievance yet. I wonder if they settled and the determination is no longer pending? The silence is strange.

Posted at 10:44PM on 7 Dec 09. Permalink.

Last week's Listener had Latta on it's 'powerful people' list.....gave up on it at that point...

Posted at 10:57PM on 7 Dec 09. Permalink.

Golly. Giving children the same protection rights as adults in legislation might actually have worked!

We might be witnessing the first small steps to social sanity, a first step towards sending the message to future parents to treat children with the care they deserve.

And dare I say it might, in time, see a reduction in crime.

They couldn't be connected....could they?

Posted at 11:00PM on 7 Dec 09. Permalink.

Looked up pyschopathy: Wikipedia says it is a personality disorder whose hallmark is a lack of empathy ... Lacking in conscience and empathy, they take what they want and do as they please, violating social norms and expectations without guilt or remorse".[8] "

Psychopaths are glib and superficially charming, and many psychopaths are excellent mimics of normal human emotion;[10] some psychopaths can blend in, undetected, in a variety of surroundings, including corporate environments.[11]

Doesn't this sound like Paul Henry?

Posted at 11:35PM on 7 Dec 09. Permalink.

"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident."

Arthur Schopenhauer

Posted at 12:44AM on 8 Dec 09. Permalink.

If there was ever an example that demonstrated that the journalistic he-said/he-said "balance" model is broken, it's this story.

There's noting 'broken' about the idea of balancing a story, but when you keep going back to a poisoned well whose only value is as a reliably outrageous soundbite factory that's a problem. Seems a bit of a no-brainer to me that you don't use a source who will keep burning you like some P-addled pyromaniac.

Posted at 12:56AM on 8 Dec 09. Permalink.

At least they weren't vegetarian.

That wouldn't necessarily be such a bad thing, you know. (Vegan pizza, on the other hand. Oof, what's the point?)

Posted at 2:03AM on 8 Dec 09. Permalink.

(Vegan pizza, on the other hand. Oof, what's the point?)

Not sure about vegan pizza, but I make shit hot (number of compliments = proof) vegaquarian pizza. Anchovies are often necessary. Once you live on meatless, a whole new world opens up for Vegetables.Pizza, no exception :)

Posted at 5:04AM on 8 Dec 09. Permalink.

I am disappointed that this is not as I hurriedly surmised a thread lamenting Bob the baby's departure back to the fertile plains of the mainland.

Hee. I read it that way too, except I thought Russell had written "See you, Latte Bob." Quite the sophisticate, that wee lad.

Posted at 8:01AM on 8 Dec 09. Permalink.

He's the boss.

Posted at 8:38AM on 8 Dec 09. Permalink.

Another lying account dutifully taken up by the news media.

Here's Family First's misleading version, which grants that the man charged is "no saint". No, he isn't.

These people really give me the shits.

Posted at 8:43AM on 8 Dec 09. Permalink.

Vegan pizza---a real Neapolitan classic called Marinara--simple and really tasty. The best pizza I've ever had (though it was in Rome :-) ).

Posted at 9:09AM on 8 Dec 09. Permalink.

I can't bear Latta's tv style - stupid, jokes based on idiotic stereotypes, all designed to turn himinto some sort of hero it seems.

So I was also worried about him being in this role, but he seems to have done it ok.

Posted at 9:20AM on 8 Dec 09. Permalink.

I got at the Grey Lynn Farmers' Market yesterday

Has it at all improved or is it still Kraftbomb with a different name?

Just a note; the Grey Lynn Farmers Market occurs the first three Sundays in the month. The last Sunday is reserved for the Kraftbomb market.

As I found out two Sundays ago.

Posted at 9:24AM on 8 Dec 09. Permalink.

Prov 13:24: "He that spareth his rod hateth his son: but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes (diligently)."

Prov 19:18: "Chasten thy son while there is hope, and let not thy soul spare for his crying."

Prov 22:15: "Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child; but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him."

Prov 23:13: "Withhold not correction from the child: for if thou beatest him with the rod, he shall not die."

Prov 23:14: "Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and shalt deliver his soul from hell."

Prov 29:15: "The rod and reproof give wisdom: but a child left to himself bringeth his mother to shame."

The Lord has spoken.

Posted at 9:33AM on 8 Dec 09. Permalink.

I too am relieved that the review has found that the mayhem predicted by Family First and others has still ... um ... not arrived at all.

However I am also frustrated that the continual (FF) debate over individual cases diverts focus away from the groundbreaking repeal of section 59. Even if the review had found some problems with implementation, this would still not have provided the ammunition against the law its opponents continue to seek. There are plenty of perfectly good laws which are found clunky, or ill-fitting, or which are occasionally poorly implemented. This does not, in itself, provide grounds for repeal.

But anyway, on it goes. Maybe the debate will go on so long that eventually the media and public will just get tired of it and subsequently sideline the noise-makers due to lack of interest. We can but hope.

PS I thought it might be the child discipline law which transformed me into an ex-lurker :)

Posted at 9:44AM on 8 Dec 09. Permalink.

Prov 13:24: "He that spareth his rod hateth his son: but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes (diligently)."

Oooh. Are we doing bible quotes? How about:

Psalms 137:9: "How blessed will be the one who seizes and dashes your little ones against the rock"

Posted at 9:58AM on 8 Dec 09. Permalink.

Oooh. Are we doing bible quotes?

Exactly. As Dawkins illustrates very clearly in The God Delusion , wherever we get our moral code from, it's sure not the Bible. Divinely-mandated infanticide and incest being exhibits A and B. Much of it is reprehensible by modern standards - and any attempt to follow it literally would lead you directly to jail, without passing go.

Posted at 10:00AM on 8 Dec 09. Permalink.

The Lord has spoken.

Right now he's telling me to eat another afghan.

Posted at 10:04AM on 8 Dec 09. Permalink.

Right now he's telling me to eat another afghan

Don't worry, that's in the bible too.

"I will make them eat the flesh of their sons and daughters, and they will eat one another's flesh during the stress of the siege imposed on them by the enemies who seek their lives. "