NBR

—–Original Message—–
From: Todd Scott
Sent: Tuesday, 5 March 2013 2:09 p.m.
To: Duncan Garner
Subject: Duncan, I am really sorry.

Hi Duncan,

I just wanted to drop you a personal apology for that egregious headline and article yesterday! When it was brought to my attention, I ordered its immediate removal from the site. I am sincerely sorry for any stress that it caused you and your family!

We have one of the best resourced, business focused news rooms in the country. Our readers deserve better than what was served up yesterday by Jock Anderson.

On a personal note, I wish you every success for the new show.

Todd Scott – Publisher
The National Business Review

This is not an apology   Read more »

As you may recall, I reported on the NBR thinking it was funny to have a headline “Duncan Garner Dead” on one of it’s articles.  An article behind the Paywall, so people couldn’t see it was in fact a satirical piece.

It quickly dawned on the NBR it wasn’t really that funny to broadcast to the world that someone had died, for fun.

They published a correction, but now Garner is taking his pound of flesh.

NBR, I suggest you leave the cute Social Media stuff to the cool kids.  Like MPs *snigger*

Earlier today, the NBR Tweeted

Now, clearly obvious to regular readers of this blog, this announced a satirical opinion piece.

I kind of suspected that this would go wrong, so I decided to write a post about it and sit back.

Question:  What do you think could happen when you make a public announcement that someone is dead, but then most people can’t see you are really just kidding, because the article is behind a paywall?

As I expected, the public clarification had to follow.

Kind of takes the steam out of Jock Anderson’s opinion piece about getting your news from Twitter when in the very process of trying to make a buck from Duncan Garner’s Whoopsie last week, they end up using Twitter to fuck it all up themselves.

Had I been the NBR, I would have pulled the piece from behind the Paywall and made sure everyone could see that declaring Duncan Garner dead was just an ironic device.  Or a joke, to you and me.

Heh.

Poor Duncan.  Still copping it for his whoopsie.  To be fair, he was relying on Tweets by people employed by other media, but there you go.  Even more fun at his expense.

What’s not so funny is that you have to pay the NBR $120 if you want to read Jock’s “opinion” about a week late.

Well, it’s “opinion” and not “news” I guess.

Update: Duncan also copped a flogging on MediaWatch…I wonder why they didn’t give Adam Bennett a kick on the way through.

When you saw the headline, was your first reaction “Oh no, not another story about that”?  If so, read on…

In case you’ve been living under a rock, Sir Paul Holmes isn’t so flash.  In his limited time that remains, I suspect he has a small bucket list to work through, as far as his failing health will allow him.

So paint me stunned when he and his family hosts the Jolly Fat German that is a one-man PR nightmare blight on this country’s psyche.  Overseas, they’re laughing at us.

Of course, we’re at fault.  We, being the media.  We, being the consumers of media.

But where I was once a lone voice, the Kim Dotgone movement is slowly growing

Read more »

David Cohen has said some nice things about me in the print edition of NBR:

from NBR (Print Edition) article by David Cohen

Chris Keall is the first tech journo to call Kim Dotcom on his bullshit…obvious no invite for Chris to a pool party at the fat German’s place:

Kim Dotcom got an impressive amount of media over the weekend for his “plan” to revive Pacific Fibre – with the twist that Kiwis will get free or discounted broadband (subsidised by charges to business and government, and money from the not-yet-launched Mega).

Sorry, but the bus just doesn’t go out that far.

Even at the height of Megaupload, Mr Dotcom didn’t have $US400 million to spare for a Sydney-Auckland-LA cable.

His proposal to fund the project by suing Hollywood studios is the stuff of fantasy.

And as for the parallel suggestion of crowdfunding … that’s a neat idea for a $ 1 million project. Not so much for one that costs half a billion.

Dotcom mentioned Pacific Fibre co-founder Sam Morgan as a possible partner, but Mr Morgan told Stuff the pair had not discussed the project.

Bruce Simpson is the second:

From where I stand, this is not looking good for Kimmy and smacks of desperation. One can’t help but get the impression that he’s effectively trying to buy the support of NZers in his battle against the looming issue of extradition to the USA.

The silly thing is that he doesn’t need to make promises like this, most Kiwis are probably right behind him. This inducement to support Kimmy smacks of the campaign contributions paid to John (“where am I? I forgot everything”) Banks and the way he bought his residency by investing in NZ at the suggestion of the NZ government.

Of course, in case it may have slipped your mind, Kim won’t be able to kick a few hundred million into the Pacific Fibre project unless he’s freed from threat of extradition to the USA and his currently frozen assets/funds are thawed.

And what an inducement he’s offering to make sure that happens.

Unfortunately, I suspect that many Kiwis will see this move for what it probably is — a blatant attempt to buy his way out of a difficult situation.

Given the way that our politicians have dipped their hands into his pockets at every opportunity, in return for granting favours, I can understand why KD probably thinks this will work — but I’m afraid he’s likely to come out sorely disappointed.

Veteran publisher Barry Colman has decided to quit publishing for a quieter life at age 65.

While applauding and respecting Barry’s longevity, extreme amounts of wealth and exit strategy I have to say – you left us with Todd Scott? 

Bloggers will remember that it was Colman who gracefully cleaned up Todd Scott’s mess.

From the Granny “H”

Colman told BusinessDesk he had been “in negotiation with Westpac and Todd for a number of weeks on the succession plan. I can’t give you the details of the transaction, but it’s a commercial transaction.”

NBR readership figures show its audience split roughly 50/50 between 52,000 readers of the weekly print edition and some 55,000 monthly unique browsers, an undisclosed number of whom pay subscription fees for access to pay-walled material.

BusinessDesk understands the NBR masthead is carried in the company’s books at a value in excess of $30 million.

Todd Scott has a bit of kissing and making up to do before the Bloggers Union forgives him.

For telling the truth about Joris de Bore and his silly reports

Race Relations Commissioner Joris de Bres appears to regret white folk live longer and not enough are in jail.

A taxpayer-funded report called A Fair Go for All from the Human Rights Commission, of which Mr de Bres is part, says that despite Europeans making up 68% of the population, only 33% of those in prison are Europeans.

Which compares with 49% Maori and 11.3% Pacific Islanders – who make up only 15% and 7%, respectively, of the overall population.

Jock’s honesty and balls make him one of the only journalists who I think would manage to keep a decent blog.

Does Mr De Bres advocate the jailing of more white people to “balance” the high percentage of jailed Maori and Pacific Island criminals?

Does he want more Europeans to take up smoking, heavy drinking and eating rubbish food to enable the white death rate to catch up?

It certainly sounds like it.

Of course.  Everything percentage has to match the race statistics doesn’t it?

ᔥ Cactus Kate

Cactus Kate has some advice for the wealthy wanting to avoid the gaze of publicity that NBR has and a way for NBR to massively increase their revenue and remove the paywall at the same time:

The best thing the NBR could do for revenue is forget the paywall and ask each wealthy person or family for $10,000 or $50,000 to stay off the list. Kind of a “Michelle Boag” in reverse, pay us and you will stay out of the press. Many would fork out even more. No other publication does as extensive analysis. Rumour has it PR companies are actually employed to ensure the write up for their clients is correct. Once you are pinged as being worthy to be on this list it is very hard to get off unless you suffer public catastrophy or protest your poverty.