Posts by Kracklite
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Hard News: A week being a long time in politics, in reply to Kumara Republic,
And just like a vampire, they'll behave very strangely when forcibly exposed to sunlight.
I take it that you mean that sparkling isn't involved? Are you sure? As they say, you can't polish a turd, but you can roll it in glitter.
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Hard News: Criminalising Journalism, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
don’t make their editorial judgements by accident
Again, true (sorry, I really don’t mean to seem patronising). Indeed, they do it because they like a good story because it sells copy, but I don’t care if the Turing Test applies. I don’t care what they think, if they think. If they do something right, then good. As Adam Smith said (well, something like that, more or less, as I remember, paraphrasing far more inaccurately), I don’t depend on a butcher’s charity to provide me with sausages, I depend on his desire to make a living.
And I’m sure everyone else is sick of listening to me do so, so I’m out for the evening.
Actually I'm not, ever. I have a Calvinist heritage, so I think that cold showers do me good.
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Hard News: Criminalising Journalism, in reply to Kracklite,
adultery
Actually, as a footnote, anecdotally, to illustrate perfectly the difference between the French and the Americans, Bill Clinton’s response to accusations of adultery with Monica Lewinsky was his infamous finger-wagging “I did not have sex with that woman” whereas Francois Mitterrand, when it was revealed that he had a daughter by a mistress, said “Yes, she’s very pretty, isn’t she?”
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Hard News: Criminalising Journalism, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
I’d imagine that they’d kill their campaigns and the world would be a poorer place… if FDR and Churchill campaigned as they did then, but both were highly intelligent and charismatic people. What sort of context would they construct about each other now, if they were around now, fully aware of the state of the media as it is now?
The 1930s weren’t a more innocent time of politics (outside of Germany and the Soviet Union) by any means – both H. G. Wells and George Orwell were making a lot of jokes in their novels about the compromises, corruption and manipulation of the media in their own times. Wells’ Men Like Gods parodies Churchill, (who was a friend of his and even quoted his work in speeches) and Orwell… made his broadcasts during the war from Room 101 and the head of the BBC, Brendan Bracken, was nicknamed “BB” (just a hop to "Big Brother").
My roving vote right now is drifting towards Hubertus Bigend, by the way…
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Hard News: Criminalising Journalism, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
It would be nice if they tried, just a little… etc
All true, but democracy is messy and often good is done by accident. While the specific event of a tape of a conversation over a cup of tea is turned into a national soap opera, pushing out discussion of other policies, the essential constitutional matter is actually of vital concern. These individual policies are indeed more important than cups of tea and who has the best-placed deck-chair on the White Star liner that is ACT, but the constitutional matter of a Prime Minister, who will seemingly by accident, use the police to suppress investigation of his electioneering are more important.
It’s all very well to talk of the abstractions of constitutionality (specificially, the importance of press freedom), but if that narrative doesn’t carry, then I’m satisfied to see it conducted in such vulgar terms in preference to it not being presented at all. It does represent an universal, timeless and essential principle. In the absence of Cicero (or Spider Jerusalem and his trusty bowel disruptor), I’ll settle, however reluctantly, for Ron Burgundy.
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Hard News: Criminalising Journalism, in reply to Russell Brown,
They are to be searched because they reported an election campaign story during an election campaign.
Chris Trotter made an interesting observation on The Panel about the possibility of cops being filmed raiding news organisation offices and what a disaster that would be for Key/National.
Whatever the bias that the Herald and the television news have shown - and I believe that they have been biased, but that's irrelevant... Craig would say that they've been biased towards stupidity, and I'd agree... but no news editor in any medium could resist the terrific drama of such an event. It could be a perfect "make my day" moment turned on the police and their perceived masters.
(There should be a few parentheses, colons, dashes and whatnot in the previous mishmash of a paragraph, I know.)
My You-Know-It-Hates-Being-Called-That, the manifold ironies of this situation... and the very, very nasty impulses that lie so shallowly beneath the surface of things...
As an aesthete, indeed, I could luxuriate in the irony, the karma and the what-have you... but it's scary how it's happened with a smile and a wave and a cup of tea.
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Latest soundbite from RNZ news. I paraphrase as best I can:
“When asked if this was a good use of police time, Key said that National had reduced crime rates and they had some time on their hands.”
My head made a suicidal leap towards the desk, a fall that would have had disastrous consequences had my palm not heroically intervened.
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Hard News: The perils of political confidence, in reply to Rich Lock,
Loltastic.
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Hard News: We interrupt this broadcast ..., in reply to Rich Lock,
"The Artists Formerly Known As..."?
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Hard News: The perils of political confidence, in reply to Rich Lock,
‘Have this slave thrown to the lions. He’s been annoying My Divine Self for the last 20 minutes.’
To quote a well-known Emperor, "Stop asking perfectly logical questions."