Posts by Damian Christie
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Friday brain teaser:
If Rodney Hide is a hypocrite for his abuse of travel perks, and David Garrett is a hypocrite for his criminal past, is it hypocritical of Hide not to support Garrett as a result of his hypocrisy? Or just ironic.
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@Whoops - I hope you don't mind if I take you up on that offer. Watch Q+A on Sunday morning for the hat-tip :)
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Who started this respectable meme? Anyone? or did we just stumble into it, like most of the stupidity that doesn't make sense anymore.
Yeah that was me sorry. I disagree with what I/S says, in that I think we should respect most people, and MPs should be no different. Of course as soon as they show themselves up to be corrupt, idiotic, odious, hypocritical (or some combination thereof), then that respect disappears. Having respect for someone is not the same as saying they're better than me.
I think a lot of people start with a position of disrespect towards MPs, and I don't think that's healthy. Skepticism perhaps.
But then you get publicly found out, and your party leader dumps you because he couldnt possibly support you for things he's known about all along?
I thought much the same thing regarding Goff and Carter to be honest. Goff was supportive initially then changed when the public mood did, even though his essential 'crime' (the overseas travel) was long since revealed. Key/McCully did much the same with Andy Haden. And yes, I know there are differences in all those examples, but my point is that anything goes until the public mood swings far enough.
(What was that I said about respect before? Scratch that...)
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Hmmm. Yeah I'd love Joe to design us a t-shirt, but I reckon he might have his hands full at the moment. Let us know if you need anything Joe :)
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@Giovanni - Oh well, I've heard enough of your opinions on TVNZ before to assume the chance of you ever being pleased aren't great. I thought they did a great job in a short space of time. Radio can be more immediate - all it takes is a reporter with a telephone - but when you wanna really see the aftermath of an earthquake, pictures are the way to go.
The figures show that 2,000,000 people watched TVNZ's coverage at some point during the day, more than 900,000 watched One News that night (three times the number that watched 3 News, which is probably why Mike McR was so grumpy).
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In what sense was it murdered, Giovanni? Just asking, I didn't hear the RNZ coverage.
I saw the quake get downgraded on TVNZ somewhere around 9am or so, can't remember exactly. Again, I don't know when RNZ did it.
I have no doubt RNZ did a great job.
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@Danyl - yeah, there were a lot of staff working a lot of hours on their days off that weekend. Certainly not unique in that regard, but it's worth remembering next time we all slag the TV media...
As for Mark Jennings:
"TVNZ just had the same stuff repeated, repeated, repeated."
Yeah, funny how that works with rolling coverage. People wake up and turn on at different times. It pays to repeat stuff. Otherwise it's like tuning in halfway through one of those long RNZ interviews where after listening for 15minutes they don't bother saying who it was... :)
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I know the conversation has moved on a little but I'm just coming to it now.
Can I just acknowledge how impressed and proud I was of TVNZ's coverage on the weekend. Particularly Rawdon Christie who fronted the rolling coverage like a pro, and reporter Joy Reid who offered calm, methodical reporting in the midst of it all, and all the unseen people behind them.
For whatever reason, TV3 chose to leave it to TV One. When I switched over to 3 during the morning, they were still playing AbFlex infomercials.
It costs a huge amount of money to scramble reporters, producers, cameras, charter planes and helicopters to provide coverage like that. And for an organisation that's expected to run commercially and return a profit, there's no upside - all the ads are pre-sold, and on Sunday morning there's no ads allowed. Which is not to say I wouldn't expect to see all sorts of congratulatory promos in the weeks to come - it is, as I say, a commercial enterprise. But I think that morning TVNZ acted how we'd expect it to, as a public broadcaster.
I think the tone of the coverage was really good, conveying the significance of the quake, and the damage, while giving good information about what was going on, and what to do. TV3 led its news updates with reports of looting.
As for the HOS front cover, I'm not surprised. Just disappointed.
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@Rich - maybe not crime, but A&E visits by that age group (and younger) certainly did. As did rates of unplanned pregnancy and STDs.
Not that we should be surprised, that 18 & 19 year olds chose to drink in the same way as everyone else was. But it is disproportionately high in their case.
@Ben - again, I agree completely. I don't take drugs (legal or otherwise) because I'm interested in causing my organs moderate amounts of harm. I really like "having a good time". Unfortunately, Jim Anderton doesn't. And without wanting to prejudge the Law Commissions' upcoming report into drugs, even though it will suggest a more rational approach, I doubt there are too many sentences by Sir Geoff ending "...on the other hands, drugs can be really fun."
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@Ben - yeah, I agree that I'd prefer liberalisation in some areas to simply lumping alcohol and tobacco in the banned basket. I think Nutt's point is more that we should look at all these drugs objectively, and treat them in relation to the harm they cause. I don't think he's necessarily saying where the illegal/legal line should be, because that's always going to be somewhat arbitrary and depend on the individual's view on how such things should be treated.
Of course as a psychologist, he might personally be of the view that no (recreational) drugs are good drugs. I mean, they all cause harm with questionable objective benefit.