Posts by Alfie
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Tributes are pouring in for Weldon and with one notable exception, there is no outpouring of grief.
Carolyn Robinson
Goodbye Weldon. Don’t trip on the ruins you created as you leave.David Farrier
did a little yell of joy in montreal. a lady said, “what happened” & i said, “mark weldon resigned”. she said “who” & i said “some asshole”Sarah Hall
Congratulations to all of the brave execs at TV3 who stood up to Weldon and @Hilary_Barry for being the tipping point at great personal costSacha McNeil
I try my best to only say nice things about people. So today silence might be the best option.Matt Nippert
So disappointed my description of Flower Street as the Large Weldon Collider won’t get more mileage.Damian Christie
I’m well aware of Godwin’s law, but it’s worth noting that while the big guy is gone, Goebbels and Himmler et al are still in the boardroom.Phil Corkery
Gonna waste the whole day on Twitter.Hamish McKay
Ironic.Mark Jennings
Weldon easn't a "cultural fit" for TV3.Naturally Glucina also posted a pathetic sucky sucky comment which I won’t bother to repeat here. But it does show how out of touch she is with her “colleagues”.
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Hard News: A cog in the Mediaworks machine, in reply to izogi,
Worth repeating. ;-)
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Now Todd McClay has made a complete dick of himself.
After a circuitous route around the question of whether McClay did or didn't know Whitney was Key's lawyer, the minister eventually offered up that he probably didn't know but couldn't remember for sure. For more than 16 minutes McClay veered between being almost certain he didn't know to being somewhat unsure because it was a long time ago.
So it was slippery John to the rescue. Even though Key states that he hadn't actually spoken to Whitney, and therefore would know nothing about the subsequent meeting with McClay, the PM suddenly had a supernatural insight into the whole sorry mess.
It was only half an hour later that Key fronted up to media and categorically and unequivocally confirmed that he was quite explicit in his conversation with McClay that Whitney was his lawyer.
Planet Key -- a place where memories are made (up).
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Today's version... Key's highly experienced lawyer's email was 'sloppily written'. Oddly, the meaning of the line in question looks pretty unambiguous to me.
"I have spoken to the Prime Minister about this and he advised that the Government has no plans to change the status of the foreign trust regime."
Sloppy? What other meaning, if any, could Whitney have possibly intended? This whole business reeks of slippery John.
I didn't do it.
Nobody saw me do it.
You can't prove a thing. -
Hard News: A cog in the Mediaworks machine, in reply to Kumara Republic,
Didn’t Caesar remark that he had Brutus’ unconditional loyalty in 44 BCE?
I'm thinking it's more Nero in this case.
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It seems that the Mediaworks’ board believes that Weldon has the answer to the ailing channel’s problems – yet more reality TV. Or to be specific, "female-oriented reality programming”.
Mediaworks’ under-fire chief executive Mark Weldon says New Zealand is “very low” in broadcast hours for reality television.
Let’s put to one side the obvious lack of reality in that statement and have a little think. Hmmm… scrapping your top rating current affairs shows, losing a third of your most talented staff including most of your biggest stars, and alienating that section of your audience which has a few brain cells, not an issue. And more cheap, crap, lowest common denominator tele might just save the day. Maybe Weldon has been listening too closely to board member Julie Christie? After all, that’s the only type of tele she knows.
"Hey Mark, how about picking up another of my specialist subjects – a show where the contestants get to design their own national flag? We could call it, ‘The Vexillologist’”.
"Brilliant… I’d watch it and it’s bound to rate its tits off with the D-minus brigade! But the title is a bit complicated for our target audience. I know… let’s call it, ‘Flagging’."
Days after Barry resigned – in what some commentators have called the ‘last straw’ for MediaWorks’ news and current affairs operation – Weldon sat down with journalists to talk about the future of “premium unscripted programming”.
And I’ll bet that really impressed the pants off TV3’s few remaining journalists. Perhaps it’s time for a reality check?
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The Herald reports that upset Uber drivers are threatening to strike.
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According to chairman Rod McGeoch, he who extended Weldon’s contract a few months ago, Welldone has the full support of the board.
Pity. That’s a nice little graphic wasted. Maybe I should save it for a while and see how the Spinoff’s reported threat of mass resignations pans out.
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Weldon has emerged from the Board meeting in Auckland.
When asked if he still had the confidence of his board, he replied, "I think so".
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Poor John Key is sadly misunderstood. He's now claiming that his personal lawyer, offshore tax facilitator Ken Whitney, "misrepresented a conversation they had" when he lobbied Todd McClay in 2014.
Well, sadly people do drop my name in things all the time...people who barely know me and don't often talk to me and often drop my name in things.
Accusing his personal lawyer of many years of "name-dropping" and "misrepresentation" is merely Key's latest desperate tactic to try and distance himself from the Panama Papers fallout.
I heard a radio interview recently (sorry, no link) in which Key said he'd checked and could confirm that he had no offshore investments in Panama. Fair enough. After all, Panama is only one of at least 80 international tax havens. I wonder why Key didn't make a more general comment about not having any money in any tax havens, anywhere in the world? The answer must be obvious.
