Posts Tagged ‘newspapers’

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The Leveson Inquiry & Employment Law

In Rory MacKinnon on December 20, 2011 at 1:41 pm

[First published in The Morning Star, 17/12/2011. See my previous post on the issue in March here.]

The wheels of Justice Leveson grind slow but fine — and last week was no different as News Of The World ex-editor Colin Myler took the stand.

With nearly a decade’s worth of skullduggery to draw on, the senior judge’s inquiry into media ethics has always risked falling prone to the same sensationalism it set out to investigate: from high-profile victims’ statements to the Watergate-like machinations of Murdoch’s most trusted executives, media coverage has favoured individual scandals over the systemic intimidation of journalists that spurs them.

But with Myler in the spotlight, barrister Robert Jay plodded on with an even more vital investigation: the workaday world of today’s tabloid reporter. How, in the most literal sense, do these people live with themselves? Read the rest of this entry »

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Occupied Press Club: Apply Within!

In Rory MacKinnon on October 31, 2011 at 11:09 pm

No big bloated essays for now – just a notice that I’ve been talking to Ryan of the Occupied Wall Street Journal about putting together an unofficial network of correspondents at occupations worldwide. In the same way that the papers are reflecting the issues in each individual community, a bit of international coverage would offer an unfiltered view of daily life in the camps.

I’m not camping full-time, nor would I expect anyone else to, but you would need to be visiting/camping at least 1-2 days a week and get along to the main events since the point is to source these stories from protesters on the ground. If you are living there full-time, even better.

And best of all would be if you’re covering an occupation in a non-English speaking country (or where English is not the language of choice). This is an international movement and it would be a shame if our readers didn’t hear about all the important things going on in Europe and Asia and the Middle East and Central America. Read the rest of this entry »

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The Occupied Times Of London: Issue 1 Out Now!

In Rory MacKinnon on October 28, 2011 at 12:14 am

My job at the Morning Star has trucked me off to all sorts of events this year: anti-war demos, anti-cuts marches, the defence of Britain’s biggest Irish Traveller camp, a student occupation up at Glasgow University and of course a bunch of trade union conferences. But Occupy London Stock Exchange is the only one so far where they’ve actually started their own newspaper instead — and I’ve somehow found myself on the editorial team.

Issue 1 of The Occupied Times of London is out today: 2000 free print copies floating around central London and an online version here. It’s an independent weekly paper, with no control or influence from the camp’s Media Working Group (which handles press releases and all that sort of thing). The staff are all unpaid volunteers, as is the printer Aldgate Press, and contributors and content are anyone from camp residents on daily life to international commentators on the occupation movement as a whole (rumour has it Noam Chomsky is working on something for the next issue). Read the rest of this entry »

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How IR Law Turns Press Into Propaganda & Gets People Killed

In Rory MacKinnon on March 10, 2011 at 12:47 pm

Industrial relations is one of those weird political anomalies; a field which affects literally everyone who’s ever paid their own rent but is somehow seen as a bit of a bore by anyone who isn’t an active card-carrying union member. It’s what prompts the insistence on “balanced” legislation which invariably assumes lawsuits and industrial action are effortless, exhilarating experiences for employees with no personal impositions whatsoever.

But events in the British rag trade over the past week have provided a perfect case study of why the systematic erosion of rights for new employees -particularly the 90-day probationary period in New Zealand, and Britain’s one-year exemptions from unfair dismissal – has been such a dangerous idea.

First Liberal Conspiracy‘s Sunny Hundal posted allegations of political pressure on BBC reporters to recast Government funding cuts as “savings”. Then the next day Daily Star reporter Richard Peppiat tendered his resignation in an open letter which alleged that for the last two years he’d basically been paid to make things up about celebrities, neo-Nazis and Muslims. Read the rest of this entry »

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Bouquets And Brickbats: A Self-Indulgent Awards Post

In Rory MacKinnon on June 14, 2010 at 4:15 pm

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/46/173609429_f04f2a3342.jpgI’m unforgivably late to the party, but turns out some nice things were said about Media Darlings at last week’s AirNZ Best Blog Awards. While the tobacco fiasco was too recent to be eligible, judge and Tumeke! blogger Bomber Bradbury had this to say about our stuff from last year:

OOOOOOOOh they are sharp aren’t they? Very good demolition of ACT on campus, good chase on National’s support of VSM, and excellent post on academic freedom. If this is the future of our news rooms, things are not as bad as they seem.

Unfortunately his collaborator Tim Selwyn wasn’t quite so impressed:

Earnest, researched, sober – and being about tertiary education, very dull. Striking an almost neutral pose it reads more like a policy journal than a blog.

Oh well, you can’t win them all. Unless you’re Amanda Fisher, who was at the Actual Media Awards on Saturday and took home the prize for Best Student Journalism. Read the rest of this entry »

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The Fog of War & Foggy Thinking: the Jerusalem Post on Gaza

In Rory MacKinnon on June 5, 2010 at 1:42 am

Looking through barbed wire as SPIRIT leaves the mouth of the port by freegazaorg.

I usually try to keep things local here at Media Darlings, but I want to make a special exception for the war of words triggered by the Israeli Defence Force’s raid on a humanitarian convoy this week.

This is not a political blog, so let me just say this in advance as a reporter: There was a well-publicised humanitarian aid convoy whose members included European legislators, former US diplomats, an international group of journalists and at one point a Holocaust survivor. The Shayetet went in with guns, nine people died, thirty were injured and now the IDF won’t return the journalists’ footage of what happened. Any authority which withholds evidence of a fatal incident is going to look incredibly suspect, IDF or otherwise.

Anyway.

Much of the Israeli hasbara, or PR offensive, has been absurd (the group I described above were supposedly arms smugglers and/or mercenaries) and often contradictory (said arms smugglers/mercenaries were attacking with kitchen knives rather than guns). But only one reporter I’ve seen so far has managed to report an absurdity as fact and then contradict it in the same article. Read the rest of this entry »

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Editing The Herald – Badly: Yesterday’s Big Tobacco blunder

In Rory MacKinnon on May 25, 2010 at 2:26 pm


2008-01-26 (Editing a paper) - 31 by Nic's events. [UPDATE: The online disclaimer has now been amended. If anyone from the Herald's reading this, thankyou and please don't file my CV in the shredder]

There’s a famous saying attributed to Spanish-American philosopher George Santayana: “Those who cannot remember the past are doomed to look like bloody big chumps and confirm every negative perception of their industry”. Or something like that.

Anyway, shame on the New Zealand Herald. On Monday – the very same day they ran NZPA’s recap of the incredibly sketchy relationship between Imperial Tobacco and the Association of Community Retailers – they also ran an opinion piece by Roger Bull of the Association of Convenience Stores. You know, Glenn Inwood’s other pro-tobacco client. Read the rest of this entry »

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