You know when you’ve had a boozy night, a few too many! You get home in the wee small hours and crash on the bed, still in your glad rags. You close your eyes and immediately the room starts spinning. You open them and the spinning continues. It’s at this point the remorse sets in and despite the self denial you know absolutely to have any chance of sleep you require to regurgitate.
You lean over the bowl think of the foods you detest, stick your fingers down your throat, and nothing!
It’s for these rare occasions I have a copy of a Simon Wilson ‘opinion piece’.
Thanks for this very sharp analysis of the MSM problem as well demonstrated by SW. I gave up on MSM quite some time ago because of the very reasons you underline in this article. Guess I'm one of the "shoutys"....... how arrogant of Simon Wilson, and how dumb! Despite your comments on the Herald, I stopped trusting them when their bias over the transgender issue became clear. Even before the terrorist violence against Kellie Jay Keen and the women in Albert Park, they were reporting only one side of the matter and using the inflammatory term "anti-trans activist" to describe anyone wishing to disagree with the 'woke' narrative. Same when the KJK event happened. Even though I have no wish to go on reading Simon Wilson's column, I enjoyed reading this and your takedown of it/him.
It didn't start as a takedown. If SW had made some valid points - and there are one or two - it may have had an opposite effect. I think Simon considers anyone of the "boomer" generation who disagrees as a "shouty". He had a crack at "boomers" in his piece in this morning's Horild er Herald. I guess if we are going to get in a name calling content, Simon could be characterized as "preachy".
Oh yes, I had some doubts about using the term takedown. I do appreciate that you intended to do an honest analysis and critique of Wilson's piece, and rebuttal where necessary. It was too easy to use the term takedown and I apologise
No need to apologise. I just went where the evidence and the article took me. And it did - in the final analysis - end up as such an overall disagreement with SW that it concluded as a takedown. I don't want it thought that I had predetermine the matter although after a couple of paras in it became irresistable
One more point. You weren't happy with SW's wish for a "cohesive" society, and neither am I, but I'm also suspicious of the word "inclusive" these days. It has been well and truly weaponised, and there's a Leunig cartoon which illustrates this well. I don't remember it exactly, but a traveller is looking at a Welcome billboard near a town which says something like "Welcome to our town which is an inclusive one - and if we don't like the things you say you will be excluded". Only Leunig did it better than that.
Interesting point. I hadn't thought of the inclusive/exclusive paradox. I always thought of inclusivity in the context of majority rule with minority rights. Maybe I am being a bit narrow and legalistic.
A brilliant and long overdue take down. Unwittingly (?), Mr Wilson further fuels the fires that will produce the very outcome that he finds so unappealing.
Sadly as a media law and media commentator one must take the good with the bad. For example I watched the 5:30 News on Sky Open and then the 6:00 pm News on One (for half an hour). I made the comment to my wife that what was coing across on TVNZ was what had been broadcast on Sky Open - "it isn't news", I said, "its "olds""
For 18 months plus, I’ve been viewing The Free Press on Substack, and am now a subscriber. It’s a classic mix of US progressive material mixed w Jewish leanings and then often European common sense. That is, a most unusual hybrid in today’s world. Coupled w the likes of yourself, plus Edwards and Trotter and the Platform, and we’ve pretty well got most bases covered I venture to suggest! Tolle! Lege! (Prizes for its provenance …)
I follow what's happening around the country from the excellent headline reporting of the Democracy project and last week Heather du Plessis Allan wrote a piece on the AUT report. She appeared to be almost the only journalist in the country willing to call out the MSM on one of the elephants in the room: the public are sick and tired of the continual left-of-centre bias in the MSM. She wrote:
" . . . but I genuinely think newsrooms up and down this country don’t believe this is true. That is my experience of talking to editors in various media. They don’t see it, or they do and they make excuses." (NewstalkZB 8/4)
Most of the commentary on the AUT report has been variations on the "they done us a wrong" theme, exemplified by the closing comment by the young reporter covering the report on SkyOpen news, who wound up her delivery with the comment that the media needs to sharpen up its PR to fix this!
Simon WIlson is at best myopic and deluded and at worst so entrenched in his beliefs he has lost the ability to self-reflect (I'm tempted to add If he ever had it). SInce I think most MSM journalists are of his ilk I don't see anything likely to change here. Which leaves the way open to the local Reality Check Radio and Platform and their like to provide a better service.
I am aware of Bryce Edwards Democracy Project although I am not a subscriber. I checked the Substack site and it looks pretty good.
I think on the whole that MSM are looking outside themselves for someone to blame for their plight. They need to look inwards and acknowledge that the fault is not in the stars but in themselves - to adopt Cassius from Act 1 Sc 2 of Julius Caesar.
As to your final remark you will be aware that Reality Check is off air for the moment. I don't see them going to Melissa Lee with hands out like MSM but are hoping that support will come from elsewhere.
The daily feed from The Democracy Project, Politics Daily, is very good value. It includes all the major MSM players plus a lot of bloggers of all colours, so a very good coverage of some wildly divergent views eg from Martin Bradbury to Don Brash!
Yes, RCR is struggling financially and like thousands of others I'm donating and rooting for them. I'd put a lot of $$ on the fact that they won't be looking for government bailout.
I'm with Heather du Plessis Allan - I don't think there's a snowballs hope in hell that most of the media players will look inwards and I think it's too late for them to successfully adapt creatively to the challenges of the digital paradigm.
You know when you’ve had a boozy night, a few too many! You get home in the wee small hours and crash on the bed, still in your glad rags. You close your eyes and immediately the room starts spinning. You open them and the spinning continues. It’s at this point the remorse sets in and despite the self denial you know absolutely to have any chance of sleep you require to regurgitate.
You lean over the bowl think of the foods you detest, stick your fingers down your throat, and nothing!
It’s for these rare occasions I have a copy of a Simon Wilson ‘opinion piece’.
I wondered where you were going with this comment until I got to the punch line. :-)
Thanks for this very sharp analysis of the MSM problem as well demonstrated by SW. I gave up on MSM quite some time ago because of the very reasons you underline in this article. Guess I'm one of the "shoutys"....... how arrogant of Simon Wilson, and how dumb! Despite your comments on the Herald, I stopped trusting them when their bias over the transgender issue became clear. Even before the terrorist violence against Kellie Jay Keen and the women in Albert Park, they were reporting only one side of the matter and using the inflammatory term "anti-trans activist" to describe anyone wishing to disagree with the 'woke' narrative. Same when the KJK event happened. Even though I have no wish to go on reading Simon Wilson's column, I enjoyed reading this and your takedown of it/him.
It didn't start as a takedown. If SW had made some valid points - and there are one or two - it may have had an opposite effect. I think Simon considers anyone of the "boomer" generation who disagrees as a "shouty". He had a crack at "boomers" in his piece in this morning's Horild er Herald. I guess if we are going to get in a name calling content, Simon could be characterized as "preachy".
Oh yes, I had some doubts about using the term takedown. I do appreciate that you intended to do an honest analysis and critique of Wilson's piece, and rebuttal where necessary. It was too easy to use the term takedown and I apologise
No need to apologise. I just went where the evidence and the article took me. And it did - in the final analysis - end up as such an overall disagreement with SW that it concluded as a takedown. I don't want it thought that I had predetermine the matter although after a couple of paras in it became irresistable
Wilson sounds like a spent force in that article. He knows not where to look for his saviour yet he present as if he were the saviour himself.
Fair comment.
Once again you help us 'spot the crock'! Many thanks.
My pleasure. Glad you enjoyed it.
One more point. You weren't happy with SW's wish for a "cohesive" society, and neither am I, but I'm also suspicious of the word "inclusive" these days. It has been well and truly weaponised, and there's a Leunig cartoon which illustrates this well. I don't remember it exactly, but a traveller is looking at a Welcome billboard near a town which says something like "Welcome to our town which is an inclusive one - and if we don't like the things you say you will be excluded". Only Leunig did it better than that.
Interesting point. I hadn't thought of the inclusive/exclusive paradox. I always thought of inclusivity in the context of majority rule with minority rights. Maybe I am being a bit narrow and legalistic.
No like the word Rainbow and Gay it's been hijacked rather cleverly. There's nothing more bigoted than a liberal! Alway resonate with your articles.
A brilliant and long overdue take down. Unwittingly (?), Mr Wilson further fuels the fires that will produce the very outcome that he finds so unappealing.
Thank you.
The best way to deal with SW is not to give him the use of your eyes.
Sadly as a media law and media commentator one must take the good with the bad. For example I watched the 5:30 News on Sky Open and then the 6:00 pm News on One (for half an hour). I made the comment to my wife that what was coing across on TVNZ was what had been broadcast on Sky Open - "it isn't news", I said, "its "olds""
Great analysis and put very well. Thanks
Thanks
For 18 months plus, I’ve been viewing The Free Press on Substack, and am now a subscriber. It’s a classic mix of US progressive material mixed w Jewish leanings and then often European common sense. That is, a most unusual hybrid in today’s world. Coupled w the likes of yourself, plus Edwards and Trotter and the Platform, and we’ve pretty well got most bases covered I venture to suggest! Tolle! Lege! (Prizes for its provenance …)
Take up and read - Thomas Aquinas
Both wrote in Latin of course, that language of western culture for centuries. Augustine’s Confessions.
Of course - silly me
Nah! Just having fun. I do like your pieces; helpful takes on messy times. Thanks!
The translation was easy but I got Auinas confused with Augustine and not for the first time - mea maxima culpa
And oh yes; that old classic, The FT(used to be in pink!)
I follow what's happening around the country from the excellent headline reporting of the Democracy project and last week Heather du Plessis Allan wrote a piece on the AUT report. She appeared to be almost the only journalist in the country willing to call out the MSM on one of the elephants in the room: the public are sick and tired of the continual left-of-centre bias in the MSM. She wrote:
" . . . but I genuinely think newsrooms up and down this country don’t believe this is true. That is my experience of talking to editors in various media. They don’t see it, or they do and they make excuses." (NewstalkZB 8/4)
Most of the commentary on the AUT report has been variations on the "they done us a wrong" theme, exemplified by the closing comment by the young reporter covering the report on SkyOpen news, who wound up her delivery with the comment that the media needs to sharpen up its PR to fix this!
Simon WIlson is at best myopic and deluded and at worst so entrenched in his beliefs he has lost the ability to self-reflect (I'm tempted to add If he ever had it). SInce I think most MSM journalists are of his ilk I don't see anything likely to change here. Which leaves the way open to the local Reality Check Radio and Platform and their like to provide a better service.
I am aware of Bryce Edwards Democracy Project although I am not a subscriber. I checked the Substack site and it looks pretty good.
I think on the whole that MSM are looking outside themselves for someone to blame for their plight. They need to look inwards and acknowledge that the fault is not in the stars but in themselves - to adopt Cassius from Act 1 Sc 2 of Julius Caesar.
An interesting example of media outrage was reported today in the Herald https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/nz-marketing-awards-tvnz-ditched-as-main-sponsor-for-googles-youtube-big-mediaworks-share-changes-as-former-ceo-cam-wallace-sells-down-midweek-media-insider/H65O4HIOVRDNZO5RX6XU65VJOU/ where it appears that TNNZ lost the main sponsorship of the Media Awards to YouTube (owned by Google). The attitude of "entitlement" is very well expressed in the article and I guess it is salt in the wound that the focus has shifted from a MSM sponsor to a "new media" sponsor.
As to your final remark you will be aware that Reality Check is off air for the moment. I don't see them going to Melissa Lee with hands out like MSM but are hoping that support will come from elsewhere.
The daily feed from The Democracy Project, Politics Daily, is very good value. It includes all the major MSM players plus a lot of bloggers of all colours, so a very good coverage of some wildly divergent views eg from Martin Bradbury to Don Brash!
Yes, RCR is struggling financially and like thousands of others I'm donating and rooting for them. I'd put a lot of $$ on the fact that they won't be looking for government bailout.
I'm with Heather du Plessis Allan - I don't think there's a snowballs hope in hell that most of the media players will look inwards and I think it's too late for them to successfully adapt creatively to the challenges of the digital paradigm.