Discussions about the media, journalism and news.
Paul Henry isn’t alone on this: a lot of New Zealand media have been making fun of Delhi Chief Minister Smt. Sheila Dikshit’s surname, purposely mispronouncing it as dick-shit and then giggling away. (For the record, the pronunciation is close to dixit.) Though after his comments about HE Sir Anand Satyanand earlier this week, it’s […]
Read More… from The other time Paul Henry had it in for someone with Indian heritage
Yesterday, as some of you know, Sir Michael Fowler endorsed me, saying that I am the ‘intelligent’ mayoral candidate and he likes the programme I have outlined for our city. It goes beyond what is on my campaign site, of course—the programme includes plans to bring Waterfront Ltd. back under council control, increased transparency through […]
The Fairfax Press has been very interesting in its coverage since the beginning of my mayoral campaign. A Miramar Wharf hotel–training centre development that I pushed for missed any quotes from myself, while today’s announcement of wifi for the waterfront by the incumbent and the Fairfax Press itself again does the same. But, you […]
With the first billboard going up in town, I’ve been asked about whether my free wifi programme will cost ratepayers. In a word, no. The wifi programme will be supported by selling the space on the home page. Upkeep of such a service, and I am looking at several alternatives, is in the […]
Read More… from Making free wifi pay—at no cost to ratepayers
Writing about cars calms me. So call me a freak. And maybe I’ve just needed to chill more in this last month as we head into the last few months of the mayoral campaign. It surprises me that Autocade has reached 1,200 models: 100 in the past month. And since I knew we were […]
Dear Chevrolet: even your own nation’s president calls the brand ‘Chevy’: You might want to rethink that memo. You may also like A whinge about whinging If you want a slice of the pie, then compete Volkswagen’s scandal won’t spread to other German car groups How can we help those fooled into believing what their […]
As some of you know, I was at Cape Kidnappers last week, visiting the Napier area for the first time. (I tried getting there last October, but this was as far as I got.) It was for the Audi A8 launch, and we at the office had a good laugh at this lovely and […]
My friend and colleague at the Medinge Group, Ava Hakim, passed on a few papers from her day job at IBM. The first is the latest edition of a biennial global CEO survey, while the second asks the next generation of leaders—Generation Y. The aim: to find out what these groups think about the challenges […]
Read More… from What we need from leaders in the new decade: creativity leads the list
I learned the sad news that Norman Macrae, CBE, 旭日章, passed away on June 11, just shy of his 87th birthday. Norman was one of the great visionaries and forecasters of the 20th century, and served as deputy chief editor of The Economist till his retirement in 1988. Among his forecasts was the […]
Certain media are reporting the city’s [debt] in the $200 million–$300 million mark but our outside-council research reveals this is a very conservative estimate. It’s likely to be more. Regardless of whether it’s $200 million or half an (American) billion (scary just saying it), any deficit that’s nine digits long can’t be good for […]