Posts by James W
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Hard News: Time to get a grip, in reply to Rob Stowell,
Companies exist to make money for their shareholders. They don’t exist to make moral decisions. Expecting them to is like expecting shampoo to do your homework :)
This is true. It ignores there are real live people in charge of those corporations that surely have morals, but I guess they ignore them in order to serve the corporation's money-making function.
I know in the US corporations have personhood thanks to the Supreme Court, which makes this issue considerably more thorny (afterall, if they get all the advantages of personal rights, why aren't they held to personal account?). I don't know what the legal standing of corporations are in NZ.
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Hard News: Time to get a grip, in reply to Ken Sparks,
On air Paul Henry plays the role of the bloke who “just says what everyone else is thinking” and those of us who don’t like it can and do complain – I suppose MediaWorks think that any publicity is good publicity. I suspect they’re not too bothered about any BSA-regulated complaints process – that’s just more publicity. However he does seem to have a few fans so maybe they just want to cater to them.
Yes, I know. I know exactly why Mediaworks have hired him, I know he will rate well, I know people will complain. Henry is not going to surprise anyone. We’ve all been here before. But I’d love to know where Mediaworks draws the line from a moral point of view, rather than a monetary one. Surely there are boundaries, right?
(I’d also love for all these “saying what's on people’s minds” euphemisms to stop and for people to call a spade a racist.)
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Hard News: Time to get a grip, in reply to Sacha,
operates under a higher bar
You may believe that, but I doubt TVNZ does
I don't believe that, really, but because TVNZ is taxpayer-funded, it is subject to political pressures that Mediaworks isn't.
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Hard News: Time to get a grip, in reply to Sacha,
Henry got fired for PR reasons.
What, you don’t think the BSA-regulated complaints process played any role in that?
Paul Henry "resigned" 20 October 2010. The BSA decision came out 18 March 2011. They found in favour of TVNZ's handling of the situation. They had nothing to do with his letting go.
From that Herald story announcing the resignation, TVNZ chief executive Rick Ellis:
If the situation had continued as it had, advertising might have been affected, he said.
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Hard News: Time to get a grip, in reply to Sacha,
I’m not saying a private company can’t hire him.
Red herring.They are subject to the same broadcasting standards and laws. Which Henry breached. Repeatedly.
That didn't get him fired, though, right? And it doesn't stop Mediaworks from hiring him. Henry got fired for PR reasons. The BSA is largely toothless, and his hiring shows that.
I'm specifically talking about a private company choosing to hire a racist. (I say private because a government-owned broadcaster, being ultimately responsible to its shareholders, the NZ taxpayer, operates under a higher bar.) I'm not talking about specific laws to stop someone working somewhere. I'm talking about the ethics of the decision.
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BTW, I'm aware Henry will likely continue to say thinly-veiled offensive things (like when he called homosexuality unnatural and compared gays to filthy monkeys) and not be as stupid as to be blatantly racist again, so Mediaworks' PR spokesperson can always cover for him, so we'll never find out the level. But it would be interesting to know how far you're allowed to go in capitalist society, 2011, New Zealand.
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Hard News: Time to get a grip, in reply to Ken Sparks,
I'm genuinely intrigued that Mediaworks has hired Henry. It's really disappointing. I can see how it makes smart financial sense, but morally, how can they justify it? Henry is literally a racist. There's no "well, he's just controversial", or "he just speaks his mind", or "he's anti-PC" covering here, he was exposed as a racist and got fired for it. Now the competitor snaps him up? He's very likely come out of this with more money they he had before his racist comments. He's being rewarded for his intolerance.
It makes me wonder, what is the level where money trumps morality? What if Henry makes racist comments about Maori (he likely already has, I never watched his show)? What if he comes out as a Holocaust denier? Is that too far? What if on his brand new TV3 current affairs show that's rating through the roof he tells viewers that it's okay to rape your wife? Would he be fired then? Maybe someone can ask the head of Mediaworks.
I'm not saying a private company can't hire him. I'm saying they shouldn't.
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Would a new leader losing the next election automatically mean they too had to step down afterwards? This seems to be a commonly held axiom but is there any basis to it? Why can't Cunliffe (or whomever) take over now, lead Labour to a slight but not catastrophic loss, and then continue building for the next election? Surely that's better than Goff's no hoper?
I'm genuinely asking.
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Re: SST
When you're losing sales to a competitor you know what always works? Copying the competitor.
It's like all those iPod knock-offs, they've done so well. Or that singer who's a lot like Lady Gaga. Or that movie that was like Twilight. It's surely just an aberration that CNN continues to lose viewers to FOX News, despite increasingly copying FOX's style.
History really respects those who were there second, who refused to forge their own path, to take risks, to try something new. Good on ya, Sunday Star-Times.
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Hard News: The First Draft, in reply to giovanni tiso,
I’d rather they give the crackpots airtime so someone can then debunk them. Otherwise we end up with Sensing Murder being the number one rated show.
It seems a very faulty correlation to me. How about we don’t air Sensing Murder?
My point was rather than simply airing shows like Sensing Murder, I'd rather they aired them AND debunked them. Obviously, I'd prefer they not air them at all, but they do, because they're popular. But by debunking them, you don't just ignore the problem and hope it goes away, you confront it head on.