John Drinnan

John Drinnan laboriously writes about bloggers and remuneration. Interesting that he didn’t bother to ring me for comment yet felt obliged to use my name to make some sort of point.

Canterbury University senior lecturer in journalism and new media Donald Matheson says bloggers risk being called hypocrites if they accuse professional media about lack of transparency while not declaring payments from other sources.

Really? …does Fran O’Sullivan declare all her other income at the bottom of every article she writes? Does Bernard Hickey? What about Russell Brown’s multiple sources of income. What a sanctimonious twat. Plenty of people in the media do multiple jobs and work on multiple contracts. They also take separate advertising revenue and perform consultancy work, not to mention the lucrative speaking circuit…why the focus on bloggers and what and how they earn money? Everyone else in the media gets paid somehow and no one digs into that.

The only people I need to declare my income to is IRD. Everyone else can get stuffed.   Read more »

Keeping Stock blogs about a little rule problem Labour has in attempting to parachute Shane Taurima into parliament. If Shane Taurima fails at selection I’m not sure how he can credibly continue to work as the host of a current affairs show now that he has shown just how partisan he is…unless it is of course some sort of left wing slanted show…oh wait.

If what Shane Taurima told John Drinnan from the Herald last week is correct, Shane Taurima does not qualify to stand for the Ikaroa-Rawhiti nomination. The NZLP rules of course leave the party with an “out” in that the NZ Council can grant a waiver.

We saw that in the Mana by-election in 2010 when Phil Goff’s press secretary Kris Faafoi suddenly won the Labour nomination for the safe Labour seat ahead of the LEC’s choice, Josie Pagani. The nett result of that decision was that Faafoi turned a 2008 majority of 6155 to a very close contest, only beating off Hekia Parata by 1406 votes, narrowly avoiding a real embarrassment for the party.  Read more »

John Drinnan is being his usual sanctimonious self:

Kenrick raised eyebrows in a recent interview on TV3′s Media3 programme when he said he was not stressed by the state of TVNZ news and current affairs. If he is not worried, maybe it is time for him or the TVNZ board to start taking a look, and comparing how the leaderless newsroom is performing, not just in ratings, but in the oversight of news values and its performance in covering news stories such as the Kim Dotcom saga.  Read more »

The Herald should be forced to add compulsory hashtags like #manufactured or #spincycle especially after Regan Cunliffe from Throng has busted them manufacturing a crisis over Seven Sharp:

Last Thursday, Seven Sharp ran a story about domestic violence in a staged enactment in an Auckland street.  This morning (five days later), the New Zealand Herald has a story that claimed“Women’s Refuge has criticised a Seven Sharp story on bystander reaction to violence against women which used the song Smack My Bitch Up as a backing track”.

The New Zealand Herald has a history of inciting anger when there is none and this latest escapade is no different.  Read more »

John Drinnan is usually “a decent journalist, trained and skilled”, unfortunately though the dreaded Herald bomb curse has befallen him in his article about Julie Christie:

Another Herald Bomb

Read more »

John Drinnan has written an article about media coverage about Kim Dotcom.

He called me about this, and I note that it appears that the Herald sub-editors have probably chopped most of them out since it was mostly about their fanboi attitude to Kim Dotcom…especially David Fisher who is still running the PR lines for him and also the Herald on Sunday journalist who stood up at the Mega launch, intorduced himself and then gushed about how much “they” love Kim.

Peter Griffin is head of the Science Media Centre and is currently in the United States completing a Fulbright-Harkness Fellowship looking at the future of journalism. He says Dotcom has sometimes enjoyed unquestioning coverage.

“I was really surprised at the launch of Mega last week that the journalists didn’t ask about the moral aspects of the Mega business plan,” Griffin says. Read more »

ᔥ NZ Herald

John Drinnan raises questions over the use of PR people as commentators. I think he is a little confused in calling Matthew Hooton a journalist…he isn’t, he is a commentator…a paid mouthpiece, rent an opinion, just as I am or anyone else that is a talking head on radio or TV shows where we offer up our opinions. In that respect Drinnan misses the point, though the conflict angle is relevant.

Never mind journalists doing PR stories, what about PR doing journalism?

There’s Matthew Hooton, a founder and director of the PR consultancy Exceltium, who is also a columnist for the National Business Review, as well as being the right-wing voice of right versus left commentary on National Radio.

And there is Michelle Boag, the former National Party president who appears in commentary spots while being a partner in a high-profile PR agency.

The Nation media commentator and Listener columnist Bill Ralston is a PR man while his leftish offsider Brian Edwards is just a step short of PR, providing media training, often an adjunct to the PR consultancy.

Meanwhile, the company that makes The Nation, Front Page, also works on internal communication for the country’s biggest company, Fonterra. Special steps are taken to ensure there is no conflict of interest.

Radio New Zealand frequently turns to public relations people for its afternoon panel with Mora.

There have been no direct allegations of PR people giving quiet plugs to their clients. But isn’t it courting problems when you hire people for journalism, whose profession is to win promotion and media coverage for their clients.

Hooton insists that he always declares any conflict of interest when he is making a commentary and there is no reason to doubt him.

Over at Radio New Zealand National, the head of features, John Howson, says the potential for conflicts of interest is taken very seriously and all guests on the panel, including PR people, are required to declare any commercial relationships and, apart from the segments when panelists are asked, ” What is is on your mind?” the topics are steered by Mora and the producers.

ᔥ OnPoint

Keith Ng cuts the Herald to shreds:

“Credibility” is kinda ironic, because on that same page, they stole a picture off Twitter without attribution, said McQuillan worked for Radio NZ (actually the NZ Newswire, and previously for RadioLive), and said she was asked to leave the court by the judge (she was asked to leave the press bench by a registrar, so she reported from the public gallery). How did they get all this wrong? Because neither Cameron nor the reporter who wrote the news story called McQuillan (though John Drinnan, to his credit, called her boss) and got the entire story off Twitter instead.

Hey NZ Herald. Before you criticise someone else’s pants for being unprofessional, perhaps you should make sure that your work isn’t.

ᔥ NZ Herald

I broke the story of David Shearer having a nice quiet dinner with Tony O’Brien of Sky TV. It was then followed up by the media. When they asked David Shearer about the dinner he said that they had a social evening and didn’t discuss business.

John Drinnan has followed that up and found out that there was another guest at the dinner at the home of dirty lobbyist Tony O’Brien…Sky TV CEO John Fellet.

Sky TV chief executive John Fellet was also present at a private dinner party attended by Opposition leader David Shearer at the home of Sky lobbyist Tony O’Brien, the pay-TV company has confirmed.

The dinner, first reported in theBusiness Herald on Friday, took place on April 27 and was also attended by the wives of the three men.

Private dinner parties with lobbyists are not restricted, but the timing was unusual. Sky TV’s ultimate owner News Corporation was under attack in the UK for allegedly using excessive leverage on politicians.

In this country, private meetings between business interests and politicians are under intense scrutiny amid controversy over Kim Dotcom’s donations to John Banks’ mayoral campaign and debate about Government involvement in the SkyCity convention centre deal.

Shearer is supporting a private members bill calling for more scrutiny of lobbyists.

Acknowledging he and his wife attended the dinner, Shearer did not discuss whether Fellet was present. He insisted there was no discussion of Labour’s broadcasting policy.

Are we really to believe that broadcasting was never discussed at all, despite the head of Sky TV being present and their lobbyist…I mean what on earth could the dinner have been about?

Perhaps David Shearer shared witty stories about how he once fed millions on just a few mango skins chucked off the back of a truck.

You know there is more to this when you get the Cold Mold:

Shearer’s chief press secretary Francesca Mold said the Opposition leader’s office “will not be answering any further questions from you on this issue”.

I see that John Drinnan has caught up with my post about Shearer’s dinner with Sky TV’s lobbyist, Tony O’Brien.  Drinnan appears to get the serious perception issues around Shearer meeting with O’Brien in a private setting.

The dinner party was alluded to by the right-wing blogger Whale Oil.

Alluded to? I wrote a full detailed post about it, that said this happened…if that was alluding I wonder what I have to do to be obvious…post a video of Shearer pulling up outside?

Anyway…Does anyone remember ‘Dinnergate’?  Shipley and Saatchi’s Kevin Roberts spent weeks answering questions about the appropriateness of their dinner and what was discussed.  It all came on the back of Saatchi & Saatchi being awarded a $30M account with the Tourism Board.

The difference of course is that Shearer is only Leader of the Opposition.  O’Brien is no mug and will know it is all about positioning… even for the long game.  If Shearer isn’t the next Prime Minister in waiting then I am sure O’Brien will have a new best friend over for dinner, who just so happens to be the next Labour leader.

So, why aren’t the mainstream media asking more questions of Shearer? May be Tracy Watkins could have a go.

Simple stuff like:

• What was discussed over dinner?  Anything to do with politics, positioning, the work of Sky TV?  Shearer has said “mostly football, US politics, the role of the Citizens Advice Bureau and what my wife and I had done while working overseas for the UN and other humanitarian organisations”.  Really, no mention of NZ politics… none at all?
• Was Shearer a tad naïve to think as Leader of a major party he can have a private, no strings dinner with one of the most competent lobbyists in New Zealand?  Would he do it again?
• Does Shearer understand that O’Brien is undertaking good lobbying practice? i.e. get close to those in or likely to be in power, know a bit of personal information, be seen to be a nice guy and develop the relationship all so that when the time is right said lobbyist can have a more specific and direct conversation about what he (and who he represents) needs from Shearer.
• Would the discussions count as lobbying under Holly Walker’s lobbying disclosures bill?
• Shearer says broadcasting policy wasn’t talked about… does he mean Labour’s?  What about broadcasting policy in general, perhaps even US broadcasting policy?
• What would happen if another guest at the dinner party had brought up broadcasting policy, would Shearer leave the room, operate a cone of silence or perhaps hum ‘Country Roads’?

Here’s Shearer’s problem.  He really is that naïve. He really thinks Tony wants to be his friend, to listen to his wonderous UN back story about he fed starving African with just the skins of mangos and laugh at his witty jokes.  Shearer is just as naïve to Robertson’s positioning.  Next he’ll be saying “Oh no, he’s a nice guy, he’d never do anything like that. We speak every day.”