Bill Ralston

My good friend Brian Edwards, fresh from saying he wouldn’t be blogging, has…well…blogged. He has written about the media beat-up about the GCSB and John Key. First he talks about accessibility:

Most of the politicians I’ve worked with have found it difficult to call a halt to a stand-up session. They didn’t want to appear rude or look as though they were running away. But, just like the suspect in the police interview room, the more questions you answer, the more you explain, the more likely you are to get into trouble. This is John Key’s problem. He’s become far too accessible.

So Key’s options are to take a leaf out of Judith Collins’ book and part the journalistic waters without stopping or  limit his exchanges with journalists to formal press-conferences or pre-arranged set-piece interviews.

I’m for Option Two because I don’t think he can carry off Option One. Stopping and chatting is part of his genetic make-up and has held him in good stead for four years.  Read more »

I guess nature abhors a vacuum.

from Cactus Kate:

I h8 kids on planes, am a lawyer n like blokes. Y can’t I get a job here in NY at UN??? @dpfdpf

— Cactus Kate (@CactusKate2) February 19, 2013

Runner up is Bill Ralston:  Read more »

I was on The Huddle last night at 1740 with Larry Williams and Bill Ralston

• Dotcon part two launch.
• The wash up from the Lance Armstrong attempts to save himself.
• Don Brash says that illegal workers in Christchurch should be left to get on with the rebuild rather than dealt with by the authorities.

Read more »

I am on The Huddle this afternoon at 1740 with Larry Williams and Bill Ralston

• First up the Dotcon part two launch.
• The wash up from the Lance Armstrong attempts to save himself.
• Don Brash says that illegal workers in Christchurch should be left to get on with the rebuild rather than dealt with by the authorities.

You can listen online or through usual methods.

I will put up the audio tomorrow morning for those who miss it.

Last night on the Huddle Susan Wood, Jock Anderson and Bill Ralston were discussing Silly First Name Syndrome.

They even mentioned the title and where it came from:

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Speaking of Chardonnay as a name:  Read more »

Saturday started with a Face of the Day photo that was a bit hard to look at before breakfast.  Cam finds a Frenchman worthy of respect, and is pleased to find they aren’t all cheese eating surrender monkeys. Count Jacques le Bel de Penguilly does have a poofy name though.  Five Lesbians Eating a Quiche is a play that Whale suggests David Farrar should review for his Womans Weekly blog.  Australia charges its second Catholic Priest for child sex crimes, and this blog continues to ask:  Why is New Zealand immune?  We’re either better than the rest of the world or we’re still covering it up.  Which is it, and why?   Sadly, another Cry Baby post where we highlight those who aren’t taking personal responsibility.  This time, people who booked on Jetstar had their flights cancelled are in the paper bleating they’ll never fly Jetstar again.  If only they knew this could happen, eh?  Sharing a public space is tough when the others are eating, playing music and talking on their phones.  Cam Slater throws in a joke about an ERO school inspector and Hekia Parata, and follows it up with a post where he reveals that politicians lie.  Yeah.  Why do women wear high heels?  It can get to the point of ridiculousness for sure. An interesting post showing that a Connecticut newspaper is still advertising guns right next to Sandy Hook School news.  That was followed by a post of dash cam footage from 1927 as well as dash cam footage of a plane crash last week.  Next a top drawer post about glow in the dark toilet paper and poop hand soap.  Only on WOBH.   An interesting BBC2 short about Gordon Buchanan turning himself potential into Polar Bear lunch leads a post about Iron Maiden showing Steve Harris wearing a Whale Oil Beef Hooked T-Shirt.  Perhaps we should avoid NZ Herald Stock tips:  Australian shares are hot apparently?  Especially those APN stocks.  Oh, and Fairfax stocks are doing just great as well.  And as we wind down towards the end of the Saturday, we have a post about a CK Stead letter in which he slams the Binnie report as having clear bias.   Read more »

Rod Vaughan has written a book.  Who?

Apparently Vaughan is legendary in news and current affairs but instead of writing a real man’s book about drinking, smoking, hunting, eating and shagging, he is caught documenting whinging like a little bitch about his treatment at TVNZ from Bill Ralston.  It is a nasty, catty excerpt written like a man who has ticked the days off a calendar to dish it.  I mean every second person in town has been sacked by TVNZ, you are not special.  Ralston didn’t bother with a departure lounge he allegedly would announce impending doom as exclusives to a mate who paid the bill to booze!

Most of us learnt of our fate from the ramblings of Ralston in the Herald or the Listener or whichever publication was taking him out to lunch. It was hurtful and sometimes humiliating but that hardly seemed to concern him as he made clear in a Herald interview:

‘You can’t keep calling meetings of 300 people every day to hear the thoughts of Chairman Bill. It’s not going to work. So if you can send a signal by whatever media that happen to be around, why wouldn’t you?’

Which is how I got to learn that I was in his sights. This, from him in the Listener: ‘There are people who have been here an awfully long time. Today is the 35th anniversary of Rod Vaughan entering television!’

And this which has milk all over four paws

But we soon discovered that what the mercurial and erratic Ralston said and what he did were very often two completely different things. This, after all, was the person who spent years bagging TVNZ, describing it as inept, boring and byzantine and then going all out to grab one of the top jobs there.

The self-described ‘smartarse at the back of the class’ was a classic case of poacher turned gamekeeper and his arrival at the state broadcaster left some wondering how the lunatic had managed to take over the asylum.

The defining moment in the man’s career and only reason I remember otherwise Vanilla Vaughan is he broke the rules of carrying a man card and interrupted another man deep in the craft art sport of fishing.

Jones ran at him and smacked him in the face.  He looks pretty bloodied and beaten in this clip.  And sooking like a girl.

Imagine an entire career where you’ve slogged every day for forty years and you are remembered by a younger generation simply for being the guy who Bob Jones smashed in the face?

The Judge fined Jones $1,000.  Jones offered to pay $2,000 if he could hit Vaughan again.

Now THAT is legendary.

I loathe tl;dr (too long; didn’t read) posts but over this issue I will do one as paying (or not) for content online is the most important issue for the future of bloggers and new media and one I have put a great deal of thought into both for The Truth and this blog.

When Bernard Hickey announced with much fanfare and bravado he was setting up www.journalism.org.nz others were telling Hickey what he wanted to hear but I was instantly skeptical at the stunt and said so in full.  Socialists do not part with their own money and this was a left wing vehicle.  Hickey skited he would cover stories other MSM would not.

The first issue was Hickey’s arrogant attitude to the project and relationship with www.interest.co.nz.  I continue to write this blog and am editor of The Truth.  I cannot do both jobs without help and appreciate the staff at The Truth for their work so far.  It is not as easy as it looks but I am spending less time on it as I learn the job.  Surely Hickey could see the level of time required, most of it on his own?

The second issue was Hickey clearly relied on the unreliable in Selwyn Pellett.  A wealthy man but not one who parts with coin as freely as others on the right to fund projects like this.  A man with his own agenda who spends a disproportionate amount of his time arguing senselessly on Twitter as a “critical friend” of the Labour Party.

Selwyn Pellett claims to not be a member of the Labour Party but tweeted attendance at the recent Annual conference.  John Tamihere was not a member at the time and not allowed.  Pellett is a “critical friend” who does not even believe enough in the Party to join it.  It shows a level of commitment that equalled his to Hickey.

So Bernard Hickey cans the project the same week he sells his Epsom home for $1+ million and moves to Wellington, for no apparent reason than his daughter is at University there.  Hickey’s reasons were:

1. Underestimating the time and salary sacrifice involved

Every small business needs cash to start-up.  Most have a period where the owner receives no income.  Hickey left interest.co.nz according to his original release on 1 November.

Why didn’t he release the website idea with a breaking story to show what he would produce?  Fact is he hasn’t had one memorable toe-curler since the Crafar farm face-off.  He has limited his role in the media to commentator/Labour parrot and Herald on Sunday columnist.

I have come to the conclusion that the need to support my family through freelance journalism and commentary will not leave sufficient time for me to continue to take the lead role in journalism.org during its formative stage.

In other words, despite grossing $1+ million on the house according to NBR, he was not prepared to do what most small business owners have to do and mortgage the house to back himself and put equity into the new venture.  Not having enough time to devote to the project and wanting to spend more time with his family are euphemisms for “I should have thought more about it before chucking my toys at interest.co.nz and bragging I could do this”.

2. Everyone lied about paying for the start-up

We will have to fight for funding in an economic environment where philanthropy is less evident than in more prosperous times and where we need to be wary of the difference between verbal commitments to donate and actually putting a hand in one’s pocket.

The economic environment really has nothing to do with it.  According to Hickey the economy has been in crisis for years. The bottom line is that people will not front with cash until they see what is on offer on the website.  The NBR for example created their online product BEFORE people signed up.  Even on Hickey’s online poll on the website there was fair indication not many people were interested enough to click a box.  Everyone will slap you on the back congratulating you and saying they will sign up because it is easy to say that.  Most are lying, especially socialists. I have told Hickey what to do, break a big story to launch it in style, not a whimper and fizz.

3. Pellett must have pulled out

He had previously acknowledged it was risky to rely on one large donor – if they lost interest or wanted to make the site a vehicle for their own views.

You do not have to be a genius to see what happened.  Hickey found out Pellett is a control freak and wanted to push his own agenda.  He has some awfully weird ideas that even Hickey could not suffer.  Remember Hickey predicted a 30% drop in house prices at one point, then changed his mind?  His commentary is all over the place and unrealistic.  Hickey’s effort on Sunday is a perfect example.  There was no real reason to write that column.  It lacked purpose and was merely parroting prior World According To Bernard Hickey.  To be blunt, Hickey has gone stale.   He has pigeon holed himself into a ridiculous prediction man.  The latest large failure was predicting the Eurozone would collapse in October 2012.    Compare Hickey to Fran O’Sullivan who does not go around  making outrageous (incorrect) predictions to get attention.  She produces an endless stream of new material and perspective twice a week and has done for decades.

Hickey has now worked out precisely why New Zealanders just buy property and wait for it to appreciate in value as an investment before selling it.   He has written about potentially becoming a property investor.

While there is no shame in business reporters not being in business themselves, the massive miscalculation of  start-up capital and funding is facepalm material.  The only people interested in Hickey’s sort of alarmist Chicken Little stories are people who will not pay for the news.  They are also as I have said, socialists and as I told my new largest new fan; grumpy, old media Brian Edwards unequivocally on The Nation – socialists do not part easily with money and make terrible paymasters.  It is why his now political polar opposite and my largest new critic ; grumpy, old media Bill Ralston, got realistic about life and changed his colours.  Capitalists and corporates pay the bills.  Socialists just want everything for free.

Or do they?

Keith Ng scored how much for writing about a planned hack? But even at several thousand dollars a story in funding and donations from the public it will never be enough to fund Hickey’s lifestyle full-time given the amount of time you have to put into a story.  As I have found in my new position as an Editor  it takes enough time at The Truth to get everything out each week, let alone produce investigative reporting where you may spend hundreds of hours for nothing.  Phil Kitchin for example is testament to three stories a year max, and he has scraped the barrel from his semi-retirement this year in quality after doing precisely what investigative reporters do not and allow themselves to be captured and kidnapped by a PR hack.  David Fisher has gone soft and is filling his Herald space interviewing Kim Dot Con’s hired help.

Hickey also insulted large chunks of the business mainstream media by all but saying they were in the pocket of corporates so not doing their job as well as he could independently. They will all be chuckling at his failure, some were led to believe Hickey actually owned interest.co.nz.

To fund actual news reporting, particularly the sort Hickey wanted to produce, you cannot start without a large amount of cash to support yourself and time.   That is why you need a very wealthy and consistent funder to support you to develop your website and content.  Or raise the funds yourself.

I just hope Hickey is now less sanctimonious in his writing of others in New Zealand business, taking risks (or not), capitalism and the natural lust in economic models for money, power and profits.

He has proven in this mis-adventure to be just like everyone else.

I have been asked to post this to support this initiative. I do so with pleasure.

For a heartfelt article about Jack Ralston also read Bill Ralston’s Listener article about his brother:

Hoping Whaleoil readers may be interested in this and some may be interested in contributing to something new and positive.

Just over 9 weeks ago the sporting-world, in particular New Zealand’s young and developing athletes lost a legend, mentor, coach and all-round terrific guy with Jack Ralston’s death.  So many of us feel that Jack left such a huge legacy which is too great to simply end at this point.  So we have formed the Team JR Development Trust – run completely by volunteers.  This Trust has been set up with the specific purposes of:

- Providing a mentor support structure for promising young athletes aimed at assisting them reach their potential.
- Providing a network of support for encouragement and inspiration and advice.
- To challenge national bodies towards excellence and developmental structures on the athletes behalf.
- To ensure promising triathlon, road and track athletes are adequately funded for coaching and development.
- To identify and provide development opportunities & pathways for young athletes.

We are pleased to announce the Team JR launch function will be held on Thursday 29 November at the Millennium Stadium in the Olympic room and take great pride in extending this invitation to those of you in New Zealand to attend.  We will outline the upcoming activities of the Trust, introduce the Trustees and ambassadors to the Trust who are all people that have been touched greatly by Jack Ralston and hold our first fundraising event in the form of an auction on the night. Light refreshments will be provided.

A tribute to Jack that makes it clear what kind of man he was.

You can ‘like’ and follow Team JR Development Trust on Facebook.  You can also donate any amount to the Trust by emailing  teamjrdevelopment@gmail.com and we will provide the necessary details for you to do so.

Event Details
What: Team JR Development Trust Launch (no fee to attend)
Where: Millennium Institute of Sport and Health
When: Thursday 29 November 2012
Time: 6:30pm-8pm
RSVP: email teamjrdevelopment@gmail.com

Thank you for your support and we look forward to seeing you then.
The Team JR Development Trust