Posts by simon g
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Herald asks readers: "Who do you believe - John Key or Kim Dotcom?"
Answer: Glenn Greenwald. He's the one with the proven record of reliability. Which is why I'd much rather listen to him than KDC.
Obviously Key's line is to find one hole and dismiss all by association (Dotcom = Greenwald = Cunliffe = Armageddon). Sadly I think it'll work. Tonight's story is no longer (only) about the GCSB and Key's dishonesty. Lose the framing, lose the fight.
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First impression: Language of e-mail looks a bit too good to be true. (To avoid thread derails, that's my feel, not my want).
OTOH, Hollywood studio execs would eat grannies for a buck, so who knows?
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surely he's broken the law here?
Dear Patrick, Tova and Brook
Do you ever watch TV3? They have some good movies on. Last night it was Frost/Nixon. I hope you caught it.
"When the president does it, it is not illegal."
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What you see is what you get from John Key ... if what you see is a bingo card. It is 100% reliable, regardless of subject matter. And since it's predictable and prepared, it is therefore fake.
So, today on Greenwald/GCSB, we have ... the false analogy (Norton Anti-Virus) - check ... the All Blacks reference - check ... the scaremongering (Syria/Iraq) - check ... the personal abuse (henchman etc) - check ... and so on.
John Key argues from a script, not from logic and good faith. It's the hallmark of his time in office, and it diminishes both him, and us.
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Speaker: The End of Trust, in reply to Paul Brislen,
It's that kind of level of "but nobody really cares" blather that concerns me.
Amen to that.
(Full disclosure: I am not involved in PR, or any related insider matters, but I do watch the telly and read websites and that. Also I vote and buy things. That is all).
Anyways, one of the revealing aspects of Dirty Politics was the "but we all know this" response from so many insiders (trying not to say 'Beltway' here!). But we - if I presume to speak for many of us 'outsiders' - often don't.
So, there's a story on the TV news. People in the know will say "of course that must have started with a press release, and the reporter was simply invited along". But people eating their dinner or shouting at the kids or otherwise in normal news-watching mode ... well, we don't know. And we aren't told. Yes, we can join dots, if we pay attention ("Ooh look, they're showing the fake chat with the receptionist, the classic lead-in to lobbyist/corporate spin on TV"). But we aren't media pros, any more than media people are experts at cars or drainlaying or dentistry.
Insiders talking to insiders, casually dismissing outsiders, really irritates me. The last few weeks have been more irritating than most.
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So ... here's a non-exhaustive list of journalists attacked by John Key:
John Stephenson, for going to Afghanistan and reporting in detail about the region and its conflict(s)
Nicky Hager, for informing the public about matters of serious public interest, while taking pains to protect private lives
Glenn Greenwald, for winning a Pulitzer Prize
Steven Sackur, for having the affrontery to interview him properly
and sundry other "knuckleheads" who simply do their job.
And a non-exhaustive list of journalists (sic) who do meet his approval, being a "force of nature" ...
Cameron Slater.
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There's no contradiction at all between 1) being thoroughly unimpressed with the performance of too many Labour MPs, and 2) seeing the evident, unashamed bias to the Right of APN, Fairfax etc. The editorials tell us where they stand, they don't hide their political preference, so why should we?
And BTW, "shoot the messenger" is one of the the most misused phrases in modern discourse. The original messenger had no say in the content of the message sent. Whereas the message delivered by the media is entirely their own.
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I think it's disgraceful that a book's publication date should be blatantly timed to try and influence the election result, and I look forward to an apology to the voters from John Roughan of the NZ Herald.
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What makes me so sad about this Dirty Politics fallout (lack of) is that it's now really, worryingly easy to know what's coming.
So, One News runs trailers on the radio saying that they have an "exclusive" and "independent" (their words) report on Labour's CGT proposal. And the moment I heard those words, I knew what was coming (and that sounds arrogant, and I wish I was wrong, but I wasn't, because it was entirely predictable).
I knew that it wouldn't be an independent report produced by One News. I knew that it would be given to them by Labour's political opponents. Because they do their job well, and much of the media don't do theirs.
It's regular as clockwork. It's not about conspiracy theories, it's simply observing daily behavior. Jordan Williams is quoted by Fairfax. Cameron Slater is on Newstalk ZB. And so on.
The oldest truth of news reporting ("it's what somebody doesn't want you to report, otherwise it's advertising") has been lost. And the people who bring us the news show little sign of wanting to find it again.
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And Stuff has an immediate response ... from the Taxpayers' Union. (Gosh, how did Jordan Williams know what was coming?).
Nothing has fucking changed. The media have "Play us, we can't be arsed" written on their T-shirts. Any reporter who gives Williams credit is in the wrong job.