Posts by Craig Ranapia
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OnPoint: Pants != Journalism, in reply to Scott Chris,
Regarding the disco pants – well, she got the attention she wanted.
Really? I’m casual acquaintances with Laura and I take her word for it that she most definitely didn’t want her name attached to a story riddled with basic fact-fail. And I have no reason to doubt Laura's word that nobody from The Herald has even bothered to call her.
Funny how the wannabe Anna Wintours of the Herald editorial board forgot to mention that, ay? As Russell says: Sledging the opposition is nothing new, but this is getting as rich as a length of gold thread brocade.
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Up Front: You're Telling My Child What, Now?, in reply to Megan Wegan,
The thing I really don’t understand – even were her claims true, which they’re not – is that we don’t keep kids safe by giving them less information.
So much of this, and being a gay man of a certain age I think New Zealand's comparatively sane response to HIV-AIDS information back in the day just might have saved lives. Didn't stop me from incredibly dumb, unsafe, there-but-for-the-grace-of-God-go-I sex stuff, but I came around to make better choices with access to good information than the weird "anal doesn't count" stuff coming out of the purity-ringed Bible Belt.
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OnPoint: Pants != Journalism, in reply to DexterX,
Courtrooms during serious criminal cases (murder trails, serious assaults, rape) are by nature of their function a particularly solemn and serious place,
Well, yes they are. I don’t find much gravitas in a court officer getting in touch with their inner Heidi Klum but there you go. And here we are.
What I find rather ironic is that a plain text reading of the Courts Department’s own media guidelines, and ample precedent, would suggest that there would have been no issue if McQuillan was wearing jeans. Not my idea of workplace-appropriate couture unless you’re a farm-hand but that’s a personal preference NOT a law of nature.
But, hell, wasn’t it all so much simpler when a vagina-person’s place in the media was social gossip and scone recipes on the “women’s pages”, and the only women who’d wear trousers in public were butch lesbians and beatniks.
The Crown Goes Wild? Does that mean the judge will be wearing pink bell bottoms and a tank top? :)
Well, Yamis, you may snark... but I suspect quite a few lawyers and judges welcomed the "simplification" of court dress rules in 1996. The wigs may be adorable, but I know one who found it so uncomfortable he was discretely asked in the middle of a long trial in a blazing hot courtroom whether he needed his wig fumigated.)
Would you question the "professionalism" of Sian Elias because (as far as I'm aware) judges of the Supreme Court, don't wear formal robes and court wigs, except on very formal - and rare - occasions?
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Hard News: Strange days for journalism, in reply to Matthew Poole,
That would make it the first stock-dumping in history where the very fact of the dumping didn’t depress the price, I suspect.
IIRC, last year News Corp's share price took a sharp dip just on rumours that Al-Waleed bin Talal Alsaud (the largest individual shareholder after Rupert Murdoch himself) was going to sell his 7% of voting shares.
Yes, I know it's blindingly obvious that share markets are not entirely rational places but I'd not feel good about my retirement savings being invested in a company where major investors are doing the rodent disembarkation dance.
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Hard News: Strange days for journalism, in reply to Bart Janssen,
Personally I’d avoid Fairfax shares like the Plague or Rheumatic fever.
I, for one, welcome Warren Buffett our latest insect overlord. Hey, he can’t screw this pooch any harder and he doesn't regard newsrooms as Marxist cells..
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Hard News: Strange days for journalism, in reply to Bart Janssen,
She will likely want the biggest return for her shares so if someone sees value in Fairfax then it’s just as possible for the price to rise.
I think you’re presuming a higher degree of rational thought than I’d presume in a woman who’s also busy trying to spite-fuck her own children, who impertinently would like Mother to get her hooks out of their trust fund. Without wanting to get too deep into the parlour psychoanalysis, don’t underestimate how far control freaks will work against their own rational self-interest.
And while the article Russell linked to is fascinating (and right up to a point), I'm sure older talking heads remember the last time Fairfax became a public battleground for family issues. There's a reason why "Young" Warwick Fairfax has kept a very low media profile for the last twenty-odd years.
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That said, Rinehart's hair-trigger persecution mania (when, by any objective measure she's lived a life of eye-watering privilege and entitlement) would be funny if it wasn't so dangerous. Perhaps I'm missing something, but publicly threatening to torpedo Fairfax's share price if she doesn't get her own way isn't how a responsible adult behaves.
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Hard News: Strange days for journalism, in reply to bronwyn,
Obviously it’s before this recent spate of action, but is a great backgrounder on some the forces that have made her who she is.
Lang Hancock was a piece of work – and that’s saying something in a fertile breeding ground for sociopathic rat-bastards like Australia. He’s a RW Tywin Lannister – not intended as a compliment, and should not read as implying Rinehart would have shagged her twin brother if she’d had one. Strangled him in vitro would be more plausible. I feel a small grain of sympathy for her, and it's akin to the one I feel for both Rupert Murdoch and his own children. How could you ever measure up to Keith Murdoch or Lang Hancock, even in your own eyes, without leaving a mile-wide swathe of smouldering wreckage in your wake?
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Hard News: Strange days for journalism, in reply to Steve Withers,
I’d like to see no person or corporation allowed to own more than one media outlet of any type.
Would that include requiring The Scott Trust Ltd. (one of the more agreeable fruits of tax avoidance) to break up the Guardian Media Group by selling The Observer and divesting it’s other print interests. (Russell would know better than me, but wasn't there a long stretch when GMG's interest in Auto Trader was quietly but transparently keeping The Guardian and Observer solvent? Which, BTW, is the whole point of The Trust's investment strategy.)
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Hard News: Strange days for journalism, in reply to Russell Brown,
Oh, for god’s sake Angus. Rinehart wants to do away with Fairfax’s charter of editorial independence.
Something even the demon Rupert Murdoch had some respect for – unless he just forgot to dictate pro-Iraq War editorials down the line to the New Zealand newspapers he had an interest in at the time.
This “damage” has nothing to do with Rinehart. She does not control seats on the board that made the decision to downsize Fairfax operations.
Don’t piss on my leg and tell me it’s raining, Angus. There are many adjectives I’d apply to Rinehart but “so stupid she has no idea of the effect of dumping almost 20% of Fairfax shares on the market unless she gets everything her own way”? Defies belief.
Rinehart - like her father Lang Hancock before her -- reacts in a disturbingly toddler-like manner to the word "No". Sadly, she also shares her father's belief that screaming as you beat your enemies over the head with a chequebook is how grown-ups settle their differences. Unfortunately, it seems to be true.
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