As David Shearer shapes up for a knock down drag out Tuesday with his putative challenger, David Cunliffe, it is an ideal moment to consider and contrast the pair and their abilities as communicators.
Presumably, this factor should be a major driver of the caucus decision, although it’s impossible not to feel that personal animosity, ambition and avarice will play their part with some individuals.

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Having worked in television, radio, print and online media for over thirty years, before retiring gracelessly into public relations and communications consultancy, I can say from bitter experience that the media can get a little precious when it feels it is being criticised. Very precious.

In such cases the media can be so thin-skinned as to be transparent.

The NZ Herald and Dominion Post/Fairfax became positively hysterical this week when Prime Minister John Key voiced his opinion of them on Leighton Smith’s Newstalk ZB programme.

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Coulda, shoulda, woulda… the mantra of the procrastinator and this blogger.

I’m not going to descend into another Grade 10 grovel (it’s unseemly) and yes, there has been a bit going on since the last post. Not the least of which was TVNZ’s appearance in front of the Commerce Select Committee at the beginning of the month.

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We are resolutely stuck in the Dog Days of January.  It’s a Never-Never world where the television content is execrable, a crap factor that’s neatly matched by inane newspaper stories on everything from crash-of-the-day to disease-of-the-week.

Other bloggers have taken to their sites to express their fury at this. And while I don’t blame them, this time round I’m not joining the fray.

Why? Because a period of enforced recuperation has allowed me the luxury of reconnecting with A Great Love, one that almost became a career – food and cooking.  These days it’s a love that has to satisfy itself with the eye candy of the Food Channel.

And while I wrote a column for “Cuisine” magazine last year lambasting the telly fashion for food-as-competition shows, in the spirit of accentuate-the-positive-delineate-the-negative that has heralded the start of 2012, here’s my choice of absolute faves that take pride of place on my MySky.

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It’s that time of year again – when, in a strange departure from traditional news values, websites are imbued with a kind of happy ho-ho-ho-ness and the real stories are often buried underneath stories such as  “How to appropriately regift”.

The lists, the bests and worsts of the year, have started to sprout like rare end-of-year funghi.  If you can’t beat ‘em, I say…..

Best News Story

Christchurch Earthquake 1, 2, 3, 4 …

In a country where annually news is thin on the ground, both channels share the honour of Best TV News cover of the quakes, even if 3 News had the by far the most extensive video on February’s killer quake (if only because ONE News’ building was virtually destroyed and its equipment largely lost or inaccessible in the wreckage).

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Even before meeting him, Anthony Flannery was described to me by a top Australian news executive as a “nice guy, short pants”, a comment that forced a smile and a nod of agreement from  another top Australian news executive.

And so it’s proven to be. He was well liked by staff and by management during his time at the Deathstar.

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