Posts by Tom Beard
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Legal Beagle: Think it possible that you…, in reply to Graeme Edgeler,
I'm expressing my concern about all forms of speech designed to silence others.
I wasn't aware that JT and Willie had had their vocal cords removed, or denied the same access to social media or blog comments that we all enjoy. I thought that this was about a radio station dropping some people who had abused the privilege that comes from a position of media power while bullying a young woman, because a public campaign made it clear to their advertisers that such behaviour was not what they wanted to hear.
But of course, that doesn't fit into an abstract academic discourse about "all forms of speech" that treats all speech acts as equal.
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Legal Beagle: Think it possible that you…, in reply to Danielle,
“rape enablers”
I believe the term is "rape apologists".If your first response to a young woman talking about her friends being raped is not empathy but "Wow, what a load of sluts you are", then yeah. Both terms would apply.
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Legal Beagle: Think it possible that you…, in reply to Russell Brown,
I’m told Jana Rangooni has never taken the simple step of gathering all the hosts together and talking to them about what’s acceptable and what isn’t. You can’t operate in that kind of editorial vacuum without things going seriously wrong at some point.
That's actually astonishing, even for a shock jock station. I'm sure they've been told "Here's the dump button, for when a caller gets too boring." Would they not even have any training in how to safely deal with, say, a suicidal caller?
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Legal Beagle: Think it possible that you…, in reply to Matthew Hooton,
Willie & JT really do think that:
* they handled the call sensibly
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As it happened, even I felt, as a regular contributor, that I was being bullied, so – as someone said in an earlier comment – how was a young rape victim meant to feel comfortable calling into their show.Which raises the point: do talkback radio stations have any training or standards for how they handle their guests and callers? Many would think that basic human decency would cover an issue like this, and even though not every lacks it to the extent that Willie & JT seemed to in this case, some sort of processes should have helped. I'd've thought that a media organisation would have principles and guidelines for interacting with the public, especially potentially vulnerable ones. Is this not the case?
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Legal Beagle: Think it possible that you…, in reply to Keir Leslie,
And with a view that seems strikingly similar to that of the 23rd-ranked Libertarianz candidate.
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Legal Beagle: Think it possible that you…, in reply to Mark Hubbard,
this linguistic puritanism currently sweeping New Zealand, where every word is to be sifted for privilege and thought crimes, and stuffed into the mouths of those ‘we’ disagree with, to gag and silence them.
If you want a vision of the present, imagine a face slamming into a human palm - forever.
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Argh! PA ate my post. Anyway, I'm glad to see I wasn't the only Pseudo Echo fan. How can you not love a band named after an ARP Odyssey patch?
For those who only know them for Funky Town, their debut album Autumnal Park had some of the best synth pop/New Romantic this side of the equator. A Beat For You was the quintessential 80s video: big fluffy mullets, baggy pants, gradiose longing, Roland synth arpeggios and Simmons drum fills. Because if you have to have a drummer, then at least make sure your drums are hexagonal.
In contrast, the title track was a lovely quasi-ambient instrumental:
Unfortunately, that DX7 bell preset at the end hasn't aged as well as the analogue sounds.
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It's possible to argue that the campaign involved the implied threat of a boycott if the advertisers didn't withdraw ("Nice sponsorship you've got 'ere, guv. Be a shame if something...'appened to it, know worra mean?"). As it was, though, it extended to the point of "Do you want you product associated with thuggery?", and the advertisers thought "Hmm, maybe most of our customers DON'T actually condone rape-apologist bullying" and acted upon that.
Of course, that may be giving too much credit to the advertisers' conscience and not enough to their commercial nous. But even if it is the latter, isn't this more a question of the market saying to Radio Live "Actually, your audience is broader than redneck misogynists". We might think that the management of a company like Radio Live have perfect knowledge of their audience and are just responding to their demand, as if the latter were some immutable force of nature. But what if the management are stuck in a comfortable rut of "we'll just give the punters what they want, which is reactionary anti-PC invective", and have actually underestimated the humanity of their audience? What if this is the market telling them "You know what, we don't want this anymore?"
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(I also think that a boycott might've been a good way of signalling to RadioLive that maybe they need a bit more diversity in their offering, and a bit less pandering to the vilest prejudices of certain generations. That, maybe, might have at least some effect upon their target audience. But I'll let others speak on that, because I'm conscious of this becoming another abstract philosophical debate among privileged white chaps.)
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It was not just the content of Willie & JT's speech that is at issue. If they'd just talked among themselves and aired similar views, then as loathsome and dangerous as that is, I don't think there would have been the same outrage. But the way they treated Amy was indefensible, ethically or from any humane standpoint. They grilled a young woman - who was, she said, friends with rape victim, and who would have supported them through traumatising times - and demanded she answer deeply personal yet irrelevant questions, essentially blaming the actions of her and her friends for the things that were done to them. That's not "free speech", that's bullying or worse, and it has no place among civilised discourse.