Posts Tagged ‘courage’

Higher stakes than most bloggers

I recently quoted George Orwell: Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed: everything else is public relations. Here’s another (fatal) aspect in which social media reporters, opinionistas, and publishers are catching up with their MSM colleagues — but not in a particularly edifying way. From Texas’s Knight Center for Journalism: For the [...]

Engaging, rather than demonising

I respect and pay tribute to people whom engage with others with whom they disagree — and I try to do so myself.  I’m reading veteran BBC journo Peter Taylor’s book Talking to Terrorists. It’s very good, deeper than I expected, and insightful of the motivations of people involved in struggle. This is from the [...]

Astonishing corruption at Murdoch’s Wall St Journal

Crikey. If this is how Murdoch’s flagship Wall St Journal operates, what’s going on in the background at Fox News? This tale of corruption, money-channelling and ‘news’ articles used as bribes to keep the conspiracy alive is devastating. It’s from Nick Davies who exposed News International’s phone hacking and police & political corruption … The Guardian [...]

Eloquent Eliota Sapolu on Campbell Live

I saw this interview between TV3′s John Campbell and Eliota Sapolu — the Samoan rugby centre who faced a judiciary hearing following his angry tweets accusing an IRB ref of bias and racist decisions during the South African/Samoan pool game in the Rugby World Cup. It’s a fabulous interview which impressed me very much. See [...]

Authentic use of a following …

Brooke Fraser gets the value of using her ‘brand’ … and putting her body in the space to support good causes. Here’s what she says about the poverty of Africa, on her way to Ethiopia: “This is my eighth visit to the continent but my first to Ethiopia and I’m expecting it to be a [...]

Against expectations

Watching the Wallabies go down to Ireland in their Rugby World Cup pool match last night one couldn’t help thinking, Oops, that’s not what the Australians expected. Full credit to the Irish, and the inspirational, courageous Brian O’Driscoll. – P

Blast from the past has lessons for today

A very clear and loud whistle was blown … Born in London from German parents, Frederick Voigt was the Manchester Guardian correspondent in Germany from 1920 to 1933. Voigt was one of the most important of the newspaper’s foreign team in the 30s, becoming famous for exposing the threat of the Nazi regime Today, when [...]

Everything we know about you guys is wrong

I just watched How to Train Your Dragon with my son and some friends … it’s a magnificent, heart-warming movie, which incidentally addresses one of the perennial themes of ThePaepae.com — recognising our fear of ‘the other’ or ‘the out-group’ (in this case, dragons) and that fear’s role in conflict. Embedded in the storyline is [...]

I can see Pakistan from my house. Security clearance? You betcha!

Oh, boy, those White House photographers must have an ultra-plus-plus security clearance, huh?  Here’s Pete Souza’s pic of the gang watching the Osama Bin Laden ‘kill or capture’ mission LIVE-as-it-happens … just like TV show 24 only the body count is real. Imagine being there. UPDATE: Spoofed by NZ Herald cartoonist Rod Emmerson UPDATE 2: Hillary Clinton [...]

Keeping your distance

“The only way a reporter should ever look at a politician is down.” — David Broder That’s a pretty harsh line from veteran US political journalist/columnist David Broder, widely regarded as ‘the dean of the Washington press corps’. It’s quoted in a pretty good opinion piece from The Washington Post’s Dana Milbank on how journalists [...]