MEDIAWATCH: Herald Now starting to smell like TodayFM and why Megan Whelan should have ‘resigned’ from RNZ a long time ago
What do I know?
I only picked Newshub going under and Today FM dying.
I’m getting that stench of media death from the Herald Now project.
It’s ratings are dire and most dangerously, it is eating up ZB ratings which is the Golden Goose of NZME.
Not even the smug charm of Ryan Bridge can protect him from that looming backlash.
You get the feeling NZME hired someone from Stuff who said, ‘hey we can do this just like we poorly did at Stuff’.
It’s like a transmission of bad ideas from one media platform to the other.
Talking of which, how unsurprising was this?
Media Insider: Top RNZ executive resigns as broadcaster tackles budget cuts, voluntary redundancies
RNZ chief executive pays tribute to one of his most loyal lieutenants – will her departure spark a top table overhaul, amid budget cuts?
One of RNZ’s most influential executives has resigned.
Megan Whelan’s departure, as head of content, comes at the same time as the public broadcaster faces budget cuts and increasing pressure from the Government over its ratings performance and trust levels.
Whelan’s role includes oversight of RNZ hosts and other talent.
…surely the real question is how did Whelan survive so long?
Why was she allowed to stay around after the Mick Hall fiasco?
5 years ago when RNZ started their digital news department (without it being under the editorial control of the News Dpetament) it was met at the time with the exact criticisms that have been harvested now.
The criticism was that the Journalistic oversight required to run a digital arm wasn’t funded and would end up with copy being printed that hadn’t been given appropriate oversight.
All Mick Hall was guilty of was doing his job! He was adding context to news stories taken off overseas media wires, he wasn’t a Russian 5th columnist FFS.
He worked from home, doing a job no one was funded to oversee until an anonymous right wing blogger compared stories and the rest of the media picked it up and ran with it.
A work from home journalist subbing copy at a poorly over sighted and underfunded State Radio broadcaster with internal turf wars over who has editorial control is not the infiltration of bias that it was sold as.
The real question is how senior staff on $300 000 per year seemed to miss all of this?
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“All Mick Hall was guilty of was doing his job! He was adding context to news stories taken off overseas media wires, he wasn’t a Russian 5th columnist FFS.” Martyn Bradbury
Falling for pro-Kremlin imperialist propaganda doesn’t make Mick a fifth columnist.
June 15, 2023
Ukraine myths used to justify Putin’s terror
Myths concocted by Putin shills, but widely believed even by well-intentioned peace activists, anti-imperialists and fence-sitters
by Michael Karadjis
Below are a series of well-known assertions that have been spread about the situation in Ukraine since 2014. All of them are complete myths….
….although they may have been invented by apologists for Putin’s war of neo-Tsarist conquest, unfortunately many of them are believed by a large number of western leftists….
…..there is simply no ‘two sides’ story in a blatant and horrifically brutal act of 19th century style imperialist conquest.
Myth 1. The Maidan uprising of 2014 was a “US-orchestrated coup” https://theirantiimperialismandours.com/2023/09/09/ukraine-myth-series-myth-1-the-maidan-uprising-of-2014-was-a-us-orchestrated-coup/
Myth 2 – The new government in 2014 “banned the Russian language” https://theirantiimperialismandours.com/2023/09/09/ukraine-myth-series-myth-2-the-new-government-in-2014-banned-the-russian-language/
Myth 3 – The Crimean people voted in a referendum to join Russia, which was an act of national self-determination, and Crimea rightfully belonged to Russia historically https://theirantiimperialismandours.com/2023/09/09/ukraine-myth-series-myth-3-the-crimean-people-voted-in-a-referendum-to-join-russia-which-was-an-act-of-self-determination-and-it-rightfully-belonged-to-russia-historically/
Myth 4: There were popular uprisings of the ethnic Russian population of the Donbas, who established their own republics in an act of national self-determination https://theirantiimperialismandours.com/2023/09/13/ukraine-myth-series-myth-4-there-were-popular-uprisings-of-the-ethnic-russian-population-of-the-donbas-who-established-their-own-republics-in-an-act-of-national-self-determination/
Myth 5: “The Ukrainian army killed 14,000 ethnic Russians in Donbas between 2014 and 2022.” https://theirantiimperialismandours.com/2023/09/13/ukraine-myth-series-myth-5-the-ukrainian-army-bombed-the-donbas-for-8-years-before-the-russian-invasion-killing-14000-ethnic-russians-between-2014-and-2022/
Myth 6: The Minsk Accords offered a just way out of the crisis, Russia wanted to implement them, but the Ukrainian government refused to implement them, encouraged by the US https://theirantiimperialismandours.com/2023/09/13/ukraine-myth-series-myth-6-the-minsk-accords-offered-a-just-way-out-of-the-crisis-russia-wanted-to-implement-them-but-the-ukrainian-government-refused-to-implement-them-encouraged-by-the/
Myth 7: Russia and Ukraine were ready to sign a peace agreement in April 2022 whereby Ukraine would not join NATO, but then British prime minister Boris Johnston visited Kyiv and told Zelensky not to go ahead with it, after which Ukraine withdrew from the negotiations, scuttling this chance for peace https://theirantiimperialismandours.com/2023/09/13/ukraine-myth-series-myth-7-russia-and-ukraine-were-ready-to-sign-a-peace-agreement-in-april-2022-whereby-ukraine-would-not-join-nato-but-then-british-prime-minister-boris-johnston-visited/
Myth 8: Ukrainians are forced by the US and ‘the West’ to continue the war; most Ukrainians would happily trade territory for peace if they had a say. https://theirantiimperialismandours.com/2025/03/08/ukraine-myth-series-myth-8-ukrainians-are-forced-by-the-us-and-the-west-to-continue-the-war-most-ukrainians-would-happily-trade-territory-for-peace-if-they-had-a-say/
https://www.google.com/search?q=types+of+plagiarism&rlz (NOT definitive )
1 Not guilty
2 Mmmm. a bit suss
3 Not guilty
4 Yea/Nah
5 Mmmmm
6 Not guilty
7 Guilty – especially “or citing sources that don’t actually support the information presented.”
8 Not guilty
9 Possibly
etc.,etc.,etc.
Excusing Mick is OK because what he did fits with our world view??????????
I feel a bit sorry for his predicament too, however the journalists from BBC and Reuters ON THE GROUND telling us what they see with their own eyes probably have a right to feel just an eeesie weensie bit pissed.
(Mick might like to swap places some time which would earn him the right to scream “I’m a victim”
Besides….life’s not that bad on the Kapiti Coast with Crystal Karens and others who’ve gone done their research – peer reviewed from within the bubble (in that space, going forward)
It’s a fail on RNZ’s part for the predicament he was placed in, but plagiarism is plagiarism
Over the years, I’ve repeatedly asked Malcolm Evans if he’d mind if I used his cartoons to push my own agenda by altering text in his speech bubbles. I’ve yet to receive a response EVEN THOUGH i might agree with everything he intends with the purpose of his cartoon(s).