We’ve been here before: foreign-owned media run another piece supporting an asset sale

04.05.2018/02.20

Clilly4/Creative Commons I see there’s an opinion piece in Stuff from the Chamber of Commerce saying the Wellington City Council should sell its stake in Wellington Airport, because it doesn’t bring in that much (NZ$12 million per annum), and because Auckland’s selling theirs. It’s not too dissimilar to calls for the Council to sell […]

Instaspam: has Instagram jumped the shark?

30.03.2013/09.16

The tipping-point has been reached: on some of my photos, fake Instagram account likers outnumber human beings. In terms of comments, spam outnumbers real ones. Of my last ten likers, nine were fake accounts. And we know that when some sites get to this point, they begin dying. Yet it’s frightfully easy to spot […]

Dodge revives the Dart, while UK Delta owners revive Lancia

07.12.2011/11.54

Fiat has announced that it’s going to bring back the Dodge Dart nameplate on a compact sedan based on a stretched Alfa Romeo Giulietta platform for the 2013 model year. This was actually mentioned when Chrysler was going cap-in-hand to the US Government, so it’s not a total surprise. The nameplate, however, is. […]

The Murdoch apology does not let us off the hook

16.07.2011/02.34

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 […]

As News of the World closes, we might be getting better at making business accountable

08.07.2011/06.32

So James Murdoch has announced the end of the News of the World. It’s no biggie: as others have discovered, a domain name for The Sun on Sunday has been registered, and if this is by an agent of News International, it simply makes sense for the Murdoch Press to consolidate its tabloid brands and […]

The ‘Wellywood’ sign: people power gets things done

10.03.2010/06.18

That was a very interesting 30 hours. I found out about the ‘Wellywood’ sign yesterday afternoon, through Twitter, and Tweeted to say I hated it. Little did I know then that there was a huge Facebook group—6,000 strong at the time of writing—where Wellingtonians were making their voices known. And when I got there […]