Speaker: The End of Trust
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Hebe,
Thanks Paul. We can but hope you are correct.
Yet a few minutes ago on Twitter Fran O'Sullivan derides as "purist" someone asking for Q&A panelists' PR posts or interests to be disclosed. A leading business journalist dismissing calls for disclosure of interest. What would she say about the prospect of independent voices being required?
When the ethical rot is so endemic, how can it be excised?
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Russell Brown, in reply to
Yet a few minutes ago on Twitter Fran O’Sullivan derides as “purist” someone asking for Q&A panelists’ PR posts or interests to be disclosed. A leading business journalist dismissing calls for disclosure of interest. What would she say about the prospect of independent voices being required?
That was very odd. I don't think Deborah Mahuta Coyle's day job in comms for the Petroleum Exploration and Production Association had much if any bearing on the discussion on Q&A today, but why you wouldn't be clear about what someone's job is, I don't know.
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Sacha, in reply to
Apparently she did speak against restrictions on prospecting and mining at some stage in the show.
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Great post Paul. Sorry Sara, are you implying you think Pead is doing PR for the PM and thus any endorsement of what the PM says should come from the Pead account or that because Deborah works in PR, that everything she says is PR, as opposed to say, personal opinion?
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Sara Bee, in reply to
I think she may be carefully managing her communications about these issues. As she is paid to do.
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Disclosure is critical in my view, doubly so on social media. If I tweet anything client related on my own account I add a #client tag. It's not hard to do. Just requires some awareness.
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Sara Bee, in reply to
Of course, I don't know that for a fact. But everyone's a bit fast and loose with facts these days, according to our PM.
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Stephen Judd, in reply to
Deborah Pead, under her own Twitter handle, rather than PeadPR doing a very nice round of spin
Eh, pretty sure that's just what she really thinks.
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Many of us, including PRs, spokespeople and journalists are paid, in our day jobs, to carefully manage our communications. I don't think it precludes us from having a voice. If there's a transactional relationship, this should be disclosed but I think it's dangerous territory to imply jobs should over ride people's right to be politically engaged. Ultimately everyone's got a barrow to push.
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Russell Brown, in reply to
Deborah Pead, under her own Twitter handle, rather than PeadPR doing a very nice round of spin
Eh, pretty sure that’s just what she really thinks.
Yeah, it is. She's not being paid to say it and has as much right as anyone else to share her opinions.
BTW, I deleted Sara's original comment at Sara's request, although it does make the thread look a bit confusing.
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Russell Brown, in reply to
Many of us, including PRs, spokespeople and journalists are paid, in our day jobs, to carefully manage our communications. I don’t think it precludes us from having a voice. If there’s a transactional relationship, this should be disclosed but I think it’s dangerous territory to imply jobs should over ride people’s right to be politically engaged. Ultimately everyone’s got a barrow to push.
Yes, I think we’re talking about the wrong thing here. I’d be looking at the undeclared interests of one or two guests on The Panel, or Charles Finny “reviewing” Dirty Politics as a lobbyist closely connected with the networks the book is about. Or, of course, a crapload of what’s actually in the book and in subsequent reporting – especially the appearance that law enforcement agencies were undermined in a paid campaign on Mark Hotchin’s behalf.
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Hebe, in reply to
[My question was to Sara re her original statement.So that's irrelevant too. ]
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Yes, precisely.
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I'd rage on at length about David Farrar being introduced as a "blogger" not as "National party pollster" or similar whenever he appeared on TV or radio, but that's the media at fault, not David. They knew what his day job was/is but didn't bother to inform the audience.
It's that kind of level of "but nobody really cares" blather that concerns me.
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Russell Brown, in reply to
Apparently she did speak against restrictions on prospecting and mining at some stage in the show.
Really? That does change things.
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Hebe, in reply to
Yes, I think we’re talking about the wrong thing here. I’d be looking at the undeclared interests of one or two guests on The Panel, or Charles Finny “reviewing” Dirty Politics as a lobbyist clsely connected with the networks the book is about.
Agree: these things are not like the other. When the person pronouncing in public may be perceived as a disinterested commentator if their interest is not declared.
The shows are presented as journalistic examinations of issues. Viewers are entitled to know the participants' interests and leanings, and the effects those may have on the arguments presented. Basic ethical journalism practice.
Q&A should be doing the disclosing - and researching their participants.
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Hebe, in reply to
It’s that kind of level of “but nobody really cares” blather that concerns me.
And that is the essence of Dirty Politics.
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Sacha, in reply to
great to see you here. kia ora
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simon g, in reply to
It's that kind of level of "but nobody really cares" blather that concerns me.
Amen to that.
(Full disclosure: I am not involved in PR, or any related insider matters, but I do watch the telly and read websites and that. Also I vote and buy things. That is all).
Anyways, one of the revealing aspects of Dirty Politics was the "but we all know this" response from so many insiders (trying not to say 'Beltway' here!). But we - if I presume to speak for many of us 'outsiders' - often don't.
So, there's a story on the TV news. People in the know will say "of course that must have started with a press release, and the reporter was simply invited along". But people eating their dinner or shouting at the kids or otherwise in normal news-watching mode ... well, we don't know. And we aren't told. Yes, we can join dots, if we pay attention ("Ooh look, they're showing the fake chat with the receptionist, the classic lead-in to lobbyist/corporate spin on TV"). But we aren't media pros, any more than media people are experts at cars or drainlaying or dentistry.
Insiders talking to insiders, casually dismissing outsiders, really irritates me. The last few weeks have been more irritating than most.
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Russell Brown, in reply to
So, there’s a story on the TV news. People in the know will say “of course that must have started with a press release, and the reporter was simply invited along”. But people eating their dinner or shouting at the kids or otherwise in normal news-watching mode … well, we don’t know. And we aren’t told.
Consumer PR companies pretty much hammer the producers of the 7pm shows every day with pitches for stories on products, events, ideas. There's nothing in particular wrong with that -- apart from the fact that lay viewers don't know how the stories came to be there. When you're trying to tell the world about your thing, it makes sense to pay for someone with the skills to do the telling.
But even non-consumer "news" is quite frequently driven by press releases and I think there's more of a problem there.
Especially where there isn't a press release: see the non-story about Mojo Mathers using (gasp!) transport to get to a community radio station speaking directly to her constituency in the disability community.
Exhibit one: The March 2 Herald on Sunday story that opens with the magnificently passive-voiced words "Questions are being asked ..." and goes on to quote Jordan Williams of the Taxpayers' Union about what an outrage it all is.
The same morning, Whaleoil piles in.
When people note the whiff of Taxpayer's Union about it all, Jordan Williams writes a "who, me?" post and denies feeding the story.
In the end, no one can work out where the story came from or why the hell it's even a story.
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Steve Curtis, in reply to
They knew what his day job was/is but didn’t bother to inform the audience.
Farrar is PAID by the National party for a whole lot of things. Polls sounds innocent until you know he is polling specific National policies or reactions to Labour policies.
Then on top of that Farrars is Nationals go to guy for election boundaries and the whole census results for political purposes. -
Grant McDougall, in reply to
Deborah Mahuta Coyle's day job in comms for the Petroleum Exploration and Production Association had much if any bearing on the discussion on Q&A today,
Her column in today's Sunday Star Times about what Peters will do in negotiations was utter tripe as well, nothing more than a string of vacuous clichés that told me nothing I didn't already know.
She was also labeled as being from the left, with Hooten being the other columnist speculating on Peters. I wonder if the SST know she's just a PR for a lobby group ? Bloody hopeless and frustrating.
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Craig Ranapia, in reply to
Consumer PR companies pretty much hammer the producers of the 7pm shows every day with pitches for stories on products, events, ideas. There's nothing in particular wrong with that -- apart from the fact that lay viewers don't know how the stories came to be there. When you're trying to tell the world about your thing, it makes sense to pay for someone with the skills to do the telling.
With all due respect, Russell, I think there's everything wrong about it because it erodes the distinction between editorial and advertising. If you're treating some consumer product as a news story, then I think "lay viewers" shouldn't have to be media hep cats about where the story is coming from.
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Quote from Paul Brislen's post:
"I went to Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, Singapore, Orlando, Stockholm, Hannover and Amsterdam on someone else’s ticket as a journalist. Every time I took great pains to not be swayed, but of course I was to some degree."Thank you for your admission, and there we are at the very core of the challenge, yes the problem, and it is as much one here in "little old" New Zealand, as it is anywhere else in the world. Wake up dear folks, wake up, we have had changes in the media, in PR activities, in networking and marketing, and what else there is, which have created a new communication and media landscape that we never had before.
I was also stunned and flabbergasted by the bizarre "panel" on Q+A this morning, and having read some comments from above, I now totally understand, why that supposed commentator from "the left", Miss Deborah Mahuta Coyle, did speak as she did. I was struggling to find anything really "progressive" or even "left" in anything she said re the comments by John Key in response to the challenge by leading journalist Greenwald. Yes, the whole panel seemed more or less in agreement, that Key "managed" this well, and came across convincing.
Hey, he was going on about the usual "dirty politics", labeling Greenwald a "henchman", Edward Snowden (former senior NSA inside staff member) simply a "hacker", and got away with stating that the GCSB never did "mass surveillance", it was suggested at one stage, but all they now do is apply a mere "Norton type firewall" security system, whatever that means. No word by the "panel" on how so damned defensive Key's comments and actions were, to now "reveal" documents and info that he and the GCSB stubbornly refused to even comment on before, at the last minute before major revelations due tomorrow. What a joke of a "panel".
Key applied more diversion and distraction methods, and he is a master at this, and he does it so casually and cunningly, the gullible majority do not seem to get it: He is a caught out liar and misleader, a manipulator of the highest calibre.
If only New Zealanders would in higher numbers wake up, read and listen, and analyse, and get it, the GCSB is spying on other nations and companies from here, which is what Greenwald claimed, and which Key has not denied. The NSA is tapping cables in and out of NZ to gather massive amounts of data, at places, where the GCSB is not active, but quietly cooperating, simply by not interfering. As most internet traffic here does go via the US and Australia, as so many service providers and websites are situated there, it is absurd to believe, that there is no mass surveillance on meta data.
I am now determined to go to the Auckland Town Hall tomorrow late afternoon or evening, and I will attend the meeting organised by Dotcom and others. I have less faith in one Mr Key than Mr Greenwald and Ed Snowden and the man in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. I have more faith in the latter, and certainly in Nicky Hager.
To stop all the rot, we must review all security agencies, put in more controls, get out of the Five Eyes Arrangement, and cooperate with other agencies at a different level, more independently. Also do we need to re-establish robust, well resourced, independent broadcasting run as a state public service (with oversight) and more community based media, to counteract the increasing corruptness of the private enterprises and corporates now feeding us unbalanced, biased and commercially focused information. Democracy is under threat, more than it has been for a damned long time! This is not just limited to certain blogs and bloggers, what we have as a major challenge and issue!
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Kumara Republic, in reply to
When the ethical rot is so endemic, how can it be excised?
It needs nothing less than a few perversion-of-justice prosecutions. Followed by a Royal Commission based on the templates of the Leveson and Finkelstein Inquiries.
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