Posts by Craig Ranapia
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Hard News: Friday Music: Do not disturb, in reply to Alan Perrott,
and I know I’m an aging hack but what is the fuss over Home Brew? I’ve tried, but still don’t think they’re as good, or as outrageous, as they think they are.
QFT. A very small data point in my theory that there’s few things more banal, in art or in life, than people trying so damn hard to be “outrageous” you can almost predict every outrage before it happens. Home Brew Crew isn’t even that good at awards show acting out. An incontinent goat, some swears and a feeble diss of God and the Prime Minister? Whatevs. Nicki Minaj would have done all that and gotten into a drunken, topless knife fight with a live-Tweeting Will.I.Am before she was halfway up the press line.
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Hard News: Media3: Whistleblower Season, in reply to Bruce Thorpe,
It always seems unreasonable to me that a critic is expected themselves to be above criticism, and to only be valid if supplied from those with impeccable motives and record.
Bruce: That’s not what Jane Clifton or Russell are saying. The most famous whistleblower in history is Mark Felt (A.K.A. ‘Deep Throat’) – who felt he should have been appointed director of the FBI after J. Edgar Hoover’s death, and was not pleased at all when he was passed over for the position. Twice.
Does that invalidate Woodward and Bernstein’s reporting on the Watergate scandal? Of course not, but I’m pretty confident that that was a non-trivial consideration for Woodward when he sought independent corroboration of every bit of information that came from Deep Throat.
It's not sinister to be highly sensitive to the idea that sources don't always come forth out of some disinterested interest in Truth, Justice and the Public Good. That's Journalism 101, and it shouldn't go on hold just because someone calls themselves a 'whistleblower'. Especially when, if you do run a story based entirely on anonymous sources, you're asking me to take a pretty fucking big leap of faith. Because you've denied me ANY means of assessing that source's credibility.
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Hard News: Media3: Whistleblower Season, in reply to Russell Brown,
It was more subtle, and more pervasive, than that. He was a lot of people’s meal ticket, for sure. But it’s actually quite shocking the way the culture just let it go.
Um, yeah – Andrew O’Hagan has a truly disturbing LRB essay about the culture of the BBC. I don’t like the way he rather carelessly lumps together as “perverts” gay men like Kenneth Williams – who may have been a shrieking queen but was publicly closeted for a reason – and sexual predators like Lionel Gamlin who liked their trade rough, inexpensive and very young. But it is worth taking the time to read.
I wonder how many BBCers Saville had by the short and curlies that meant nothing would be done about him?? Just sayin.
As Russell said, it’s more subtle, and more pervasive than that. It’s not as if you you had to be in a gym-slip (or a dolly young schoolboy) to be on the receiving end of sexual harassment and abuse back in the day. O’Hagan observes in passing:
One presenter told me of being ‘grabbed’ in Broadcasting House by Malcolm Muggeridge, who spent most of his time in the 1960s railing against the permissive society, ‘pot and pills’. The Muggeridge grope wasn’t welcomed but it didn’t seem totally irregular to the person on the receiving end. She could name at least one other person, a politician, who thought it was OK to put his hand up the skirts of young women at the BBC. It wasn’t irregular. What was irregular was the idea of talking about it, even now.
I think it speaks eloquently that in a seven thousand word essay, O'Hagan has (by my count) precisely two direct quotes from interviews with named sources. And some of these people are talking about events decades back, involving people long dead - and therefore incapable of being libeled. But...
The BBC isn’t the Catholic Church, but it has its own ideals and traditions, which cause people to pause before naming the unwise acts that have been performed on its premises. Perhaps more than any church, the BBC continues to be a powerhouse of virtue, of intelligence and tolerance, but it is now suffering a kind of ecclesiastical terror at its own fallibility. One has to look further into the institution to see another, more obscure tradition, the one that leads to Savile and his liberty-taking. There was always an element of it waiting to be picked up. Many people I spoke to wished to make that clear, but – feeling the Chorus watching from above – they asked for anonymity.
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Up Front: Staying In, in reply to Andre Alessi,
That’s even worse than my lesbian aunt, who gets the same from her 80 year old mother every time she breaks up with a girlfriend. “Oh, now you can meet a nice man and settle down…”
Well, at least she doesn’t have an uber-creepy billionaire father basically issuing an open invitation (and a cash reward) for guys to cyber-stalk and publicly harass her. I’m squicked out every time I see this presented as some adorably quirky “human interest” story instead of the disturbing arsebaggery it is.
Some of it may be about my not discovering my kinky side until my late 30s
Yeah, but what’s “kinky” anyway? I don’t think most people would bat an eye-lid if they found hanging from the ceiling in a rubber gimp-suit, with a live chicken stuck up my arse. But drop the factoid I’ve never, ever had sexual intercourse with a woman? Well, then the conversation get… interestingly awkward and I’ll be damned if I can figure out why.
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Another really important thing to do on Coming Out Day is do a bit of privilege-owning gratitude and remember there’s a metric fuckton of GLBT folks out there for whom being “out” (or outed) can quite literally be life-threatening.
Which, for me anyway, makes it important to use that privilege for good. Or at least put the idea out there that being an out GLBT person AND a messy, flawed human being with a face and a name aren’t mutually contradictory states. Back in the day, I really could have done with that insight a lot earlier. :)
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intrigued by the possibilities of “broadcasting” live theatre (it seemed to me to be coming off DVD in e-cinema or another offline format rather from than the network). I think when the technology improves to meet the concept, we’ll be seeing more of this – and that it will be good for theatre itself.
To be grubbily commercial about it, not least for the bottom line. New York's Metropolitan Opera Live In HD has been a trail-blazer and a non-trivial new income stream.
US$11 million might seem pretty small beer for an organization with an operating budget of around US$300 million a year, but it's also one heavily dependent on private donors that aren't as thick on the ground as they used to be.
And let's face it, there are large parts of the repertory of the Met or the National that it will never, ever be commercially or logistically viable for their New Zealand counterparts to stage. Hell, even for the Met a complete Ring is a massive - and enormously risky - under-taking.
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pricey ($25)
Perhaps, but getting decent meatspace tickets at that price to popular NT shows like this, the Danny Boyle/Cumberbach/Miller Frankenstein or Alan Bennett’s The Habit of Art? Forget about it – that last show sold out a six month season inside a week. IIRC, the top ticket price was pushing 200 quid when the NZ$ exchange rate was nearer 3:1 than 2.
Another comparison. Peter Calder mentioned One Man, Two Guvnors, a touring company of which will play the Auckland Arts Festival next February. As far as I’m aware, the cheapest available tickets are $75
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Hard News: Special Sources, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
Does that exclude the sort of pseudo-anonymity implied by: a senior state department official or that old standby White House sources?
I’d broadly agree with Hoyt – a lot less often than is the case. It’s simply absurd to see senior public servants and press secretaries demanding, let alone receiving, anonymity for… well, doing their jobs.
And it got a damn sight more sinister across the point when when Bernard Ingham – who was not only Thatcher’s chief press secretary but a career civil servant who was supposed to maintain political neutrality – was white-anting Ministers of the Crown in his infamous “lobby briefings”. All on condition, of course, that they were only attributable to "senior sources in the government" as opposed to "the Prime Minister's office". If you believe the string of politicians and spin doctors who testified to the Leveson Inquiry earlier this year that they never even dreamed of "briefing against" their own colleagues in such a despicable manner, I’ve got some London bridges to sell you.
We’re not talking about people whose reputations, careers or even lives are at genuine risk if they disclose information of genuine public interest. And regardless of whether Trevett’s source was in the MSD or Paula Bennett’s office, I don’t believe for a moment s/he was either.
Again, if Ms. Trevett would like to come here – on the record – and tell me I’m wrong, then I’ll take her word for it.
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And get back to me the next time The Herald runs a completely bullshit non-story/hit piece with not an on the record source to be seen, and ask yourself two questions:
1) Was there any genuine public interest or journalistic defense for that anonymity?
2) And do you think the two might just be related?
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Hard News: Special Sources, in reply to Sacha,
If you can’t see the difference between that and this from the policy you cited
Really, Sacha - premature elision there. Because after the cut the quote continued...
to arrive at phrasing that will tell the reader as much as possible about the placement and motivation of the source – in particular, whether the source has firsthand knowledge of the facts.
Of course, if Ms. Trevett and the Herald would like to come here and share how her source would have been described if Keith and Ira hadn't effectively scooped her, I will accept her word. But the story printed under her byline on Monday didn't mention her initial source at all, let alone anything that would allow readers to assess their "placement and motivation". So pardon me if I'm somewhat sceptical.
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