Hard News: Spin Spun
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I'm just amazed at Brownlee's hypocrisy - like the Nats would put their money where their mouth is and slash their spin staff or govt dept spin staff should they win the election.
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I expect National won't need nearly so many comms people because they'll hardly want to be telling the public what they're up to, now will they?
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I expect National won't need nearly so many comms people because they'll hardly want to be telling the public what they're up to, now will they?
No, but they will spend the budget complaining about what Labour is up to. It's been working pretty well for them so far.
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This tit for tat stuff is rather pathetic coming from such experienced commentators as Russell Brown and David Farrar. Putting out press releases attempting to paint the opposing party as profligate is an ancient art, pursued with equal vigor by all parties. If Labour lose the election they will have all of Simon Power’s press releases, and particularly the smarmy efforts of Tony Ryall if he retains Health, to be used against them. Nothing is more certain. Even now National is blamed for everything that goes wrong, after 8 years out of power. It’s just a game, played for the converted.
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Brownlee did not write the press release or submit the Official Information Act requests himself (the numbers are compiled from select committee questions and OIA requests). He has staff for that.
And good job he does, Russell. When was the last time you lodged a request under the Official Information Act and the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act? I don't think its hyperbole to say far too much of the public sector is way too adroit at dragging their feed or redacting documents into gibberish on entirely spurious grounds. I guess the logic is that 99.99% percent of nosy hacks -- or even worse uppity members of the public -- are going to give up and go away.
Or am I the only person who feels even slightly disturbed when the Chief Ombudsman feels it necessary to put his name to a document titled Access to information – not a courtesy but a right {PDF format}, or threaten to name and shame Ministers and departments who are routinely flouting the statutory deadline to respond to OIA requests?
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Larry, the point was the way that (a) such releases make news columns almost verbatim, angles intact; (b) the way news organisations report such a story while avoiding the grim fact of the hollowing out of news-gathering resources, (c) the fact that the majority of the people counted in the story cannot reasonably be regarded as "spin doctors".
I guess it's your right to find it "pathetic", but I thought it was relevant.
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And while the Privacy Act is a very good thing indeed, don't even get me started on the, shall we say, 'highly creative' (or outright fictitious) ways it can be invoked by spinners in full arse-covering mode.
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Or am I the only person who feels even slightly disturbed when the Chief Ombudsman feels it necessary to put his name to a document titled Access to information – not a courtesy but a right {PDF format}, or threaten to name and shame Ministers and departments who are routinely flouting the statutory deadline to respond to OIA requests?
We reported on the OIA several times when I was with Mediawatch. Two issues invariably emerged: foot-dragging and obstruction from certain public agencies, and the extreme politicisation of the process, which sees the majority of OIA requests made by Opposition MPs and their staff, to be presented in a hostile and selective fashion (Labour did the same thing in Opposition).
When the OIA was passed under Muldoon, it was envisaged that the majority of requests would be made by members of the public, but they're actually usually made in a highly political context -- which in turn has the effect of making public agencies risk-averse and obstructive. And, of course, requires them to marshall resources behind official communications in response ...
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In my experience the OIA request can be fulfilled promptly by ministry staff, but the Minister's office sits on it till the last possible minute and decides what amongst the material provided is too "sensitive" to be released.
Then the public service gets the blame for the delay. Journos are none the wiser.
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I think you're having an Alanis Morissette moment here Russell. No, it is not ironic that an opposition party has used Parliamentary communication resources to put out a release criticising the government. That's their job.
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I think you're having an Alanis Morissette moment here Russell. No, it is not ironic that an opposition party has used Parliamentary communication resources to put out a release criticising the government. That's their job.
Yup. Just like it's the job of someone who works for MSD to keep up copy on one of its websites. But only one of them was the subject of the story, or demonised therein as a "spin doctor" in a line parroted by everyone who reported it.
Indeed, the former is much more like spin than the latter. I think there's an irony in there.
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When the OIA was passed under Muldoon, it was envisaged that the majority of requests would be made by members of the public, but they're actually usually made in a highly political context
Because members of the opposition didn't need them because they could file written Parliamentary questions.
There's no appeal or review of an answer given to a Parliamentary question, however, and as ministers started ducking giving answers, the opposition have come to use the OIA - where they can actually get responses to their queries because the Ombudsmen are backing them up.
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the extreme politicisation of the process, which sees the majority of OIA requests made by Opposition MPs and their staff, to be presented in a hostile and selective fashion (Labour did the same thing in Opposition).
I keep hearing that argument, and have a tiny grain of sympathy for it. But in my view, if Ministers of the Crown don't like the operation of the OIA then they should propose amendments, put them on the Order Paper and make their case through the usual legislative process. The bill either passes or fails. It seems to work reasonably well with every other piece of legislation on the books.
Until that happens, its really not that complicated. The civil service has a basic obligation to fully comply with the OIA as it stands - and ensure that sufficient staff and resources are allocated to do so.
I can't find the clause in the OIA or LGOIMA that makes actual or potential political inconvenience and embarrassment grounds to decline a request.
Nor do I see a discretion allowing anyone to decide that only the right kind of person who will use information in an 'appropriate' manner should have access to public information. Perhaps us peasants can be trusted to assess the credibility of media outlets and politicians of all stripes for ourselves?
I guess the line between soliciting information to be "presented in a hostile and selective fashion" and holding the government of the day to "proper scrutiny and accountability" runs through the middle of the debating chamber.
Its not as if Ministers don't have considerable resources and staff to get their counter-spin out there. Somehow, I doubt Kathryn Street is going to be spending much time this year in her office surfing Trade Me and tweaking her Bebo profile. :)
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... the point was the way that (a) such releases make news columns almost verbatim, angles intact; (b) the way news organisations report such a story while avoiding the grim fact of the hollowing out of news-gathering resources, (c) the fact that the majority of the people counted in the story cannot reasonably be regarded as "spin doctors".
It may be relevant, but how can you be surprised Russell. Politicians have been putting out press releases at slow news times and when the journalists are on holiday in the hope of verbatim reportage since the beginning of time. It just seems to me that you and David Farrar are perpetually balancing each other out with your bagging of National and Farrar's criticism of Labour in equal measure, often for doing the same thing. I guess it works for you both?
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the more troubling reality is not so much an increase in public communications staff as the hollowing out of New Zealand's newsrooms
Lest we entirely forget what the newsrooms and media could be capable of, I caught a rousing speech by Jeffrey Sachs on the matter the other night on National Radio. Haven't found the audio online, but here's a transcript, and a taste of the content:
It is interesting that the lies leading up to the (Iraq) war were more aggressively exposed and discussed by the new media of the internet than by the established media, who were constantly looking over their own shoulder with concerns about listener approval, government regulators, and corporate advertisers.
The problem with the internet, of course, is that it transmitted considerable flakiness alongside pithy truth telling. Blog sites, for good and ill, are unfiltered and unaccountable.
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"It just seems to me that you and David Farrar are perpetually balancing each other out with your bagging of National and Farrar's criticism of Labour in equal measure"
you could hardly call it equal, but there do seem to be some commonalities
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"more aggressively exposed and discussed by the new media of the internet than by the established media... The problem with the internet, of course, is that it transmitted considerable flakiness alongside pithy truth telling. Blog sites, for good and ill, are unfiltered and unaccountable"
here, this might help
http://repositoryaut.lconz.ac.nz/context/theses/article/1166/index/1/type/native/viewcontent/
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I can't help thinking that the poor old Labour government should pull some of its comms people away from reaching out to the masses and updating websites (or whatever they all do all day) and put 'em to work defending their besieged MP's. For a government that's supposed to be 'based on spin' they've been REALLY bad at managing the media recently. Hell, they can't even pull off the New Years honors list without having it explode in their faces.
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A S,
I can't help thinking that the poor old Labour government should pull some of its comms people away from reaching out to the masses and updating websites (or whatever they all do all day) and put 'em to work defending their besieged MP's. For a government that's supposed to be 'based on spin' they've been REALLY bad at managing the media recently. Hell, they can't even pull off the New Years honors list without having it explode in their faces.
Perhaps this is a perfect example of where an increase in quantity does not equal an increase in quality....
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It just seems to me that you and David Farrar are perpetually balancing each other out with your bagging of National and Farrar's criticism of Labour in equal measure, often for doing the same thing. I guess it works for you both?
You're still missing my point, which is more about the unmolested ease with which the spin makes the news columns.
I don't really resent National doing so (you'll note I called the release "canny") and it's part of holding the government to account.
But every media organisation ran the "spin doctor" line whole, and only Ruth Laugesen even attempted to do some reporting around it (discovering in the process that many of the "spin doctors" probably weren't).
In a sense, you and I funded the writing of the stories.
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And good job he does, Russell. When was the last time you lodged a request under the Official Information Act and the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act?
Last Wednesday - and I had a full response back within 24 hours.
I don't think its hyperbole to say far too much of the public sector is way too adroit at dragging their feed or redacting documents into gibberish on entirely spurious grounds.
Speaking as a regular OIA user, IMHO it is hyperbole. Yes, I've had problems with departments dragging their feet. But by far the most common response from central government is a full release of information. Redactions are usually few and far between, unless I'm seeking legal advice, foreign policy or budget info, all of which there are good and understandable reasons for withholding. And if I feel a request has not been processed properly, I can always complain to the Ombudsmen, who will look into it and make sure the public interest has been properly balanced.
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Peripherally relevant, from the Journz list:
The editor of the LA Times has been fired for refusing to cut newsroom budgets.
What the Tribune Group has done to that paper is just wrong. David Geffen and his chums should stop talking, reach into their pockets and buy back the Times before it's stuffed. It could be America's Guardian.
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Speaking as a regular OIA user, IMHO it is hyperbole.
Well, Idiot/Savant, I'm glad you've had a good experience and to be fair, most government departments and local bodies keep their noses fairly clean. I said "I don't think its hyperbole" because I've talked to far too many people over the years who have a less rosy tale to tell - and they're not folks who are prone to hysterics and/or National Party researchers on fishing expeditions either.
Call me a crank if you must, but I'd just like the public service to be just that -- and observe a pretty basic (if not flawless, but that's a whole other can of worms) mechanism for public scrutiny and accountability. Even by those pesky opposition parties I'll be danging to heck if the election result is to my liking. :)
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You're still missing my point, which is more about the unmolested ease with which the spin makes the news columns.
OK got it, and thanks for responding. I'm impressed. I also like the fact that the political persuasions of both you and David F are explicit and your posts are read with that knowledge. The same can’t be said for Ruth Laugeson but I’d put money on her being closer to your view than David Fs.
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Thanks Larry. I don't expect you to agree with me, of course. If I only associated with people who agree with me, I'd never see anything of some people ...
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