Posts by Dylan Reeve
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Wouldn't a hidden room be the ideal place for smoking crack?
#JustAskingQuestions
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Hard News: Some reprehensible bullshit, in reply to Robyn Gallagher,
There are two secret hidden sex doors in the Oval Office, both of which lead to secret hidden sex dungeons where various American presidents have engaged in secret hidden sex, sometimes with each other.
I bet Obama hides his gay lovers in there.
Len probably doesn't even have any gay lovers. Amateur.
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In my time at TVNZ (only a couple of years) I worked extensively with the Maori and Pacific department - I've cut every single one of the shows mentioned (except Fresh, which didn't exists when I was there, but I worked on it's predecessor I AM TV.
I certainly hope for the best for the people already making those shows. And I'm sure they'll do just great assuming they can get out and form their own business(es?) to carry on with those shows.
The biggest concern, I guess, is that the shows continue to have a platform for broadcast.
The role of TVNZ has changed, and unlike some I don't place the blame for any of that on TVNZ - they have been told repeatedly that their mandate now is to return a profit to the shareholder, which is fine I guess, but the problem is that we as citizens generally expect something more from TVNZ, and it's not really something they have been told to deliver us.
Our beef really should be with the government about trying to determine exactly what TVNZ should be to New Zealanders. A home for popular entertainment is all well and good, but is there more to it? How does that get codified?
I hope my friends at in Maori and Pacific at TVNZ land on their feet and even prosper after this.
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Hard News: TVNZ: Emptied out, in reply to Idiot Savant,
And presumably a hell of a lot of news as well?
I wouldn't imagine so - the TVNZ OB unit mostly does sport and events, but given that they've not updated any of the fleet in a good long while (none have the capability to do HD for example) they don't even get a lot of that work anymore, most is handled by On Site Broadcasting (OSB) who have a much more modern fleet.
The live news links are usually handled by one of a few Live Eye vans, or 4WDs, or Utes - but newer technology now means they can even to a live link from a small backpack using a few 4G modems.
Beyond that there are a bunch of freelancers with the gear to do their own live links (TV3 relies on them for most of theirs).
I wouldn't worry about news - they'll keep that going, it's still core to the current strategy.
As for Back Benchers - I expect the OB trucks will be sold as-is, so someone could probably buy it and pick up right where they left off, but if not there are already a handful of independent companies who could do the work.
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Hard News: Doing over the witness, in reply to Joe Wylie,
Oh bullshit. You’re simply far too squeamish to even consider the possibility.
If I'm to consider it I want to see something a lot more damning than one press statement and a shit ton of speculation. There's nothing about what seems to be known about the whole event that doesn't also pretty easily fit into the business as usual explanation of the police investigation.
Speculation about timing, motives and interested parties is all well and good, but it's not exactly much evidence on which to seriously reframe the role of the police in this country.
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Hard News: Doing over the witness, in reply to Bart Janssen,
If you accept that this was harassment of a journalist to intimidate and dissuade him and other potential whistleblowers – by our police – at the behest of our government – then that is a truly scary proposition.
I totally get why some people react by trying to find some explanation that doesn’t involve total corruption.
The point is that suggesting this is political, or at the behest of the SIS or others, has massive implications.
The police are far from perfect, but I still think they've proven to be fairly independent. In the past they have sometimes taken requests from ministers and others perhaps more seriously than they would if the same claim were made by Joe Bloggs, but I'm not sure that's a matter of politics more than it is a matter of profile.
It's an extraordinary claim I think - and typically extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, which I really don't think is evident (so far?) in this case.
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Hard News: Doing over the witness, in reply to pneumeric,
I may be reading too much into this but it seems to me as though this may be a reason for why the police raided while Nicky was in Auckland. He may have been able to prevent the search entirely if he or a representative had been present at the time
Hager had two lawyers present at the search I believe, and from the police thing quoted up thread a little it seems that there was quite a lot of back and forth about it with police and their advisers too?
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Hard News: Doing over the witness, in reply to Keir Leslie,
Also, no offence, but “I don’t know anything about this subject area, so everyone else must be equally ignorant” is kinda patronising and offensive.
I have not seen anyone in the media, or even here or on Twitter, claim to have any actual knowledge. I've not seen anyone suggest what is normal, or offer any information at all.
The only thing we know, as far as I can tell, is that Hager says there were five cops at his house for ten hours. I believe him but I simply don't think that's enough information to draw any conclusions about anything.
There's no question that from Hager's perspective it's a terrible invasion, as it would be from anyone's who had the same experience, but I just don't think anyone has presented any information (even anecdotal) to contextualise this event in any useful way.
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Hard News: Doing over the witness, in reply to Andrew C,
Could someone explain to me just what protection being a journalist gives you? I understand there is something around not revealing your sources.
It's governed by Section 68 of the Evidence Act - I'm not a lawyer but I don't see a reading that would prevent police to executing a search warrant. However the warrant is basically forcing a person to 'produce' evidence, which is protected.
It seems however, based on the various allowances in the act that the action can be challenged - basically that there are circumstances when a journalist can be compelled to produce evidence, or when the protections of s68 don't apply. Given that those decisions have to be made by a judge it then makes sense, to me, that the police would execute the search warrant to secure the evidence, then make those arguments.
It's the definition of journalist and informant that have been argued about before, and may possibly be key here too?
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Hard News: Doing over the witness, in reply to Grant McDougall,
Serious question: can anyone figure out why the police were there for 10 hours ?
Hager’s not a materialistic guy, so I assume he’s got an average-size house. Let’s assume two bedrooms, lounge, kitchen, bathroom and his office. So six rooms, for argument’s sake.
There is no way it’d take 10 hours to search six rooms. Maybe two or three at most. But 10 ? Why so long ?
I don't think we (I, at least) know enough about how these matters usually go. It's certainly not unusual for a police search to take many hours (even days at times?) and involve a fair number of officers.
So I don't know if 5 officers for ten hours is unusual or not. I wouldn't have too much difficulty believing that it's not.
Also given that we know that Hager was on the phone with the lead detective and that his lawyers were present it's possibly fair to assume at least some of that ten hours was not actually actively searching, but discussing matter with lawyers or others.
Ultimately I think any claims about how excessive or unreasonable the action was are basically baseless given how little anyone outside the case knows of the specifics of the event, and how little we generally know about what's typical for police in such a scenario.
Also, I'm assuming, seeing as it was mentioned more than once by Hager in media accounts, that the police warrant probably specified the USB stick he says he received from the hacker. I'm sure you could spend a very long time searching a house for something so easily concealed before you'd satisfy yourself that you'd exhausted all options.