Blgo Bits
- Cactus Kate blogs on how APN is now advising staff to self censor articles, rather than get legal advice on what they can say, as the legal advice costs too much. Incredible.
- Clare Curran blogs on how a town in Ohio got its entire municipal Wi-Fi network closed down by the MPAA, because one person in town downloaded a movie. This is why termination should not be a remedy under s92A. And don’t even start me on ACTA – a treaty that may remove our right to even decide what our laws should be on copyright infringement and the Internet.
- Whale Oil celebrates the cessation of funding to Te Reo Marama, whose dubious activities he has highlighted thanks to the OIA.
- Aaron Bhatnagar is celebrating that Dick Hubbard wants to stand for the new Auckland Council to support Len Brown. Len, Sue Bradford, Dick Hubbard – what a combination.
- The Dim-Post highlights Trevor Mallard’s political strategy. Some very perceptive comments in the thread.
[UPDATE: NZ Herald says post on APN is not correct (which is good). See story on Herald site plus comment in thread from Herald]
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Tags: Blog Bits
November 16th, 2009 at 1:45 pm
You’re wrong about #1. It’s actually legal defense that costs too much, so they don’t want to run risky articles even if the legal advice says they’re OK.
November 16th, 2009 at 1:51 pm
Bhatnagar: “Failed former mayor Dick Hubbard…” “divisive social-engineer Sue Bradford…”
Slag off your bogey men enough and you’ll never have to say a thing about what you stand for. What a knob end, Auckland deserves him.
And what Mike Readman said about Cactus Kate’s article.
November 16th, 2009 at 2:51 pm
Re your APN comment – this was sent to Cactus Kate:
Your piece today on APN has been flicked onto me by someone on staff who is as puzzled as I am by its claims
I’m editor of the NZ Herald and can tell you that
a) there is no truth whatsoever to the claim that our editorial legal budget has been restricted or that we need to alter our approach to legal challenges or threats over Herald stories . No cut. No change. and
b) the rest is a heavily truncated mish-mash of unremarkable legal discussion points (a to g) in a 66-page media law training paper put together by our lawyers, Bell Gully and provided to 80 or so participants from throughout APN. Nothing secret about them and nothing new.
They are not publisher instructions or editor directives; they are not new (same general thoughts have been included in the training document for years) and in the context of training staff, and shorn of your views on each point, the basic points are entirely matter-of-fact for anyone seeking to get things right and avoid legal pitfalls which the media have encountered before.
There is no new ‘conservative’ approach, no recent guidelines discussed, received or implemented, no change. No orders from on-high. No end to investigations or to keeping newsmakers honest or to speaking truth to power. Put simply, no story.
Appreciate if you could let this be known to your readers.
Regards
Tim Murphy
Editor
The New Zealand Herald
November 16th, 2009 at 3:52 pm
Blgo bits? Have you got from Egypt to Yugoslavia already? lol
November 16th, 2009 at 5:11 pm
Bhatnagar can be tiring with his constant rants and personal attacks – and yes I realise this is a personal atttack – dammit – hypocrisy at work – must have brushed too close to old yella Hide at some point
Buggerlugs – lol
November 16th, 2009 at 5:12 pm
I note Mr Murphy has responded here and apparently to my blog, however as I am not home I cannot check blogger. When I can I will reproduce Mr Murphy’s response.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=10609625
The issue is of course I have seen the email forwarded to contributors and others headed “Suggested guidelines to limit defamation proceedings” and it states very clearly it was “from Sydney HQ”.
If “They are not publisher instructions or editor directives” then I wonder what they actually were?
Any “mish-mash” created therefore was directly from Sydney’s own HQ. I have reproduced the content of the email in full on my blog post. There was not 66 pages of “media law training” on that email which was why I did not produce any more of it.
November 16th, 2009 at 5:18 pm
Oh dear the repeaters may have been caught dead set in the back of a sheep trousers down on this one Cactus.
I wonder how Tim Murphy will spin his way out of this now. Probably he’ll say nothing knowing full well that the hacks and repeaters at the formerly independent Herald will simply tug their forelocks and say nothing and hope that Fairfax doesn’;t pick the story up for the same reason.
of course there is always talkback radio, blogs and Twitter and other Social Media until eventually international media will take notice then the shit will really fly.
November 16th, 2009 at 7:40 pm
David I note you have updated the post stating “NZ Herald says post on APN is not correct (which is good). See story on Herald site plus comment in thread from Herald”. I beg to differ.
1. I have received copies of emails forwarded to staff and contributors of APN publications. I have received more than one copy of the email in various forms and today have been forwarded the same email from a source outside the media ie. this email has travelled afar.
2. In those emails of various forms it is made clear that the attached document (labelled “Pre-publication vetting.doc”) was from Sydney, therefore a directive from Sydney.
3. I reproduced in full the contents of the attachment labelled “Pre-publication vetting.doc” on my blog post. It does exist.
4. If the document was a “mish-mash” from 66 pages then it was one created but then endorsed by APN’s own Head Office. I did not edit the attachment at all when I cut and pasted it other than add my own comments in which they are clearly differentiated.
5. I have not seen the 66 page document to which Mr Murphy refers.
As I have stated, I received the email in various forms from 3 sources who to my knowledge are completely independent of each other. The email by the look of the cc’s on it had been forwarded around a large part of the industry including some of Mr Murphy’s own colleagues of course.
As to the comment:
“There is no new ‘conservative’ approach, no recent guidelines discussed, received or implemented, no change. No orders from on-high”.
Point 1 of the attached doc. is headed “Conservative Editorial Approach” and the email forwarded clearly states Sydney HQ sent the email so it has been sent from on-high.
Again, either a) three completely independent sources are lying to me having created a fake document to attach to a forged email that has been circulated through the country to I can count around 46 people of the copies just I have received or b) Mr Murphy doesn’t know what his own bosses are circulating or c) Mr Murphy is spinning faster than a Fisher & Paykel.
November 16th, 2009 at 7:45 pm
“There is no new ‘conservative’ approach,”
If there was, the bunch of weak arsed Progressive propagandists who pose as journalists (and editors) at the Herald wouldn’t know how.