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Archive for April, 2011

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Media suppressing judge’s name?!

Thursday, April 28th, 2011

An old mate of mine, former Fair Go editor Chris Mitson, wonders why the media aren’t naming the judge who gave Malcolm Chaston bail. After all, Chaston had 71 previous convictions and during his previous stretch in prison, a prison guard had warned of his ambitions to become a serial killer. Police reportedly opposed bail. Chaston […]

Book Review: Media Law in New Zealand

Thursday, April 28th, 2011

Media Law in New Zealand John Burrows and Ursula Cheer LexisNexis New Zealand, 6ed, 2010   Reading the latest edition of this terrific text, it’s hard not to be struck by the breathtaking rate of change of New Zealand’s media law. The five years since the last edition have seen the Fairfax contempt prosecution and a […]

How on earth did Hotchin get name suppression?

Thursday, April 21st, 2011

So this is what I’ve been wondering. Mark Hotchin, in 2003 a high flying businessman, director of New Zealand’s biggest private finance company, gets duped in a ponzi scam. He loses more than $200,000 of his own money. At the time, and since, there were thousands of investors who might have been interested in this […]

You win some, you lose some

Thursday, April 21st, 2011

TVNZ has won its High Court appeal over the Broadcasting Standards Authority’s decision to find that a scene in Hung breached the good taste and decency standard. TV3 lost its appeal over the BSA’s breach finding in relation to Home & Away. Analysis soon.

PLEASE RETURN SOONEST

Wednesday, April 20th, 2011

RNZ is reporting that John Key used an Air Force helicopter to attend social events. It says John Key can’t respond because he’s overseas. If only someone could create a magical device that would allow us to talk across long distances…

Pagani sides with the wowsers

Wednesday, April 20th, 2011

John Pagani reckons the BSA got it right about Aramoana, and I got it wrong. He thinks it was a “balanced call”, made by the experts we’ve appointed to administer standards that, after all, include good taste and decency and children’s interests. For him, I’m a “Bill of Rights fundamentalist” who treats this as an […]

Oh, and one other thing about the BSA’s dumb Aramoana decision

Wednesday, April 20th, 2011

It was based on a really dumb complaint. Here’s the BSA’s summary of the complainant’s original grounds: … the policeman’s “obscene language” breached standards relating to good taste and decency, law and order, responsible programming and children’s interests. The complainant considered that it gave “a negative impression of New Zealand policing” and that “it signals […]

For fuck’s sake

Tuesday, April 19th, 2011

I’ve read hundreds of Broadcasting Standards Authority decisions in my time. The vast bulk of them, I agree with. Most of the rest, I figure it’s a line call. Then there are the shockers. This is one. The BSA has found that a story on the TVNZ current affairs show Sunday about the Aramoana massacre […]

Memo to Greg O’Connor

Monday, April 18th, 2011

It’s a bit of a worry when even the police don’t understand the rules of contempt of court. Police Association President Greg O’Connor scores an F on his understanding of the sub judice rule, as evidenced by his appearance on Close Up to defend the police’s handling of the Tiki Taane arrest. The sub judice […]

Jumping the gun?

Monday, April 18th, 2011

Does Saturday’s front-page DomPost story break the law on reporting possible suicides? I think it does. The story reports that Timothy Parlane was “killed by a train” shortly after police were warned that he was “suicidal”. The Coroner’s Act prevents the publication of any particular relating to the manner of death when there’s reasonable cause […]

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