Shameless Self-Promotion Alert.
For those who may be interested, I am interviewed on the TVNZ news analysis show fronted by Russell Brown, Media 7, tonight on the subject of wikileaks. Although only parts of the interview will be...
View ArticleSometimes the duty of the free press is to not report.
The on again, off again Koran burning planned by a small time evangelical preacher in Gainsville Florida has received world wide coverage and raised serious concern among the US military and foreign...
View ArticleThe Rise and Fall of a TV Icon (updated).
I am loathe to give more oxygen to the Paul Henry saga but think that I have a fair idea of the chain of events that led to his suspension and possible sacking. This is due to my personal familiarity...
View ArticleUnattributed paraphrasing as unspoken flattery?
From time to time I read bloggers who complain that there work is stolen by MSM “repeaters” and repackaged under the repeaters’ by-line or in a story under their name. This form of plagarism is hard to...
View ArticleEmbedded journalism, war correspondence and PR farce.
I was invited to present a paper on embedded journalism to the Pacific Media Centre conference noted below in a previous post. Not being a journalist, if offered me an opportunity to reflect on the...
View ArticleSolidarity with Brian Edwards.
Brian Edwards is being threatened by the Sunday Start Times because he blogged about some questionable journalistic practices in that rag. The SST took offense and unleashed its lawyers. Given that...
View ArticleTriangulating News Sources.
One of the simple yet key concepts in intelligence gathering is triangulation: try to receive information from at least three independent sources about a given subject or target in order to avoid...
View ArticleA Film Worth Seeing.
Now that I am back in NZ and have replaced elevator riding with wood chopping, I am starting to think “local” again. To that end I am pleased to inform readers who may not be aware that the documentary...
View ArticleReputation and precedent in the construction of the “spy” story.
This post started as a comment over at DPF’s place. Reputation and precedent are important referents in the international security business. Israel has a reputation for using sayanim (“helpers” who are...
View ArticleSupporting independent investigative journalism.
There is a fund raiser for Jon Stephenson, the journalist, on Tuesday December 13 in Auckland. Jon is preparing to head back to Afghanistan to continue his work on the conflict and New Zealand’s role...
View ArticleWhining John.
Late last year a friend of mine who works in the media said to me that the press had turned on John Key over the Teapot Tape affair. Key’s attempt to have the photographer prosecuted, following on his...
View ArticleOn “average”
The New Zealand Herald’s archetypal “average” Kiwi family, the Ray family of Sandringham East, has declared the 2012 Budget “sensible and unspectacular”, probably the strongest endorsement Bill English...
View ArticleJournalistic license.
Over the years I have been repeatedly misidentified by NZ media types and others in the public domain as to what I am or have been. I have been called a Middle East expert, White House aide, CIA agent,...
View ArticleHappy for Gilmore
National has to be delighted about the coverage of their drunken bully boy last on the list MP, Aaron Gilmore. Coalition partner John Banks is in court on issues of political corruption. National is...
View ArticleDisappointing.
Although I always knew that “hope and change” was a rhetorical chimera rather than a realizable objective, and understand full well that the US presidency is a strait jacket on the ambitions of those...
View ArticleWhat should I think about Dunne?
The thing that has struck me about the current Dunne based fuss is the number of times I end up saying “I just don’t know what I should think …” 1) Should Dunne have released the email content he...
View ArticleLong and short of the NZDF spying scandal.
Accusations that the NZDF may have been spying on journalist Jon Stephenson during or after he was in Afghanistan researching what turned into a series of very critical stories about the actuality of...
View ArticleTrawling the depths and finding trouble.
The decision by a district court judge to deny a rightwing blogger the right to protect his sources because he is not a “news medium” under the definition of the Evidence Act has been greeted with glee...
View ArticleDismissing Skullduggery.
The latest Snowden leaks reveal that the British signals intelligence outfit GCHQ held a top secret conference in 2012 where it briefed its Five Eyes partners on an array of cyber “dirty tricks” that...
View ArticleDucking for Cover
It has been fun watching National and its minions duck for cover, throw up smokescreens, attempt diversions and resort to slander and defamation in response to Nicky Hager’s book. I am not sure that...
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