Posts by Chris Waugh
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Hard News: Growing up in public, in reply to Stephen R,
They might have been Gendarmes – There needs to be a guidebook to the plumage and feeding habits of European cops.
CRS, perhaps? Especially if they were preparing for demonstrations. My impression was (and I'm feeling too lazy to check right now) that the Gendarmerie was responsible more for rural areas, while the CRS handles riots. I remember one of my French lecturers, Dr Dineen, pausing a video just when a CRS cop appears and telling us to study hard and remember that uniform, because if we ever see it we should make ourselves scarce very quickly, the CRS are pretty rough. Or so he said. I agree on the need for a guidebook, though for all the world's various police and security forces. When I first came to China the regular Public Security Bureau cops, People's Armed Police, and army all wore very similar green uniforms. Now the regular cops are in blue, PSB SWAT in black, and although PAP and PLA are still both in green their uniforms are different enough - or perhaps I'm more familiar with them.
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Ban Facebook! And Twitter, the New York Times, the Guardian.... Ban them all! It works a treat for China. It's also great news for providers of VPNs - more countries banning more websites means more customers for them.
What Craig said about the complexity of these MNCs and tax issues and brains hurting. What Labour needs to be saying is something about how they're going to work with the international community to hammer out a tax regime to ensure the MNCs are paying their fair share, but it'll take a long time and a lot of complex negotiation.
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Cracker: How Media Made me a Bad Person., in reply to Geoff Lealand,
What Rob said: Fascinating. Especially this bit:
A majority (82%) are happy in their work, but fewer than half (44%) rate the quality of NZ media as above average to excellent. More rate it as average to poor. This latter finding might need some thinking through–can we assume that they want to see improvements, or perceive it to be a structural problem?
There's a lot in there that just doesn't seem to add up. Were there more detailed questions in the survey that could shed some light on this?
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Cracker: How Media Made me a Bad Person., in reply to Hebe,
The only way to change that culture is by setting up your own outlet.
Something technology is making ever easier, although I don't see how the financial challenges involved are changing at all. Quality journalism is still going to cost someone a lot of money.
He’s brave to publish: I appreciate it.
+1
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And in the spirit of offering positive feedback: this is an example of the kind of thing I'd like to see more of. The NZ media was a bit too quick to buy Fonterra's line during last year's DCD and botulism scandals, while the Chinese media was going mad, but in this piece they're actually examining the issues, and some good points are made.
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Cracker: How Media Made me a Bad Person., in reply to Russell Brown,
I don’t think regarding the Herald as monolithically terrible is fair or accurate.
True. I like what Fran O'Sullivan and Christopher Adams are doing covering NZ-China trade. And for all I complain about the Herald, I do keep going back to it because the set-up of its website works best for me. I find its National section a touch Auckland-centric, but not so badly that I can't keep informed about what's going on in the whole country. It's Politics section is fine for what I need. But a major reason I hang out here at is that discussions fill in all the holes in the Herald's coverage of NZ issues. Also, the Herald has got far too reliant on simply reposting the feed from AP and a few other international news organisations and they don't seem to provide any context or look for the NZ angle, which just isn't enough. And op-ed is patchy, to say the least. But even op-ed writers I normally avoid thanks to bitter experience get things right What they're getting right they're doing well at, but there are too many gaps that aren't being filled. And when I compare with the Guardian, Le Monde, NY Times (oops, no, I'm not allowed, that's not harmonious enough - oh, the Guardian now, too), Al Jazeera, etc, I feel NZ is quite poorly served by its media.
I'm pretty sure it was Damian who said that non-journos were perceiving this as "the media are treating the people badly" while journos were perceiving it as "the people are treating the media badly". I read the original post and comments by journos present and reformed as "it's a toxic system that turns people bad" - quite Mencian logic, really: People are basically good by nature, but how they turn out depends on the environment they're raised in. Young journos just starting out are good, but they're corrupted by the system they work in. Never been a journo, so I don't know, but that's the impression I get from this discussion. How to fix this, I also don't know, but my suggestions are:
1: Dump the celebrity fixation and "if it bleeds it leads".
2: It would be nice if APN and Fairfax would create an "international curator" role (yes, I am asking for a job) whose job is to scan through all the international news and digest it into a form aimed at a NZ audience. Simply relying on the international agencies does not serve NZ.
3: Demand a higher standard from op-ed writers, and drop those who don't measure up.And no, I'm not and never have been a journo, but I've spent 14 years teaching, which means 14 years of people telling me how to do my job regardless of (and sometimes especially because of) their own lack of experience. And all of us who are parents have had plenty of often ill-informed and inexperienced people telling us how we're doing everything wrong (hell, in China you get complete strangers walking up and telling you you're a child abuser for not wrapping your child up enough to survive on the dark side of the moon when you're only in Beijing in early autumn [slight, but only slight, exaggeration]), so I can sympathise with the "walk a few steps in our shoes before you criticise" aspect of the argument. But I can see a few professions subject to similar pressures - teachers (mentioned already), police, lawyers, judges, politicians, the various medical professions, even pro sports. The thing I've noticed is that even in the most virulent and vile criticism there can be hidden useful grains of truth.
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There's a bit towards the end of this rather worrying story I just don't get:
''I don't know why people think cows and sheep are carbon emitters,'' Mr MacPherson said.
''Thank god the National government had the sense to not include pastoral farming as carbon emitters.''
''Anybody with year 11 science will understand that pastoral farming is a closed carbon cycle,'' he said.
How does that work? All the grass they grow to feed their cows and sheep is enough to soak up the methane produced, the exhaust from their cars, tractors, quad bikes, other machines with internal combustion engines, the emissions from the transport of their products, the petroleum based fertilisers....?
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Still no snow. Sun rising on the horse year. Kinda smoky this morning – I’m glad we’re not down in Beijing, I don’t know if anybody can breathe down there after last night’s barrage. But the fireworks must continue. Gotta make sure Nian is properly scared off.
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Flags up for Spring Festival/Chinese New Year. Happy New Year!
