Posts by Alfie
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Polity: TPP, eh?, in reply to Ian Dalziel,
No need for evidence and that sort of thing – just failure to contest!!
Especially when most of the evidence so far points to the Saudis funding 9/11. But hey... they're on our side... sort of.. kinda... maybe.
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Speaker: Are we seeing the end of MSM,…, in reply to John Farrell,
At least, for all its faults, the ODT is still a newspaper (and website) which covers a significant amount of local and regional news.
Indeed. The dear old OdDiTy. I must admit it's usually my first call for local news in the mornings. They do have some annoying traits like editing online comments for no other reason than they can. And their moderation policy means comments can take up to 24 hours to appear online, which is crap in a digital age.
However all that is about to change with today's announcement that they're relaunching with a paywall. This is being spun as "an exciting relaunch" of their website."
The site is looking pretty dated and seems to have been designed for 800x640 monitors, so a refresh is long overdue. But exciting? For the accounts dept maybe.
As far as I know this will be the first daily newspaper in NZ to implement a paywall. They're going to use a metered paywall, so anyone with a passing knowledge of session cookies shouldn't have a problem accessing content. But when Stuff and the Herald have both shelved their paywall plans for now, it's either brave or stupid for a small provincial paper to lead the way. I guess time will tell.
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Stuff does it again... on their front page of course.
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Polity: TPP, eh?, in reply to izogi,
Equally disturbing is Josie's report that the military were heavily involved.
The guards asked for my ID, and whilst I was getting it out I noticed one of the guys had an army badge pinned to his lapel, I asked him if he was military and he confirmed that all security present today were army personnel.
30 police and 40 military personnel... for a "public consultation"? Excuse me, but when was martial law declared in NZ?
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Polity: TPP, eh?, in reply to Ian Dalziel,
The Dunedin TPP.. ra..ra..ra meeting was held yesterday. Unlike Jane Kelsey's meeting last month which overflowed the hall, this one only attracted "dozens" of people.
As Mr Walker was welcomed to speak by moderator and right-wing pundit Sean Plunket, TPP protester Rosemary Penwarden played circus music and began chanting ‘‘This is a circus''.
She was accompanied from the room by the security guards, who were a notable feature of the event.
The roadshow was also marked by a heavy police presence outside the Dunedin Centre and those wishing to enter had to offer photo identification.
Photo ID required to listen to Plunker and his team emit government spin? No thanks.
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Speaker: Are we seeing the end of MSM,…, in reply to Ian Dalziel,
While both Stuff and the Herald provide daily examples of poor journalism, bad grammar and non-existent subediting, here's a real clanger from today's Herald. Not only did the headline escape scrutiny, but the error is repeated in the "latest" column on their front page.
It's like nobody at the Herald cares any more.
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Winnie's at it again. This time it's the Russian translation of the referendum question. Instead of "should be the New Zealand flag" it reads...
"Put a tick next to the flag that in your opinion should become the New Zealand flag"
Technically he's correct. One is our existing flag and only the teatowel can become the NZ flag.
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Hard News: The flagging referendum, in reply to Ian Dalziel,
It may come down to ‘Beach towels at dawn, Sir!’
Which segues nicely into New Zealand: One Nation Under a Beach Towel? wherein our very own Steve Braunias pens an op-ed piece for the venerable New York Times.
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Polity: Key Derangement Syndrome…, in reply to Ian Dalziel,
is it a critical mass of population thing?
I don't think so Ian. I may have mentioned this before but Kim Hill had a great interview last year with Piv Bernth, head of drama for Danish TV. They have a population of 5.5m and each household pays a broadcasting fee of around $NZ400pa. For that they get eight TV channels and eight radio stations -- all commercial free.
One comment from Ms Bernth stood out to me, and I paraphrase... "We have a lot of programmes analysing the news". That level of public scrutiny has all but disappeared from NZ media.
I have a good friend from Poland who's worried about events in her country. On the back of the migrant crisis the extreme right Law and Justice party took over the government late last year. The first thing they did, after replacing the juduciary with their own people, was to sack all of the broadcasting heads. Controlling the media with no viable alternative voice gives you a direct line to people's minds.
Call me a conspiracist, but I reckon the same thing has happened here. Sure it took a few years to implement, and it was a good deal more subtle than the Polish example. But apart from RNZ, almost all of our media is extremely "government-friendly" nowadays.
Whether you call it dumbing down or go with John Key's "people prefer entertainment" line, the end result is a submissive population.
I'd like to think there is still a taste for public service broadcasting in NZ. Unfortunately it's no longer offered as an option.
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Hard News: The flagging referendum, in reply to Emma Hart,
Even if I’d dug the hole all sneaky and a-purpose, which I didn’t, nobody forced you to jump in it.
Thanks for your constructive comment Emma. I'm not sure that cheap point scoring adds much to the conversation, but whatever...
