Knightly Views with Gavin Ellis
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I have been reading the tea leaves in the bottom of the online subscription cup.
My fortune-telling has been assisted by some very interesting international statistics.
The pattern in the bottom of the cup is telling me that the winner-takes-most paywall phenomenon that has characterised the US market may not be repeated in the New Zealand market in the longer term. Continue reading “Dregs in the paywall teacup”
For a moment I thought Enid Blyton was about to suffer the same fate as Dr Seuss.
The Daily Express headline screamed at me: Five get cancelled! Enid Blyton’s work ‘racist and xenophobic’ The Daily Mail fumed: Enid Blyton fans slam English Heritage ‘insulting’ re-appraisal of children’s author’s work as “racist and xenophobic”. Then Piers Morgan waded in: “Leave Enid Blyton alone, you woke w*****s”.
Oh dear, I thought, the Famous Five were headed for the same oblivion as I Ran the Zoo and five other titles Dr Seuss Enterprises will no longer publish because they contain racist images. Continue reading “Time we woke up about Cancel Culture”
Pandemics require two things: The efficient administering of effective vaccines, and truth.
I need reassurance that the country is receiving both.
The first is the only way we achieve herd immunity without the need for large funeral pyres. The second is vital to maintain public confidence and faith that the Government will get the job done.
Weeks before New Zealand Herald columnist Matthew Hooton wrote his column last Thursday suggesting the supply of vaccine was running out, I had that niggly journalistic sensation in my scalp that there were things we (the public) were not being told. Continue reading “A little spin goes too far in a pandemic”
New hate speech laws are heading our way and we may have grounds to dislike them. In fact, we might hate them.
Communication Minister Kris Faafoi has provided Cabinet with an indication of what we can expect in legislation that was flagged following the Christchurch mosque attacks. We will see legislation that seeks to change the incitement provisions of the Human Rights Act and make incitement a criminal offence under the Crimes Act.
The thinking in Faafoi’s 11-page Cabinet paper parallels some of the thinking in proposed British legislation that is considerably more wide ranging. The UK Bill attempts to regulate harmful digital communications in way that far outstrips our own laws in that area by imposing on the likes of Facebook and Twitter a ‘duty of care’. Continue reading “A four-letter word spells trouble for media”
