Posts by llew40
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Hard News: A cog in the Mediaworks machine, in reply to Danielle,
Oh fair point, I dont think I was suggesting that this is an entirely new thing. More that at least *some* of the criticism of Scout seems to miss the point that plenty of New Zealanders like this stuff.
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Hard News: A cog in the Mediaworks machine, in reply to Russell Brown,
I personally agree with virtually everything you have said here Russell, yet ..... what does it say about us if Scout is a success?
I've long felt that, politically at least, large numbers of New Zealanders find it too difficult to believe that other large numbers of New Zealanders can hold a very different view to them. Be it on the merits of John Key and National. Be it on the preferred tactics of Labout as an opposition party. Be it on bellweather issues such as Auckland housing or refugee intakes. Be it on the merits of Campbell Live as a bastion of media independence. Social media doesnt help that level of self-reinforcement. At times (e.g. the last election) it becomes an almost wilful act of refusing to acknowledge the beliefs of others (or the lack of interest of others).
So .... what does it say if shallow recycled entertainment news is popular in NZ?
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I'm aware (as others are on here no doubt) of good journalists who are - through pressures of commercial imperatives - writing much more clickbait than they used to. The traditional business model of media, under siege from digitisation, globalization, citizen journalism, bloggers, pr, social media, dying ad revenue, declining public funding, fragmenting audience interest etc etc, inevitably responds in a number of ways. One of which is to chase new ad revenue via driving click through and talkback style comments threads. Another is to cross-sell across platforms via media 'personalities'. Another is the entrepreneurial indie enterprise like PA or The Hive. I guess if you are a journo or work in media it depends on where you work. BTW, did anyone else notice the relentless cross-channel vibe from NZME towards Mediaworks? For a while there the Herald ran a negative story about the Bachelor or other MW properties every single day for about 21 days straight.
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Small family footnote: our Dad - a coal mining engineer whose own dad was a red-ragger who marched - was asked to stand for Labour in the local south Wales electorate. He declined and Neil Kinnock ended up accepting the nomination.
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National, OTOH, are trying to do something fundamentally evil and succeeding very well, aided by people like Tze Ming Mok and Keith Ng.
Eh?
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Polity: A week on from the housing controversy, in reply to Dean Wallis,
I'm not sure I agree Dean. While the media treatment has certainly helped fan the flames, I simply find it scarcely credible to believe that, in giving the data to the Herald in the way that they did, Labour can claim to have been surprised by the outcome, and by how this debate has played out. I suspect that in itself has been what has upset so many party supporters - was it a conscious dog-whistle or not. Either way its not particularly edifying.
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Nobody should read anything in our data analysis as being critical of Kiwis who happen to have Chinese ethnicity
I'd buy this Rob if it wasnt for the fact that so many NZers of Chinese descent quite clearly read it as a criticism, based entirely on the way Labour chose to frame a very real issue, and the way in which that issue was then reported. Its hard to back away from that saying "hey now, thats not what we really meant" ....
OTOH, Labour has achieved its goal of getting the issue talked about. Its just had to take quite a few punches to the face in doing so. It might have been ham-fisted, it might have been some kind of deliberate dog-whistle, but maybe the strategists think that the punches in the face were worth it to land a few on the Government.
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property speculators and rentierism - really doesn't sound convincing to me.
Sure, people are obviously concerned at the housing issue, but these cynical tactics are simply wrong. Present the real data - who buys up all the housing - and if people want to draw their own racist conclusions, that's their problem. At least the real problem will be out there for discussion.
Except I dont actually think this is the real problem. It's hard to get angry at people investing in property when for decades, successive governments have built/allowed the inherent bias towards property as an investment class to build up. Investment capital is (usually) a rational thing, and flows towards best risk/return opportunity. If I had the capital to invest, I would probably have done the same over the last few decades.
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Polity: House-buying patterns in Auckland, in reply to BenWilson,
Thats a fair point Ben, affordability is also a product of circumstance, and I'd certainly love to be in a position where I can use the equity in my home to give my (currently teenage) children a step onto the first rung of the property ladder (if they want to live in Auckland).
Its a natural thing to want to do, but it does feel like (while it will put my kids in the lucky category) it will also exacerbate the underlying structural problem.
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Sorry but hard to see this as anything other than ham-fisted politics. Phil has turned a legitimate economic issue related to the impact of foreign speculators on Auckland housing affordability to a singling out of Chinese investors based on ropy stats. So the political opposition gets to frame labour as dog whistling, labour get to spend days explaining what they *really* meant. And media get plenty to feed off.