The Paepae | . . . hosted by Peter Aranyi @ Page 85

Media issues - Writing/Publishing

Sienna Miller — subjected to numerous articles in 'The News of the World' containing 'intrusive and private information' That's NEWS? I think not. Why the interest? Because housewives and bimbos relished her downfall? Is that it?

Good to read that Murdoch’s The News of the World has admitted hacking Sienna Miller’s phone message system and repeatedly violating her privacy … and news today that they’ve ‘apologised’ and are paying £100,000 in damages and costs to her. Big deal. Callous so-and-sos.

It was purely business to them, the journalists, the editors, the publisher of the so-called The News of the World, no doubt. Make her life miserable with the repeated invasions, but make money from the (I suppose) salacious BS they printed about her. Call that ‘news’? I certainly don’t.

£100,000 seems small change — a petty price to pay for the ‘competitive advantage’ (vomit) the tabloid gained from invading her privacy when ‘the world’ thought Miller and Jude Law were ‘it’ … and the vacuous so-called readers of the rag couldn’t get enough of them — lapping it all up with ‘tut-tut’ sanctimonious faux shock.

How could those so-called journalists (phone hackers and their accomplices) sleep at night? How could they look their spouse and their kids in the eye? Had they no self-respect?

I’d rather sweep streets. Good honest work.

– P

PS Sorry for the grump. But they really do get my goat. Cold, clinical, criminals. Seeing the ‘celebrity’ as, less-than-human … as meat. Bleurgh!

Tell me if you see it differently.

journalism, privacy

There’s no denying Sarah Palin is a talking point

Posted in 7 June 2011

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I’ve resisted referring to Sarah Palin’s latest, umm, riff on American history, wherein she inserted words, actions, motivations and personnel into Paul Revere’s midnight ride … errr, he warned the British that ‘the British are coming’?

PALIN: He who warned, uh, the British that they weren’t going to be taking away our arms uh by ringing those bells and making sure as he’s riding his horse through town to send those warning shots and bells that we were going to be secure and we were going to be free and we were going to be armed.

… with her loyal followers even trying to ~~rewrite history~~ amend Wikipedia to back up her hallucinations … (The Telegraph reported it thus: Sarah Palin supporters attempt to change history to help her White House bid)… but suffice to say she’s top of the pops for online chatter. Look:

Wow.

You can’t argue with the fact that she’s got attention. And name recognition is huge in elections. I guess the question is, can she parlay her high ‘lamestream media’ profile, vicarious Facebook ramblings, and motivation-unclear personal appearances into real political influence?

Dunno.

Best joke I saw about her Paul Revere train wreck was a comment on this page FACT WATCH: Sarah Palin’s Twist on Paul Revere:

Palin also said the Civil War started with the assassination of The Arch Duke of Hazzard.

Nice one.

– P

hyperbole, Sarah Palin

Self-inflicted wounds

Posted in 7 June 2011

4 Comments »

Hey. Remember my post Lying, my dear boy, just compounds the crime …? This whole ‘Congressman tweets picture of private parts’ hullaballoo proves the truth of it, huh?

Oh boy. A journalist I follow on Twitter, Glenn Greenwald, asked the question:

What % of those pushing the view that “any online sexual activity is newsworthy” for public figures would want that applied to themselves?

… and I agree with his point that even public figures are entitled to a private life. We all are.

But when exposed (no pun) to scrutiny, they can’t publicly lie. And ‘No comment, mind your own business’ just won’t hack it — that won’t put out the brushfire. So what are they to do to keep a non-story from becoming a story? (Because that’s what it is. The Congressman’s deceit made it a story.)

I’m not aware of any actual crime committed by Rep. Weiner … yet. (I don’t think private communication of photos of bits of your anatomy is a crime — that’s not ‘publishing’, IMHO.) *

But his judgement was bad, as even his supporter Jon Stewart acknowledged, in his inimitable soul jam style.
Poor judgement is, electorally, a hanging offence. Sorry.

“Look, Congressman, if you’re sending pictures of your penis as bait to young women who follow you on Twitter, then you’ve got to go.” — Jon Stewart’s soul rap.

He also appears to be addicted. And that’s truly a sad place for him to be.

Tell the truth. The phrase poked at Bill Clinton the whole of his candidacy and presidency to justify the prurient, outrageous over-interest in his private life was: ‘It goes to character …’ which strikes me as a pretty broad brush.

Really, there are some things that, as my hero Peter McWilliams said: ‘Ain’t nobody’s business if you do’… and therefore, questions that need NOT be answered, despite the clamour of the slavering crowd. But telling lies (or denying the truth = same thing) is not OK.

– P
* Update: Oops, looks like it was err, finger trouble! The Twitter Typo That Exposed Anthony Weiner Bianca Bosker at HuffPo:

In Weiner’s defense, it’s extremely easy to slip-up and turn a private Twitter message into a public posting. Weiner apparently confused a DM with an “@ mention,” a public Twitter post directed at a specific user but visible to anyone on the service.

To send a DM [Direct Message] to a Twitter follower using TweetDeck, the Twitter application Weiner was reportedlyusing when he sent the fateful photo, a user prefaces a tweet with the letter D, followed by the Twitter username of the person he or she wants to communicate with privately (e.g. “D bbosker”). To send an @ mention, a user would preface a tweet with the @ symbol followed by the Twitter username of the person he or she wants to converse with in a targeted, but public, way (e.g. “@ bbosker”).

Damn!

Jon Stewart, privacy

As part of this settlement, you agree not to tell the truth …

Posted in 6 June 2011

Business/Investment - Media issues

It's legal, it's 'standard', but is it morally right?

This clause, apparently an excerpt from a settlement between the borrower-victims of a mortgage issued by GE as part of the Blue Chip scandal, reminds me of something …

“The borrowers agree not to comment adversely about the mortgagee or any member of the General Electric group of companies whether in New Zealand or elsewhere, to include any social media, websites or blogs.” — GE clause, quoted by NZ Herald’s Maria Slade.

Don’t you admire (not exactly the right word) the slippery way a ‘confidentiality‘ clause becomes a non-disparagement clause? (Just like Shaun Stenning’s bush lawyer BS: … including but not limited to internet blogs …).

GE Money says it’s just normal business practice…

“GE Money can confirm that each agreement contains a confidentiality clause obliging all parties to the agreement to keep the contents of the agreement strictly confidential. This is not an unusual clause to see in an agreement of this nature.”

Yeah, uh-huh, thanks. That wasn’t the question. There is, despite what looks like a thin-to-the-point-of-transparent argument otherwise, a big difference between
(1) being bound to keep details ‘confidential’ and
(2) being prohibited from ‘comment[ing] adversely’.
A big difference.

“This is not an unusual clause to see in an agreement…” they say. No, of course not, especially if the stronger party makes it a condition of the agreement. What choice do bankrupt or near-bankrupt pensioners have? What if the GE mortgage terms are absolute rubbish? They can’t say anything?

The Golden Rule in action: He who has the gold makes the rules.

For the record, I think it’s good that GE have said they won’t turn their mortgagors out into the street. (Hello Westpac.) That approach is, comparatively, enlightened — and no doubt partly a result of the pressure of publicity. So why the non-disparagement agreement? Aren’t their customers, even the distressed ones, free to share their direct experience of GE Money’s products and service? They’re not serfs.

-P

Blue Chip

Sean Wood and Steve Goodey: Read the fine print

Posted in 1 June 2011

9 Comments »

Oh boy! These, apparently, are the terms and conditions of the ‘lucky prize draw’ I referred to in my post Calling all gullible gamblers! They seem very complicated — totalling 1,114 words.

An ‘Entrant Selection Draw’ followed by a separate ‘Main Prize Draw’ wherein a lucky punter (who needed to be physically be in the room for the duration of the presentation on the day, with ID) to be given twelve envelopes and told to select five — which, when opened, must “reveal 5 matching and separate signs which detail the Major Prize” to win — and even more conditions apply.

Wow. That would be very lucky indeed, it seems to me. Each one of the five has to be a winner? (Does any statistician care to calculate the chances?) As for this:

A Consolation prize/s totalling $25,000 or more of value (as solely and only determined by the Promoters)

No comment on the ‘value’. But I have to say, I don’t find the volume of weasel words in these convoluted ‘terms and conditions’ very confidence-inspiring. (Still, ‘Win a $400,000 house‘ makes a good hyperbolic headline for their target market, I guess. And that’s [probably] the name of the game.) [Update: The headline actually says ‘goes in the draw for a chance to win…’. That’s quite a different thing. Not a draw to win, a draw to win a chance to win.]

How do you see it? Fool’s gold?

Here are the full terms and conditions …

TERMS & CONDITIONS OF ENTRY INTO THE [SNIP] MASTERS EVENTS MAIN PRIZE DRAWS 2011

Complicated! Sean Wood and Steve Goodey's prize draw Terms & Conditions - 1,114 words

1. Entry into this promotion is deemed acceptance of all terms and conditions stated.
2. To enter simply fill in the online entry form, follow the booking process and purchase your ticket for the Masters Event.
3. You may not enter or be entered more than once and you must be a legal adult 20 years of age or older to qualify for the major or consolation prizes. You must physically be in the room for the duration of the presentation i.e. lateness without written notification may nullify your entry). Any entry not complying with these terms and conditions is invalid.
4. The promotion closes 10.00am Sunday 22 May, 2011 (Auckland Event), or Sunday 29 May (Wellington Event). Completion of entry constitutes the selected entrant’s consent to the use of their name for broadcast and publicity purposes.
5. On the event date, Sunday 22 May (Auckland) or Sunday 29 May (Wellington) 2011, one person will be drawn from all entries to receive a set of 12 envelopes (this is the Entrant Selection Draw).
6. The promotion offers a chance for one Selected Entrant to enter a Main Prize Draw. If the Selected Entrant is not in the room at the time of the Entrant Selection Draw, then the Promoters utterly reserve the right to re-conduct the draw from all eligible entries, in order to select a new Main Prize Draw Entrant. The selected Entrant must be able to provide proof of identity to participate in the main prize draw.
7. The Selected Entrant must then attend the Main Prize Draw. They will draw 5 (five) envelopes from the Promoters set of 12 (twelve) and on opening, if they reveal 5 matching and separate signs which detail the Major Prize, then they win the Major Prize. The other envelopes contain the consolation prize. Immediately following the selection of five envelopes from the Promoters set of twelve, at the Main Prize Draw, the selected entrant will be notified of the prize they have won. A Consolation prize/s totalling $25,000 or more of value (as solely and only determined by the Promoters) will be awarded at the same time, at each event, if the major prize is not won. The envelopes will be scrutinized and a legal community representative will be present at the drawing of the final prize.
8. If successful, the Major Prize is to win one prize voucher entitling the Winner to the construction of a new House to the value of $400,000 (Four Hundred thousand dollars)by our selected builder, subject to the rules 8.1 and 8.2 below:

Continue reading →

Business/Investment

hyperbole, marketing, Sean Wood, spruikers, Steve Goodey

Sarah Palin … who’s taking who for a ride?

Posted in 31 May 2011

journalism, Sarah Palin, telling the truth

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Showing how far good bone structure and a Chance-the-gardener-like ability to reflect back to people their resentments and desire for yesterday's stale and rancid prejudice, Sarah Palin continues her slow dance of the seven veils, will-she-won't-she? campaign for public office. Or fame and riches, it seems more likely. And a gutless press helps her on her way.

This put it nicely.

No one is fooled, really. But the conventions and protocols of “reporting” requires pretending otherwise. Contrary to a lot of our readers, I don’t think the answer is for the media to ignore Palin. Pointing out her ridiculousness doesn’t build her up and doesn’t give her oxygen without which she would disappear, to anticipate two of the most common arguments for not covering Palin. But the traditional standards of journalism don’t allow reporters to tell readers matter of factly what a charlatan and fraud Palin is. That’s considered crossing some bright line between reporting and opinionating when in fact what has been drawn is a unconscionable and indefensible line between reporting and the truth. — ‘Palin’s Historic Bus Tour’ | Talking Points Memo.

What a ridiculous situation where the journos know it’s a farce and her political action committee is nonsense. But an illusion of ‘neutrality’ and ‘balance’ (the same bullshit thought that reduces contentious discussion to gutless ‘he said, she said, but we don’t know who’s right’ stories like this) sees them constantly pull their punches, appearing to take her seriously, breathlessly adding to her ‘gravitas’ until — what? Another series of meltdowns? Oh, but she has so much better political scaffolding around her now.

Sarah Palin and her crew aren’t riding motorcycles, they’re taking the US for a ride — crying/singing about ‘favourite’ Founding Fathers … and god and guns, heritage and traditional values … all the way to the bank.

Pathetic.

Media issues

Dick Quax heir apparent no more

Posted in 30 May 2011

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He's in. (times.co.nz)

Final result

THE full result of the Howick ward by-election for Auckland Council is:

• Dick Quax (C&R): 11,600
• Maggie Burrill (Ind): 7023
• David Collings (Ind): 5393
• Penny Bright (Ind): 1491
• Wayne Young (Ind): 1349
• Ram Parkash: 1116

A total of 28,072 votes were cast, or 30.9 per cent of those eligible to vote, while 55.04 per cent voted at last year’s council elections. There were 37 informal votes and 63 blank votes returned.

Congratulations are in order for the new Auckland Councillor for the Howick ward.
– P

Moral courage and standing in scorn, part 2 (in love)

Posted in 30 May 2011

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WordPress honcho Matt Mullenweg tipped me to a neat article by Jonathan Franzen.

What seems like a long time ago, but was only July 2009, in the early days of this blog, I wrote a post Moral courage — being willing to stand in scorn:

So, in the end, each one of us has to find our own moral centre – the place inside us from which our hunger or thirst for the better, the noble things lies. It’s this very same moral centre which drives our outrage, our determination to ‘improve the lot of others’ and to ‘strike out against injustice’ as Bobby Kennedy said.

Heroic language – like those words of the Kennedys – reverberates and motivates us not because of the fine words (although they are), or because they appeal to some heroic journey ‘archetype’, but for this reason:

Expressions of moral truth resonate with the truth that already lies within us. Sometimes, finding our courage is just a matter of getting attuned to that voice within ourselves, and letting it speak through us. Often that means stepping out of our own way, dealing with our fear, and being willing to bear the disapproval, opposition and scorn and of others.

I meant it then and I mean it now. Life’s issues aren’t going to be solved by being slippery and two-faced and telling people what you think they want to hear, nor by shying away from confrontation or truth-telling.

Read it. Really. (NY Times - click)

Today I read a wonderful article in the NY Times by Jonathan Franzen: Liking is for cowards. Go for What Hurts.

Franzen says, in part:

If you consider this in human terms, and you imagine a person defined by a desperation to be liked, what do you see? You see a person without integrity, without a center. In more pathological cases, you see a narcissist — a person who can’t tolerate the tarnishing of his or her self-image that not being liked represents, and who therefore either withdraws from human contact or goes to extreme, integrity-sacrificing lengths to be likable.

If you dedicate your existence to being likable, however, and if you adopt whatever cool persona is necessary to make it happen, it suggests that you’ve despaired of being loved for who you really are. And if you succeed in manipulating other people into liking you, it will be hard not to feel, at some level, contempt for those people, because they’ve fallen for your shtick. You may find yourself becoming depressed, or alcoholic, or, if you’re Donald Trump, running for president (and then quitting).

His whole article is a peach. He speaks my language … and he even uses my word of the year in a context which I really relate to — personal relationships: Continue reading →

Big Questions - Encouragement

empathy, love, online life

Bradley Manning – out of place in the US army?

Posted in 29 May 2011

telling the truth, WikiLeaks

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WikiLeaks accused Bradley Manning should never have been sent to Iraq | World news | The Guardian

The Guardian has produced a video of their investigation into the background of accused WikiLeaks source/security leaker Bradley Manning, showing he was (apparently) regarded as mentally and socially unfit to be deployed to Iraq. It reveals that Manning’s discharge from the army prior to deployment to Baghdad was reversed because of the severe shortage of recruits in the US military as it engaged in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The video is worth watching, although the dark, prowling-shark type soundtrack is a bit OTT.

At one point, according the film, the army removed the bolt from his rifle as he was thought too risky to be in charge of a working firearm. I’m struggling to think of a comparable metaphor for a statement of ‘not-fit-for-duty’ in the corporate world. Taking a cell-phone from a travelling salesman? Taking a calculator away from an accountant? Taking a hose away from a fireman? Scalpel from a surgeon?

I think the subset of human beings actually ‘suited’ to being in the Army (purely for the sake of a college scholarship in his case — not an uncommon motive) is a pretty small group. Encouragingly small.

I did not know Manning was gay until I watched this video. He was considered a ‘runt’ at just over five feet — and, naturally, abused and persecuted as a weakling during training — and regarded as ‘highly intelligent’. OK, that’s a recipe for trouble right there, don’cha think?

In the end, Manning’s undoing was not his mental ‘fragility’ nor his anti-social behaviour like punching a (female) officer in the face … but his online chats with a famous hacker who turned him in and alerted US intelligence about his claims to have leaked info to WikiLeaks were his undoing. The court martial is still a long way off — in the meantime, it seems, the persecution of the runt continues.

Here’s a link to the video .

Big Questions - Media issues

Blast from the past has lessons for today

Posted in 27 May 2011

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A very clear and loud whistle was blown …

Wow, this was published in The Guardian in 1933 and Europe still tried to appease the Nazis. Amazing. (Click to read the archive.)

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 news of Mladic’s arrest on war crimes/massacre/ethnic cleansing charges, it’s worth reading Voigt’s original report as published in 1933, and reminding ourselves that xenophobia and persecution of ‘the others’ is not a new thing.

How bad does it have to get before we speak up or act? These are today’s challenges too, judging by the conflagrations and uprisings in North Africa and the Middle East.

‘History doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme.’
– Mark Twain

Big Questions

courage, whistle blower

‘Ethnic cleanser’ Mladic will face trial

Posted in 27 May 2011

NZ Herald reports his arrest (click)

About time.

see Ratko Mladic: Legend, Monster And Coward – How The Serbian Soldier Rose To Notoriety
by Sam Kiley at Sky News

Encouragement

telling the truth

Thinking can be overrated

Posted in 26 May 2011

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Satchel Paige, US baseball player (Wikipedia - click)

‎’Sometimes I sits and thinks,
and sometimes I just sits…’
— Satchel Paige, US baseball player (1906 – 1982)

Encouragement - Humour

Another unflattering profile of propagandist Roger Ailes

Posted in 26 May 2011

Tim Dickinson in ROLLING STONE: 'Ailes was also determined not to let the professional ethics of journalism get in the way of his political agenda...'

The next issue (June 2011) of Rolling Stone features an extensive profile of Fox News supremo Roger Ailes. The guy fascinates me — well, better said, his tactics do — it’s really good to read some hard-out comments about the lack of veracity but enormous influence of Fox News and their propaganda machine.

It’s like a study in very deliberate, stage-managed deception. This line says a lot …

It was while working for Nixon that Ailes first experimented with blurring the distinction between journalism and politics, developing a knack for manipulating political imagery that would find its ultimate expression in Fox News.

And on one of my key themes, authenticity versus manufactured credibility …

Ailes has used Fox News to pioneer a new form of political campaign – one that enables the GOP to bypass skeptical reporters and wage an around-the-clock, partisan assault on public opinion. The network, at its core, is a giant soundstage created to mimic the look and feel of a news operation, cleverly camouflaging political propaganda as independent journalism.

And there are echoes of what I was trying to point to in my post about Dick Quax’s ‘political code words‘ …

To watch even a day of Fox News – the anger, the bombast, the virulent paranoid streak, the unending appeals to white resentment, the reporting that’s held to the same standard of evidence as a late- October attack ad – is to see a refraction of its founder, one of the most skilled and fearsome operatives in the history of the Republican Party.

As a political consultant, Ailes repackaged Richard Nixon for television in 1968, papered over Ronald Reagan’s budding Alzheimer’s in 1984, shamelessly stoked racial fears to elect George H.W. Bush in 1988, and waged a secret campaign on behalf of Big Tobacco to derail health care reform in 1993. ‘He was the premier guy in the business,’ says former Reagan campaign manager Ed Rollins. ‘He was our Michelangelo.’

Read Tim Dickinson’s fascinating article here at Rolling Stone How Roger Ailes Built the Fox News Fear Factory. That would be time well-spent.

– P

Fox News, propaganda, Roger Ailes

Is Steve Goodey confused … or rewriting history?

Posted in 25 May 2011