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Archive for September, 2010

MediaBotch

Sunday, September 26th, 2010

This week’s MediaWatch show on Radio NZ is billed like this: Mediawatch looks at the impact of the ‘new media’ on the old. Can online amateurs really replace the professional journalism of today? Is it already happening? And if so – what effect is it having on standards? This promised to be interesting – particularly […]

An unprivileged position II

Thursday, September 16th, 2010

Tom Frewen [and Graeme Edgeler] noted that last year the Privileges Committee looked at the issue of the scope of the media’s privilege to report on proceedings in the House, and also concluded that it was much less than the media tend to think it is:  The media play an important role in providing the public with information about thebusiness […]

Oh my God

Wednesday, September 15th, 2010

Let me add my voice to the flabbergasted reactions of some constitutional experts to the Earthquake Response and Recovery Act. It reads like a far-fetched doom-laden Public Law exam problem. And now it’s law. We’ve just appointed three Ministers as Kings. “Trust us”, they insist. No thanks. I’d rather trust the checks and balances in […]

An unprivileged position?

Wednesday, September 15th, 2010

The DomPost seems to have deliberately breached a name suppression order. And now I probably have too, having merely linked to it. What the hey. The paper is reporting that ACT MP David Garrett has admitted that he obtained a false passport in his halcyon days, using the time-honoured Day-of-the-Jackel method of finding the tombstone […]

A whale of a decision

Wednesday, September 15th, 2010

70 pages! It took Judge David Harvey that long to establish that Whale Oil (a) had a case to answer for breaching a range of name suppression orders and (b) was guilty. It’s probably the most comprehensive judicial ruling on of name suppression issues New Zealand has seen; and it may be the first concerning […]

Rooney tunes

Monday, September 6th, 2010

The ever-excellent Inforrm blog fillets the UK tabloid media for their expose of footballer Wayne Rooney’s affair. It’s plainly private… so what was that public interest justification again?