Monday 29 January 2007

'News' from The Herald

Russell Brown's Hard News/Public Address site and David Farrar's Kiwiblog are "worthwhile reads, maintained by a dedicated group of talented writers and thinkers."
But most bloggers - and we're talking 95 per cent - are fly by night, gutless wonders who prefer to spit venom under inarticulate pseudonyms…

These bloggers, operating under their own misguided belief of self-freedom rarely research any offerings and have little knowledge of defamation laws and other publishing restrictions. Journalists, broadcasters, columnists and politicians are common targets - and this week we've seen the boundaries stretched intolerably far.
So says the Herald's editorial yesterday, written (ironically) by an anonymous editorial writer. Hat tip for this delightful piece goes to Russell Brown himself, who notes:
Ironically, the editorial appears above a column by Ms Coddington, who accused one or more of the Public Address team of being "insane bloggers." Mediawatch ran a good report on the controversy that provoked the insult: the response to Codders' dodgy Asian Angst story for North and South. The audio is here.
Now, back to spitting venom at journalists, broadcasters, columnists and politicians.

UPDATE: Speaking of Herald columnists who are just crying out to have bloggers spit venom at them, the vicious Cactus Kate has a highly entertaining and thoroughly deserved go at the vacuous Rachel Glucina. (Who she?) RESULT: Cactus 10. Herald on Sunday columnist, 0.

LINK: In other news, the sky is falling - Hard News

RELATED: Politics-NZ

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

The Herald op-ed made some good points which I was going to blog about myself.

Some of these bloggers need to be taken out - and it needs someone with the money and time to use the legal process to test this. Google needs to be held accountable.

Also, as the Herald said, bloggers who link approvingly to neo-nazi thugs like crusader rabbit - whose writers regularly suggest murdering one's political opponents are also culpable.

Bring it on.

Peter Cresswell said...

Oh look, a fly by night, gutless wonder who prefers to spit venom under inarticulate anonymity.

Berend de Boer said...

PC, your daily posts have more insight than the O'Herald of a week. So I suppose it's a badge of honour if the O'Herald notices bloggers. Would it have anything to do with the dropping subscription rates?

Selling a dead tree product written by incoherent raving journos isn't exactly a hot product anymore.

Cactus Kate said...

"prefer to spit venom under inarticulate pseudonyms"

So with all this sudden ethics and morality at HOS the "Guess Who Don't Sue" section is toasted then?.

You know, the one that spits venom and hides behind poorly drafted adjectives so in theory they can't get sued...