Posts by James W
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Hard News: The First Draft, in reply to Bart Janssen,
People think there is no cost to idiots being given the time of day, well sorry there is a cost, it’s another lost cat story that couldn’t get to air because we had to waste time on a moron who couldn’t read the literature and wouldn’t take the word of someone who could.
+1
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Hard News: The First Draft, in reply to Russell Brown,
My guess is that it has been influenced by the emotional climate around the earthquake. I can’t think of any other explanation.
That doesn't explain the free food store vitriol from before the earthquake. I remember being shocked because I thought Campbell Live viewers would be more liberal than those of Close Up's usual mob.
I'm sure there's a mathematical formula about how 'low level of intelligence = more likely to complain about television show' but I still find it hard not to take responses like this as indicative of the country as a whole.
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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.
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I wrote into Campbell Live praising the interview and I think more people should do the same. Not because the interview was particularly good, but because John Campbell did what I can't remember seeing on NZ television for ages – he challenged someone on their lies. First they showed some nice, normal ChCh people who believed in Ring's theories, then they briefly mentioned the scientists didn't agree, then they had Ring on and confronted him with his own words. I could quite easily see the same exact item on Close Up, except without the confronting Ring part.
Too often this type of pseudoscience is given equal weight or an uncritical airing and news organistations need to know it's appreciated when they challenge this type of belief, even if it's unpopular with some of their viewers.
(It's worth noting that a few weeks back Campbell Live did a story on free food stores appearing and then reported most of their feedback complained the starving people looked overweight and were smoking. I felt sorry for a show trying to challenge misconceptions only to have them reinforced by their viewers.)
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Hard News: Only what we would expect a…, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
Has The Herald learned nothing from the grovelling apology the Herald on Sunday had to give Sharon Shipton?
Why would it? If the only punishment is a small correction on page 3 days, weeks or months later, then why would any newspaper go to the trouble of ensuring their stories are accurate or fair? The Press Council is toothless, relying on a fast-disappearing principle of reputation to maintain its role as arbiter.
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"'Celebrity' in disorder case named"
As a friend of mine pointed out, the use of the word "disorder" without the "-ly conduct" part conveys a very different meaning.
Still, this is What They Want, right? The 'Public Interest'! Of course, the public is interested in things we promote as interesting, and that's normally celebrities and tits, but still...
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Has anyone read the Listener's cover story about "welfare handouts"? Looks like WWG chair Paula Rebstock gets free reign courtesy of Joanne Black to spout their shared ideology. There goes the Listener again, speaking truth to power.
I'd read it but I refuse to buy that publication anymore.
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The moment Paul Henry has a go at white, rich business men then perhaps I'll believe his excuse about "saying what others are afraid to say." Because it seems to me all he does is attack the easily-attacked – minorities. Which is neither brave nor clever.
John Key would hate to see Henry and his softball questions go, I'm sure.
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History shows us that every problem can be cured by not talking about it.
Wait, no...
What annoys me about the "social science" part of this debate is no one ever seems to mention that the increase of suicides when they're mentioned in the media doesn't have a thing to do with the reason for suicides. How about treating the causes of suicides, ie. why people are depressed enough to want to kill themselves, ie, why people are depressed. Stop shooting the messenger.
It's like, upon hearing the homicide rate increases in summer, we set about banning people from going out in the sun.
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Via Kiwi Politico, this article from a year ago features the same players being somewhat more cautious than they are today:
Frontline officers will never be routinely armed while he is in charge, the police commissioner says.
Howard Broad, writing in today's Dominion Post, said arming frontline officers would be likely to cause more problems than it would solve.
Greg O'Conner was for arming, but wanted a debate:
Mr O'Connor... did not support all police carrying guns but said the matter had to be looked at [...]
"We said the debate should take place outside the emotion of Len Snee's death and it's disappointing to see that now there's not going to be any debate there needs to be."
Kiwipolitico believes this was all set-up:
Contrary to O’Connor’s noble aim, there has been no meaningful debate about arming police. This fact suits his arm-the-cops purposes, and it’s now clear that those cries for a debate, and the appearance of a debate within the Police, were made with the primary purpose of simply keeping the issue primed and on the public agenda.