A Kiwi friend, based in Australia, and I were discussing the General Election yesterday on the phone. First, I told her, you wouldn’t know one was on. It’s like Christmas when the global financial crisis hit: people weren’t in the mood. Secondly, minor parties like Internet Mana are probably doing better than the […]
Read More… from The 2014 General Election: the impressions the parties have left, so far
The spirit of Gene Hunt is alive and well in the Greater Manchester Police, in the form of Sgt David Kehoe. Arresting someone over drink driving when he has neither drunk nor driven reminds me of The Professionals episode, ‘In the Public Interest’, about a corrupt police force in an unnamed English city outside […]
Read More… from Frack away, IGas Energy: the Metropolitan Police has your back
Back in September, The Dominion Post claimed on its front page that I have an ‘accent’ that is holding me back. It was a statement which the editor-in-chief subsequently apologized for, and which she had removed from the online edition—you can judge for yourself here if the claim was a falsehood. Still, despite having lived […]
Read More… from Steve Guttenberg shows us how a Kiwi accent is done
Above is Rupert Murdoch’s apology for the actions of the News of the World, to run in the UK in the wake of the resignations of Rebekah Brooks and Les Hinton. They’re great words, and they’re straight out of the PR 101 playbook. Some might say they’re a trifle too late, as was […]
Read More… from The Murdoch apology does not let us off the hook
I don’t think there are too many people prepared to condone the News of the World’s alleged hacking of the cellphone of murdered 13-year-old Milly Dowler in 2002. Not only did the Murdoch Press paper hack the phone, but when her voicemail filled up, The Guardian alleges that the News of the World began deleting […]
Read More… from Will we dump tabloids now we know more about the Milly Dowler hacking?
Keith Adams is well known to many motorheads out there. We probably encountered him initially at his excellent AROnline, formerly The Unofficial Austin–Rover Resource. More recently, some of us have got to know Keith as a writer for Octane, where his well researched articles remind me of some of the best motoring journalists’ work. They […]
I love how ‘Capital Day’ is always fun in The Dominion Post: you can’t believe the mileage I got out of its story implying that I could fix Wellington’s weather earlier this year with a fluxcapacitor. I even think it got me a few votes from people who didn’t see the irony (or the impossibility). […]
This whole Jennifer Hawkins nude cover story has been another media-concocted non-story. But I will give it some kudos: it influenced Australian celebrity dialogue for a week, and it shows that Murdochs still have some sway over public opinion. We knew about it at Lucire, and thought: OK, a radio presenter doesn’t like the […]
Read More… from Getting a good laugh over the Jennifer Hawkins nude cover non-story