By billralston August 15th, 2010
Having reached a point where I thought no-one had anything to learn from whatever Michael Laws said or did, there are a couple of lessons from the sad, squalid, tawdry and downright silly saga of his “relationship” blues.
The first question is, “What was he thinking?” Not “What was he thinking making whoopee with a recovering P addict former prostitute on home detention?” (although those of you with taste may wonder “WTF was she thinking having a fling with him?”).
What was he thinking when he decided to blow the affair in a lengthy, tortured, and largely incomprehensible statement on Radio Live on Friday before there was any mention of the matter in the mainstream media?
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By Janetwilson July 20th, 2010
I’m loath to blog about television again, because there are so many more interesting things happening in media.
However, the sight of Cameron Bennett stepping out of the Deathstar (ahead of being pushed) provides an insight as to why I feel compelled to comment on the train wreck that is TVNZ News and Current Affairs.
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By Janetwilson July 12th, 2010
There’s something strange occurring in newsrooms all around the country and it’s especially noticeable in television. While drama shows like “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Law and Order” portray women as high-powered surgeons and cops or lawyers, down on the newsroom floor, where television is truly real, it’s depressingly revisionist.
And, for the sake of this blog, let’s put aside the fact that the upper echelons of newsroom management have been barely visited, let alone conquered, by women in any medium.
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By Janetwilson June 24th, 2010
There’s nothing like a political coup, it’s equal parts destablization and exhilaration. The winner suddenly becomes a loser and bows to their challenger.
And there’s nothing like an Australian political coup – especially when it comes to the Australian Labor Party. The ALP knows how to do the ruthless, rolling maul of backroom politics more than any other political party of the OECD.
Just ask Kevin Rudd – and before him, Bob Hawke.
So, how could an Australian Prime Minister last less than one term when he had come to power on such a wave of popularity 2 ½ years ago? After all, six months ago Rudd was a man who was one of two of the most popular Prime Ministers in the 40-year history of the Sydney Morning Herald’s Nielsen poll.
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By Janetwilson June 3rd, 2010
It was poet and philosopher George Santayana who said, “Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it.” Such is the case with TVNZ’s homage to its own history, the jauntily named “Cheers To 50 Years.”
This was a programme touted as a celebration of all that we’ve known and loved on the box for the past half-century but which resulted in the boring vying with the banal for two excruciating, culture-cringing hours.
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By Janetwilson May 24th, 2010
This site on which you’re reading this post is the product of the hard and clever work of Paul Reynolds and his wife, Helen.
We could not believe it when, on Sunday, we received the call that Paul had suddenly died.
He commented on one of our posts just a few days ago, last week he spoke at a social media conference and he was filing material on his own Facebook, his blog peoplepoints and Twitter accounts as late as Thursday afternoon. By late Saturday morning, he was gone.
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By billralston May 13th, 2010
Around every new social development there arise the shamans. Those who seek to shroud the obvious in mystery to create the illusion that only they can interpret the “unknowable”. And thereby make a buck.
For example, look at the hype over “social media” (presumably this means traditional or mainstream sources are “anti-social media” and perhaps that’s right).
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By Janetwilson March 9th, 2010
Notice anything different about the front page of the Royal New Zealand Herald lately?
Take yesterdays headlines; “What Your Home’s Worth”, “The Envelope Please….Oscars Special” and “Mayoress Speaks Out” a teaser to a page three piece of dross which had Michael Laws’s wife, Wanganui’s Mayoress Leonie Brookhammer, denying she had left the family home because of a supposed ‘violent confrontation’ that had been misleadingly reported in the Herald on Sunday.
Ms Brookhammer later published a damning response to the story on Dave Farrar’s “Kiwiblog” site.
Equally, ‘The Lockout of Auckland’ also came from the same Fear and Smear School of Journalism, generating more hysteria than light on the subject of Auckland governance.
If all of this shabby tabloid tack seems more reminiscent of the Herald’s sister paper the “Herald on Sunday” (known by the apt acronym the HoS) there’s a reason for that.
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By Janetwilson January 27th, 2010
There comes a time when virtually everyone in business and public life finds themselves in (to use a highly technical term) “deep doggy doo-doos”. This is a moment when the public and the media have, for whatever reason, rounded upon them with a vengeance.
Whether an act of omission or commission the newsmakers generally find themselves embroiled in a crisis, seemingly without warning.
If they are honest with themselves they will probably admit they should have seen the consequences of their action (or inaction) coming and they could have evolved a response plan, put it on the shelf, crossed their fingers they would never need it, and moved on with their activities knowing that, if worst came to worst, they could cope with the crisis.
Every good business has a business continuity plan, what to do if it has an IT failure, a power loss or natural disaster strikes.
Good businesses should also worry about and plan for what happens if the unnatural disaster of a media furore erupts around them.
Which is why I have to ask: What was Dr Patrick Strange and Transpower thinking? Transpower has had more power cuts in this city than Aucklanders have had cold dinners.
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By Janetwilson January 12th, 2010
In the Silly Season, lists, labels and mock awards reign supreme as columnists, hacks and bloggers scramble to write something, anything, in the news vacuum.
Hey, I know this as much as any other poor sap, I’m one of ‘em.
So, to that end, let’s joyfully enter into the fresh New Year fray and examine who’s who when it comes to The Soundbite Tribes. These are the men and women who regularly fill newspaper columns with quotes, whose soundbites grace our screens and fill the airwaves.
Like any tribe these media practitioners are defined by what they say, how they deliver it and how they look when they do so.
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