Posts by Josie McNaught
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This ruling could have had implications for books like Rebecca Macfie's excellent account of the Pike River tragedy then? If court proceedings had gone ahead. She has written another solid account about the ongoing battle that family of the victims in the CCTV building tragedy face in terms of getting some answers and accountability (not to mention compensation) but that was for the Listener initially. If she extended that story and turned it into a book, would the ruling affect her if a court case was taken given it started out as a pure piece of journalis but would form the basis of a book. Based on this case it would. As a journo who is now studying law I attended a talk recently by Justice Winkelmann about law and the media and she did mention the issue of judges having to interpret the law within the definitions provided by the Act, rather than extending that interpretation to cover all manner of situations. And she mentioned that media reports don't always reflect the position judges are in. Journos rarely explain the interpretation issues in cases (well why would they? they aren't lawyers after all) The best option here is to lobby parliament for a change in the privacy laws if the courts are struggling with the legislation as it stands.
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Paul Henry? He's small fry. What about Mike Hosking hosting the launch of the PM's last election campaign, openly driving around in a free car and promoting it any way he can (what if it was a car whose production was connected to nasty child labour practices, or part of a company tied up with mining, or dodgy oil exploration? ) How about his open support for the National party's one and only growth policy for Auckland? The convention centre? What about his free meals at the various cafes and restaurants associated with the casino that he always tweets about so effusively ? He might not be hosting actual political meetings at TVNZ (which, let's face it were hardly bringing down the govt stuff and more likely to involve organising sausage sizzles and telephone trees) but he IS allowed to anchor TVNZ's flagship evening show which IS part of their news hour- regardless of whether you think the drivel they peddle is news or not. He is as wedded to the Nats as Shane is to Labour, but from a purely commercial point of view he brings in advertising so he gets off scott free.
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"Time poor" - what on earth is that? The opposite of all that stupid bottled water that "gives you energy?"
We are turning into a nation of food nutters: pages and pages and websites and words devoted to creating dishes that require expensive imported ingredients (panko breadcrumbs grrr) but the simple act of taking some of your "poor time" and going out and actually handling the food, knowing what is in season, and going through the simple act of cooking it at home seems to deeply unsexy.
In Italy cooking a meal at home and sharing it with friends before you go out is a tradition. Here it has become some sort of underground activity. And god forbid if you cook home food for home - you have to replicate "cafe food" at home to successfully feed your friends. You don't need to come up with a 'restaurant meal' - you are buying into some warped philosophy if you do. You just need to buy some well-priced, in season ingredients and COOK THEM. Not assemble, not cajole, not make love to, but COOK. Yes! This requires time and intelligence and energy, but the physical and intellectual effort of shopping for ingredients (or hey growing them yourself) seems to pass you dumbos by.
Stop getting all hot and heavy and thinking you are "chefs" you are no more "chefs" than you are lawyers, mechanics or plumbers. You are jobbing journos who are lazy when it comes to thinking about what you put in your mouths. $179? For that amount of food? Let's have a cook off and I'll cook enough food to a much larger group for longer - including using up the leftovers. And stop mentioning the silly company that delivered the food and giving them more free publicity - you food freebie whores!
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Hard News: The Next Act, in reply to Russell Brown,
Of course he can whitter on about mortality and anything else he likes when he's dying, but if he's doing it in public, and it's breathlessly reported word for word, then he has to expect a reaction - and that was mine. 'Lady' Deborah's pompous pleadings for privacy were almost as bad.
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The thing that stands with all the Holmes hagiography that accompanied him to the grave, is that it took his own death, staring him in the face, for him to finally get some self awareness - something that too few journalists seem to have these days. It means that when you get things wrong, and we all do in journalism especially given its fast pace, you make people's lives a misery. Holmes could be a complete prick with his uninformed, knee-jerk responses. With the backing of Newstalk and TVNZ he clearly thought he was omnipotent back in the day and his cringing mubblings about failed relationships and god - god?! were vile to watch. But do we learn? No we do not. The ghastly breathless rubbish published in Canvas in the weekend about the child TVNZ is marketing as the new 'Holmes', Jack Tame, illustrates that self awareness is still in short supply on the small screen. Like Tame's naive and rather silly views on TV (some drivel about moving around on screen) and his view that having to wear a Hallenstein's suit in his first job was beyond the pale. He also joked about living on $300 a week... lots of people do Jack, and they have a family to feed and are perfectly happy to don any suit - even one from Hallensteins. He's too young to see he is simply being manipulated by the TVNZ marketing people for their own ends and no one really gives a toss about his sartorial views, or anything else. Just report the story, you silly boy and stop being such a prat.