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June 26, 2014 12:00pm by David Farrar

Fairfax quotes its own satire as fact

Heh, somehow Fairfax used an extract from a Steve Braunias satire column as a caption for a story on David Cunliffe.

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Comment11

Humour
NZ Politics
David Cunliffe
Satire
Steve Braunias

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Comments (11)

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gump

The best satire is indistinguishable from reality.
9 0
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June 26, 2014 12:08pm
davidp

Could be worse… they could be quoting from the Onion.
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June 26, 2014 12:08pm
Redbaiter

Fairfax media- a collection of prog idiots taking the media industry to unprecedented lows.
6 4
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June 26, 2014 12:10pm
RightNow

Come on Labour, you can’t take that sort of shit lying down (although what you do in the bedroom is entirely your own business, unless you want it to include someone else’s business, which is your human right, and none of my business, not that I’m a copraphobe, or actually maybe I am, does that make me a bigot?).

Sue the bastards!
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June 26, 2014 12:14pm
john

But we all know that the very best of satire is so close to the truth that it is difficult to distinguish between the two. How do we know that it was in fact not a quote in the original piece and that the subsequent article quoted was not the satire. Poor Cunners, so clearly on message that even the media is totally fucked up!!!
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June 26, 2014 12:16pm
Rex Widerstrom

It’s all done by automation. That’s why sometimes people with the same name appear on stories about their namesakes, why embarrassing juxtapositions of ad content and story often appear, and why Whale’s bugbear occurs – the same ambulance appears at crashes from Whangarei to Invercargill.

Because who needs actual journalists? And especially subs, whose purpose was to check for errors, rewrite for clarity if necessary and handle layout. Nowadays it’s possible for a journo – sometimes very inexperienced – to be the only person who sees a story before the reader. And because they’re under pressure to produce – “never mind the quality, feel the width” as the saying goes – mistakes creep in.

Meanwhile DPF, Cam, and yes, even the writers at The Standard and Public Address – often seem to spend longer on a story than most journalists get to. And they benefit from readerships following the inverse trajectory to that of most newspapers.

Fairfax are their own worst enemies. They’re constantly announcing layoffs to try to stem losses which result from falling ad sales which result from falling readership which results from falling quality which results from falling staff numbers.

Stand by for implosion in 5, 4, 3…
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June 26, 2014 12:35pm
Nigel Kearney

The best satire is indistinguishable from reality.

And the ‘serious journalism’ produced by Fairfax is indistinguishable from satire.
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June 26, 2014 12:39pm
RRM

I hope some sort of “please explain” meeting takes place over this. People would die if I was that shit at my job…
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June 26, 2014 12:40pm
Rex Widerstrom

You can’t demote an algorithm, RRM. Well I suppose technically you can, but it’s not going to improve things.

The day can’t be far off when a politician’s phone goes and a disembodied voice says “If you plan on accepting illegal campaign contributions today, please press one. If you plan on rolling your leader, please press two…” and so on. “Thank you for interfacing with Newsbot 2.3.11. Your responses may or may not be published. Please hold for today’s pizza selection…”
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June 26, 2014 1:00pm
tom hunter

“It is difficult not to write satire – Juvenal I”

This should now be changed to: It is difficult to write satire about people who satirise themselves

No wonder Dim has given up writing it.

As an alternative here’s Tom Scott in his 1985 book, Ten Years Inside, writing about a cartoon he’d done:

September 1983: Paddy MacGuiness, editor-in-chief of the Australian Financial Review, came to New Zealand on a Government-sponsored trip and went home to say that the New Zealand economy was run on bullying and fear. I did this cartoon and felt pretty pleased with myself …

The cartoon shows Muldoon meeting with businessman and asking them to put their hands up if they agreed … with the preposterous claim that a climate of fear keeps people silent ….. The cartoon shows the businessmen slouching, looking at the floor and wringing their hands. One man is seen running from the room. Muldoon’s comment at the bottom is See!.

Scott continues:

… until I read that the PM had done much as I had depicted, with much the same results – proving yet again, if proof were needed, that life in this country is so bizarre satire is almost redundant

So nothing really new then.
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June 26, 2014 1:06pm
igm

Has anyone noticed how “Tojo” Cunliffe displays contorted facials when pictured, similar to a horse with bloat. Do both he, and his fairy friend Campbell get someone to squeeze their nuts when being photographed?
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June 26, 2014 1:44pm

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