Posts by James W
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Wait, FamFirst is getting worse. Now they're all aflutter about the bits adangle on TV3 Nightline's coverage (...) of the Nude Blacks...
What rubbish. I recorded that segment, re-watched it many times in slow motion and freeze-framed the best angles and you couldn't make out a thing.
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You cannot take a genuine (in their words "scientific") political opinion poll and compare it with the "survey" you've ginned up from a self-selected group of Your Views readers.
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A commenter at The Standard saw the "survey" text and said it didn't mention Banks at all, and the questions were all about perceptions of Brown. It was risible, frankly, and I wonder if Orsman wrote the story under protest.
The Herald's "unscientific" surveys are a waste of time, agreed. However, I did this one (because I knew they'd use it in their reporting) as part of the APN Reader's Panel. I'm not a Your Views reader or contributor, believe me.
Also, I think you've misread the Standard's comment - the survey DID mention Banks, but every question was phrased about the effect on Brown, ie. (I'm paraphrasing here) "After Len Brown's credit card scandal, who will you vote for as Super City mayor? a) Len Brown, b) John Banks, c) Other"
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I vote Green mostly for their social policy too. It's interesting when you tell people you voted Green they automatically assume you're a tree-hugging, pot-smoking hippie. I think their name and health/environment-at-all-costs agenda actually stops them from getting beyond 8% support. If there was a true liberal party with enough support without that stuff I would vote for them.
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Just heard the interview (why are the podcasts so late?) and loved it. Good job, Russell. You certainly asked questions I've never seen asked of McVicar. If only you had more time - I felt you were letting a lot of his evasive answers go because you only had 10 mins and wanted to get to the next topic before time ran out. But really good interview.
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I've always listened to bfm by downloading their podcasts (I don't have a radio and the internet stream is very choppy at work). The podcasts I downloaded the most were segments from Havoc's show and interviews from the Wire. Up until this thread I didn't realise the Wire ever played music. So this change isn't going to affect me.
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I can find the post, but Editing The Herald once featured some correspondence between a Herald journalist and a reader asking why McVicar gets so much airtime. Her response was basically that anyone is free to start an organisation.
That was me. The journalist was Simon Collins and it was about Bob McCoskrie, not McVicar (although the point stands). I asked why McCroskrie was referred to as a director of Family First, when he IS Family First (you can't join). I wrote:
Please stop giving this man the credence he doesn't deserve just because he uses an authoritative-sounding name rather than just his own.
Collins' response was:
You're right, of course, he's a one-man lobby group, but it's one of the treasures of our small democracy that ordinary citizens can speak out and have an effect.
I find this response astonishing. Not only is he admitting he's little more than a stenographer, it's also untrue – no matter what he says, the media thrives on confusing and controversial issues so anyone being rational is automatically excluded or marginalised. Collins may be happy to print whatever someone like McCroskrie thinks on an issue like the Section 59 amendment, but I wonder if he'd think twice about it if the issue was holocaust denial.
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Isn't the point of the Listener covers this: a blunt, eye-catching, slightly-controversial cover gets more people to buy it than a nuanced, accurate cover would. Once they buy it, they then read a well-written article, but the point is, they bought it.
It won't work forever, though, because the people who want black-and-white cover stories will presumably stop falling for it, and people who want shades-of-grey cover stories will presumably skip over them because of the covers. But right now it's the equivalent of Paris Hilton stories on a news website's front page ("it's what they want").
(I don't read the Listener anymore because of the inside and outside)
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Yeah, sorry, having a one-on-one interview with McVicar sounds pointless to me. It'll be more effective banging your head against a wall for 15 minutes (and you'll probably feel more enlightened afterwards).
McVicar isn't the problem – the media who turn to him for comment all the time are. If the Herald stopped calling him (or taking his calls) tomorrow, McVicar wouldn't change his views – the difference is far less people would hear them.
Have Simon Collins on and ask him why he needs people like McVicar to provide "balance" to his Social Issues stories.
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It's doubly hilarious how the print story then points you to "Key meets the girls" on Page A6 - where a large publicity shot from the school visit is attached to a different story, this time about raising the driving age. Because both stories involve young people, I suppose, and that photo had to go in the paper somewhere...
Be thankful a police officer cried or they would've used that photo on the front page.
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Craig said:
In the end, if people get off on sceptic tank schadenfreude could they at least spare themselves -- and everyone else -- the hypocritical chuntering about the public interest?
Yes. I don't really see the point of debating this like it's some complex moral quandary in the modern age of 24-hour news cycles and celebrity culture. It's about money - the public want to read gossip about celebrities, and the media is happy to serve it up. "It's what they want." All this guff about "public interest" and "if they want the good they need to accept the bad" is just smokescreen so the media can feel better about themselves. Nothing will change unless the public stops consuming it.