The total lack of depth and shallow talent pool of TV political panel shows in NZ is providing hideous coverage and insight into one of the most important political stories of the year.
Yesterday Firstline had Jacinda Ardern and Jamie Lee Ross on their panel and neither of them had read the book. Two people being interviewed about a book they haven’t read is surely a new low point for TV journalism. It’s the blind leading the no necked. How is that an investigation of the issues?
Todays panel discussion on The Nation was a bloody joke. Josie Pagani is Slater’s mate and she ends up sounding like the National Party spin machine where as Hooton called Nicky Hager a ‘Commie c**t’ on twitter and has also been a previous target of Hager’s work. That wasn’t a discussion, that was the sound of one hand clapping.
Interestingly, Helen Kelly was booked to be on the Nation’s panel but she was dumped last minute on Thursday. We need to have Helen on every political panel between now and the election, not having her dumped for a Fox News Democrat like Josie Pagani.
Oh to have been a fly on this wall this morning in the Green Room…
As a final example, what about Hosking’s Seven Sharp fiasco?
How can Hosking’s performance during that debate be a serious example of his ability to be a neutral moderator in the Leaders debate? Their show on it is just bullshit, everyone of them should be embarrassed for its production.
This isn’t good enough from our fourth estate at a time when we need the powerful to be held to account for their abuse of power.
Part of the problem is that some commentators on the Left are simply blacklisted from these shows (Trotter and myself are life long members of this club) and the other part of the problem is that producers have almost zero contacts within the real Left because they’ve based most of their leads and contacts on stuff Whaleoil and Farrar write. We need Russel Brown back on these panels. We need Helen Kelly , Willie Jackson and … actually I’ve run out. We need articulate next generation voices added to these debates because quite frankly the level of critical analysis on display by the mainstream media currently is fucking woeful.
It’s ironic that Nicky has managed to do more Journalism in one book than the entire mainstream media have managed this year.
Yes. Thats what we need out there.
Stop buying paper newspapers, and stop watching the lame MSM.
Do it all online instead, and spread the news further.
No more dad sitting down to watch the news while mums in the kitchen cooking dinner.
Opinion.
Thats is what I do. Apart from the occasional foray into CampbellLive, the MSM is a joke.
my old Dad who is at least a life time labour voter watches Sky CNN & Fox news… god forbid, but then who needs them when we have our very own pimps Hoskings and co and Seven sharp!!!
http://www.odt.co.nz/news/election-2014/312776/opinion-national-attacks-hager-ignores-incriminating-material
Don’t forget, Gordon Campbell has been writing excellent stuff through all this
http://gordoncampbell.scoop.co.nz/2014/08/15/gordon-campbell-on-the-ongoing-fallout-from-nicky-hagers-book/
Careful Nick!!! – you’ll be branded as a dirty left wing consprissy theerisst for commenting on TDB, and banned from RNZ
Good to see John Armstrong is actually reading it correctly, maybe more old school journos will start to take off their blue tinted glasses, show the young bloods that the primary need is for a vigilant and courageous press
Watching that deeply abysmal Seven Sharp on Thursday night with Nicky Hager and best friend of the host, Stephen Joyce, that Joyce looked like he’d been on the piss and slept on a park bench. He looked knackered! Lucky Mikey was there for him.
There could be little doubt that he had been up for the past 24 hours at least with endless phone calls (probably to paranoid for emails) and meetings to find out who knew what and a top level strategy meeting to throw together a quick script draft to be distributed so everyone could get their stories straight.
Its like watching a bunch of crooks getting busted for an armed robbery and a panic whip up of impromptu lines for the boys to spin to the police. What a fucking mess!
Nice one Xray, deeply abysmal is the only way to put it. Hosking was as soft on Joyce as he was hard on Hagar. Watch Hosking’s body language towards the end, when he talks to Joyce he is relaxed and moving around, when he talks to Hagar he is ramrod straight and ready to hammer him, and often interrupts.
Hosking is so biased and so far beyond a joke there are no words in the English language for it. To borrow a (misspelled) reference from John Armstrong today, TVNZ is an Augean stables that needs cleaning out. Pronto.
Only in the last couple of years, I’ve supported the Green Party, from being not a particularly political person.
I’m almost lost for words at the media response to these allegations. Pretty much every presenter on Newstalk ZB (our leading radio station) has laughed off these allegations. Same goes for TV1, TV3 maybe a bit more balanced. Stuff website seems not prepared to investigate it all. If this is how democracy works, by the most influential media effectively protecting the Government – its starting to make me feel sick. If there is abuse of power, I want the media to get to the bottom of it. That goes for the Greens too if they were caught in the same situation. These issues are above political alignments.
I think you will find the Greens were the first political party to take action and had lodged a series of complaints with the varios investigative bodies relating to the different inproprieties including the police well within 24 hours of the book launch.
I can’t agree more. I am generally a Green voter. But by hell if they were doing something I thought was immoral, illegal, underhanded, or unjust I would be one of the first to want it looked into and actions taken to rectify. As a voter of Greens I hold them to a high standard. I will never be able to understand this ‘back ’em to the bitter end’ support your party through broken law and dodgy dealings attitude.
It’s sad. Very sad.
Some fascinating cuts on The Nation (and other media in the last 24 hours) – John Key dismissive and white with anger after being asked questions he didn’t want to answer, Michelle Boag on radio sounding more and more hysterical (no wonder, trying to defend her arch-enemy Collins), Cameron Slater aka Whale Oil looking like he was about to blubber, Matthew Hooten looking and sounding unusually very unsure of himself, and David Farrar saying he’s thinking of backing off on blogging for a bit. Wow, the Nats cracks really are starting to show in their fragile façade.
To be honest, Bomber, I think that’s been the real scandal…
It’s amazing how much panic one honest man can spread among a multitude of hypocrites. – Thomas Sowell
By using the contents of stolen emails to attempt to question the integrity of those he claims have stolen emails, that surely qualifies Mr Hager as both dishonest and a hypocrite.
But Mike you know that is a dirty right wing lie. We’ve already covered off the legality of using hacked emails haven’t we Mike? What did the blog specifically talking about the legality of the emails tell us Mike?
MIKENZ, you are aware of the phrase “public interest”, are you not?
Isn’t “public interest” the same phrase used by media when they judge whether or not to use material that is passed on to them?
And let’s not forget that Slater himself is now being sued for being in possession of someone else’s emails.
It’s interesting that you appear more interested in the provenance of the emails than the revelations contained therein – ministerial misbehaviour; orchestrated dirty campaigns; and other vicious schemes.
Tell me, MikeNZ, are you not in the least concerned about that?
For example, if the SIS were used to pass info on to Slater, at Ede’s behest? Does that not concern you?
Ok. Maybe not.
So you’ll be equally unconcerned when a left wing government takes power and uses the SIS to find dirt on right wingers and use a friendly left-wing blog to dish it out?
You ok with that?
Just laying the ground rules here…
Robert Reid is pretty good.
Just a suggestion, but a book which would sit nicely with Nicky Hager’s “Dirty Politics” is Dr. John Robinsons “The Corruption of New Zealand Democracy, A Treaty Overview”.
In 2011 this book was released. This man’s credentials are impeccable, his admissions sickening – and yet Chris Finlayson and FJK kept right on going.
There have been many books like these published – but somehow the evidence presented by these people is never investigated, and the criminals simply carry on untouched.
This MUST NOT CONTINUE TO HAPPEN to these people who stick their necks out for our sake – and are relegated to ‘left-wing conspiracy theorists’ or ‘fringe lunatics’ by the very criminals they are exposing. They deserve the support and gratitude of the New Zealand public.
Whats sickly creamy white, exhibits low intelligence , wriggles when exposed , feeds on excrement then reconstitutes that excrement into an even bigger piece of vermin which then becomes a vector for disease ? ……a maggot?
WRONG !
A biased neo liberal pseudo journalist.
Anybody want to either tell us straight or even to speculate what Slater is doing in Israel ?
Maybe FJK sent him there to pick up his latest designer diamond-studded fez?
Or having a wee break at FJKs Israel mansion?
Or some ‘save the whale’ campaign?
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