Posts by Russell Brown
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Wine glass refreshed ...
When I said this:
One issue: these small papers pay a chargeback to APN for accounting services -- and it's several times what those papers would have to pay to just employ an accountant. It seems that APN corporate taps the small assets hard to try and recoup more group costs.
I should have noted that the smaller Fairfax papers probably face similar fish hooks. It's a corporate media fact of life, especially when your national newspaper market is essentially an offshore-owned duopoly.
We're losing family proprietors, who used to play a strong role in the free press, but I'd hope that "trust media", in the mould of the Guardian, will begin to fill the gap. David Geffen and his mates should just have bought the LA Times back from the Tribune group when people were talking about it. Perhaps they're waiting till it's been completely sucked dry.
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Grow up, please.
Bless.
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What, on Earth, is a working homeless? Who qualifies to make up that demographic?
What a curious question.
The working homeless are people who do not earn enough to cover housing costs and must dwell in shelters or live rough.
In America, their numbers have considerably increased in the wake of welfare reform.
Many of them are in families.
Hey, are all Pauline Christians like you?
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<i>The strength of the synch-swimmers is amazing, and I am totally against anyone who thinks it's should be removed from the games.</i>
You may have to fight my girlfriend.
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Meanwhile, Steve Crow has complained that a male spectator has punched one of his pornstars, after telling her she was "disgusting" and trying to grope her breasts.
Well, hey, you're always going to get the odd creepy misogynist along with the rubberneckers, aren't you? Could well be a morals campaigner too, of course -- there is some overlap.
Meanwhile, protesters were verbally abused, had objects thrown at them, and had people trying to rip their banners away.
Wow.
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If we're going there, Cathy Casey is going into exile south of the Bombays until she de-frumps and does something a little more flattering with her hair.
But then Whaleoil would feed Bridget Saunders a rumour that a left-wing councillor was living it up having her hair done at Serville's. The only way to stay safe in public life is to stay frumpy. Well, it works for me ...
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Rob Hosking's comparison of blogs with the 18th and 19th century grub street/pamphleteering culture is absolutely spot on (I've done academic research into the field, don't you know..).
I've drooled over the pamphlet collection at the Turnbull Library (part of the original Turnbull bequest, and shipped to Britain to be bound in hard covers and shipped back out) if that counts.
There are thousands of them, and many seemed to me to be on economics. Clearly, anyone could have a crack at pronouncing on the world's problems.
Matthew, if you ever wanted to use that academic research (crazy, I know) in a guest post here tracing the links to the blogosphere, consider this an invitation. I find the topic very interesting.
I do love small books ...
But on a serious point, it is an interesting time, and I've enjoyed this discussion a lot, being the media junkie that I am. I do wonder the main problem is the sheer hegemony of ownership, rather than any "partisanship" of the papers themselves. Laugh at the regional dailies all you want (and believe me, I'll join you), but the more "centralised" the media becomes, the less opinion and chance for new voices it allows. Fairfax's proposed centralised subbing could well be diabolical.
Do I have a TV show for you!
Tonight's Media7 looks at the portents of APN's conversion of the Levin Daily Chonicle to a bi-weekly freesheet. It's the PANPA 2007 small newspaper of the year, the APN newspaper of the year, it has increased its (admittedly modest) circulation and it's not losing money. If it were independently-owned, it would probably still be a real newspaper.
One issue: these small papers pay a chargeback to APN for accounting services -- and it's several times what those papers would have to pay to just employ an accountant. It seems that APN corporate taps the small assets hard to try and recoup more group costs.
When you note that there's a strong implication (by a councillor and defeated mayoral candidate) that the Levin council helped get rid of its feisty problem paper by withdrawing $60,000 pa in advertising and giving it to a docile freesheet, it casts an interesting light on APN's chest-beating about a free press.
Anyway, there's a list of the remaining independently-owned dailies in New Zealand in the Media7 blog.
Yes, I'm herding.
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No, but without presuming to speak for O'Sullivan, I find it rather galling having my integrity questioned by people who don't even have the guts to sign their names at the bottom of their froth.
Used to happen to me all the time on Kiwiblog ...
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To be fair, Gareth, I think you couldn't throw a brick without hitting a local government employee who will bitch for gold (off the record, naturally) about carefully considered advice being ignored by elected councillors who are barely competent to organise a gang bang at a sex addicts convention.
That has a particular resonance in Auckland City of course, where there is an unfortunate recent history of council officials having such a low opinion of elected councillors that they just please themselves.
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I think it was more an amused observation than a complaint.
It was. I do like the fact that Fran engages, though, even if she's only ever complaining about being criticised.
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