From the Granny

What does that have to do with the fabled Tower? Why do you call the Herald "Granny"?

Surely you can't be *that* dense...

The Space Elevator will be more 'Babelesque', since it will actually reach to the heavens.

"Granny" as in "Granny Herald", New Zealand's biggest paper. To understand why it got the name, remember that it was entirely black and white until about ten years ago. Looked old and was packed full of old news. Only one of these things has changed.

The planet's only truly infinite resource is human stupidity. Some of us are better reservoirs than others.

This tower looks awesome! One kilometre, that is seriously staunch.

And Samf, the Herald isn't that bad. You grow to appreciate it when you realise all papers in the USA and Europe suck, no matter what language they are in.

You mean apart from a really high tower built as a monument to the wealth of a people, in the middle east? Gee, I dunno. Maybe if it falls down we'll end up with a whole lot of different languages.

And Hauser, get a grip. The Guardian, Times of London, Le Monde, The New York Times, The Washington Post, created in societies with real print media cultures. Actual, intelligent, thoughtful political commentaries, as opposed to Garth George, John Roughan, and the rest of the twats. The Herald is shite, and the only reason it can persist in its publication is because there's no competition. You really need to stop defending the pathetic monopolist and duopolist media we have in this country.

not so, as long as you stay away from the tabloids...

um, I am told that this article says that they are planning to build a tower 1008m tall just outside of Tokyo. Anyone here read Japanese?

Oh you petty cosmopolitan petit bourgeoise!

Le Monde is best of the ones you stated IMO (though Le Monde Diplomatique is an excellent magazine). Guardian is good (but overrated nevertheless), Times of London is shite, New York Times is fucking awful (a backwards shithouse paper that is unable to get outside American bigotry).

I can tell you this much: after 3 weeks in Europe of every single day buying El Mundo/El Pais and plus always one english-speaking paper (Normally the Guardian, but sometimes the Times of London, or other papers), I wanted to get myself a copy of the Herald desperately. A couple of Spanish papers easily beat the Guardian too, in terms of a good level of coverage but also excellent analysis and not regurgitating information.

The Herald reports world news better than most of the above papers, and far more extensively. It reports local news very well, better than many of the above papers. My only major criticism of the Herald is it's extreme bias toward Winston Peters that has existed for the last decade and a bit. They slammed the Winebox, and now continue to abuse the shit out of him even when there is absolutely no grounds for it.

You're falling into Samf's trap when he criticises the Listener, in that you guys are lapsing into Tall Poppy syndrome. A nationalist like myself is disgusted when I see our local media criticised, including our AWESOME TV news, when it's totally unjustified!

I noticed the herald does use a lot of overseas pieces. So i wouldn't say it is totally local.

As for NZ media, true, it is a lot better than elsewhere. But from my encounter with it, all we have are a bunch of pseudo journalists. Like any other the media here maintains the norm whether it is right or wrong.

Hauser, just like American nationalists are disgusted with people criticising their "awesome" foxnews and cnn.

Thanks for your call on that Antiflag, but quite honestly, you too are another victim of tall poppy syndrome. Watch CNN for one hour, then watch the BBC for one hour, then watch One News for an hour, and you'll start to think the way I think.

And that is an ignorant comment about nationalism. I'm proud of New Zealand when I feel we are doing something correctly, and in media, we hugely punch above our own weight for our tiny size and relative lack of economic prosperity. I could equally criticise you for being pathetically cosmopolitan (and being a tall poppy, as I stated above) who has a colonial-failure syndrome.

I'm not a nationalist. True. A government can do both good and bad, so your nationalist sentiments can be undulating. I find nationalism weak in this regard. Not to mention blinding. How do i have a colonial-failure syndrome? It would be interesting to know.

All news sources pale in comparison to the glory that is fark.

I don't really have any international comparisons to make. All I see is that most of the Herald these days seems to be advertisements, half the weekend stories have nothing to them once you read past the puff, and the 'excellent' world section is usually about 1.5 full pages long. Could do better.

As for the Listener, I have no axe to grind against it. Used to love it. But it seems to be swinging away from the smart commentary and NZ arts stuff that got me into it. Plus it used to be arrogant and have a lot more injokes. I liked that.

Now it runs the kind of cover stories you might find in Next or any of Wilson & Horton's other lifestyle magazines; there's way more advertising than before (including 6 pages or more of 'advertising features' on new cars etc); the new look wastes space without seeming any more modern and exciting; and everywhere I look there's a pointless Top Ten, an "Our Favourite" something to buy on the Listener website, or an inane agony aunt column to fill in space.

Not that it utterly sucks - it's just miles behind where it used to be, and it's no longer so special, that's all. :(

Well Hauser, I guess I'm about as un-nationalist as you can get in this country, and believe that nationalism is a ridiculous, destructive force that blinds us to difference. So if I'm cosmopolitan, fuck yeah I'm cosmopolitan.

I find it ridiculous to be accused of tall poppy syndrome though, man. My criticisms of the Listener come from many, many years of reading it. It used to be my favourite, and I would read it cover to cover every week, but Pamela Stirling has turned it into a pile of absolute shite, and you and she appear to be the only ones who don't think so. Jane Clifton has gotten into bed with the nats, literally, and yes, Brian Easton is good, but he's taking turns with David Young, for crying out loud. Why don't they just reprint articles from the NBR, for christ's sake. Tim Wilson is probably the only really talented journalist they've had in the last 10 years, and both he and Matt Nippert (the other talented journalist) have gone to New York.

As for the Herald. Garth George Garth George Garth George Garth George Garth George Garth George Garth George Garth George Garth George Garth George Garth George. Not to mention Jim Hopkins, Sideswipe, and the insightful, well-thought out and not at all reactionary letters column. Tall poppies have nothing to do with it. Most of the World news is reprinted from those papers you so happily bag anyway, and if your idea of local news is propoganda for the roading lobby, then good luck to you. But tall poppy syndrome? Perhaps your buying into nationalist mythologies is blinding you to real and deeply felt concerns that cannot be summed up in three-word phrases that are trotted out to quash criticism.

:chiang:

Alright, person by person. And let's make one thing clear, I am not some nutjob nationalist who burns effigies of people in my backyard. I am a strong Labour supporter who is an absolutely ardent multiculturalist, but I don't give New Zealand shit when it's not deserved.

Antiflag

My nationalist sentiments are not blind. I oppose various economic and foreign policies of the nation, but I don't criticise them for the sake of them being home-grown New Zealand ones. The colonial-failure syndrome comment was in regard to what I would say was your unnecessary criticism of the NZ media from the perspective that you seemed to be criticising them purely on the basis that they were from New Zealand.

Samf
I agree with you that the Listener has gone downhill definitely, and am happy that you don't totally hate it! :P I still think that enough of it is readable for me to maintain a subscription, with Brian Easton, Jane Clifton, Finlay what's-his-name and interesting other articles too.

Maus
Christ, your criticism is effective, I'll give you that. But the Listener isn't that terrible. You're implying it's somehow on the same level as Time Magazine, or how National Geographic was 20 years ago, when it really isn't. It's got a target audience, the middle and upper class, and I think it does what that audience want, plus a lot more. True, it's gone downhill, but it still isn't the fucking satanic guide to bourgeoise existence that you paint it to be.

Garth George is retiring, you don't need to read Hopkins, and quite honestly the Herald is harldy a centre-right paper. It criticises the shit out of National when criticism is due, and indeed in my opinion leaned toward Labour during the election campaign, though that is from pretty anecdotal reading of it admittedly.

Nationalist mythologies? Man, as I said above, I'm not some rabid fascist. I just think that you are giving these guys too much shit. The Herald and the Listener are not the second incarnation of Christ, but IMHO they cater to Kiwi's well.

Part of my reason for the defense of these guys is that I am seeing the Left in New Zealand lapse into the same level of delusion that allowed Nixon to maintain relatively high levels of popularity. 'Liberals' (in the USA sense of the word) there were unable to see their own arrogance of middle America was isolating them from their very support base.

I never criticised them for the sake of them home-grown. That's your assumption. I criticise where it is deserved.

Then again, since I may be reviewing for North and South next year, I couldn't possibly comment further on the Listener...

hold up, the world section is just a few pages tacked onto the sports section. World news is far more extensively reported in continental Europe. It has to be when the countries are all so close to each other.

The national section of the Herald is usually fairly good. And there is worthwhile stuff in the Listener. My criticism of both publications is not that they're rubbish and New Zealanders are awfully served by them. It's that their generally decent quality and standard of content - particularly with the Listener - seems to be gradually falling victim to ever increasing advertising, lots of white space on glossy pages, and increasingly shallow lead stories.

Almost every time I look at the Listener, the cover story is dealing with some kind of lifestyle or health issue - weight loss, the problems of multi-tasking, the perfect diet, et cetera. The new formatting - big banners at the bottom, photos stuck awkwardly into text, big captions and massive portrait photos - seems to mask the fact that the articles are generally shorter with less real content than before.

The Listener used to also have a different tone to it when Findlay Macdonald and Steve Braunias edited it - more geeky, more sarcastic and in-jokey, and yes, maybe a little elitist. But that was what made it fun to read week after week. Now it still has good elements, but I somehow think of Canvas and Sunday View whenever I read it... it's lost that spark. If it was *truly* awful, that in a way would not be so bad. The way things are now, it's like seeing the slow decline of an old friend. Maybe I exaggerate. But that's how it feels to a long-time reader.

That's not true at all, man. World news in Spanish/British papers is ridiculously poor quality.

Samf

Not to jinx, but that would be fucking awesome if you were to review for N&S!

I actually broadly agree with your criticism, though I still remember one particular Listener cover a couple of years back that totally satirised it's own lifestyle readers, which had a picture of a woman in fancy clothes begging for money and with a title like "Why are the middle classes always whinging?"

But yes, I do agree with your criticism of their lifestyle focus, and would love it if it focussed more on intellectual matters. However, quite honestly I have never expected it, and it's always been a pleasant surprise if they include something fundamentally elitist in there (which is why I savour Easton's columns, apart from the fact I think he is one of the world's current greatest living economists).

The analogy to the decline of a long time friend admittedly rang true for me even as a reader of some years of the Listener. We need to start flooding the fuckers with fanmail of Easton!

Britain isn't continental Europe, and I haven't been to Spain, but I've been reading European newspapers for the last two or so months, and they have at least 4x as much international news in them as The Herald does.

Spain is continental Europe and has a lot of newspapers.

okay right this mornings Herald has 3 pages of world news, all articles copied from external sources, excepting one opinion piece by one Nick Squires about jumping crocodiles in Australia.

Lets take a look at the article on the front page about Australia. It was written by Adam Gartrell of the Sydney Morning Herald, and is about some australian yobs going on a riot to get "Lebbys" off Cronulla Beach (wherever that is). All the article does is tell us what happened. It does not explain what a lebby is, or anything at all to do with the history of the tensions in the area. Now obviously if you were in Sydney you should know the history already, but the same cannot be expected of a New Zealander.

We're gonna have to disagree on that one I'm afraid. It really is week after week of feature articles about house prices. Anyone would think there are no real issues that are facing this country that deserve to be explored in depth. And that certainly didn't used to be the case under Finlay MacDonald and Paul Little. Sure, there was the occaisonal weight loss/house price article, but not every week. There were real articles, about land access, the effects of economic policies of various commercial sectors, all sorts of things. Now, every week we get to read about when the house pricing bubble will burst. They actually had a feature article about interior decorating, and this week it's a feature about how our entrepreneurs all dropped out of school when they were 15. It's a hagiography of the nation's capitalists, and a veneration of our anti-intellectual culture. As you say, Satanic Guide to Bourgeoise Existence.

In terms of the Herald, I don't read Jim Hopkins, and only read Garth George when I want to get angry, but the fact that these guys play such an important role in the identity of the Herald, the fact that the Herald thinks anything they write is worth publishing, severely undermines its credibility. For me, the most important part of any paper is the Opinions -- they're the part that really influence public discourse, and they should be of the highest quality. I don't mind if I disagree with someone, as long as reading them stimulates thought -- instead, all you get is half-baked, poorly researched drivel that plays to prejudices and never offers any real insights. Apart from Tapu Misa, who is worth reading, this seems to be de rigeur at The Herald, and I think they do a disservice to our democracy by publishing these opinions.

The 'national mythologies' was in reference to your invocation of the Tall Poppy Syndrome. By ascribing this syndrome to me (and Sam and Anti-Flag), you bestowed some mythical national characteristic on us which placed us in the context of your nation, and attempted to foreclose on our criticisms of that nation. You don't have to be a rabid fascist to buy into these mythologies, and use them to circumscribe discursive possibilities.

The Doctor
As I will mention again below, today's Herald was not particularly great. Nevertheless, it's still more world news than I was used to reading in Spain across about 5 different national-level newspapers. The Guardian when I got to read it just talked about Iraq and nothing more. So I still think the actual breadth of the Herald's coverage is very positive as it allows you to be lightly informed about a wide variety of foreign events.

Maus
The Media
I must say, your rhetoric was hugely impressive in your criticism of The Listener. However, I still maintain that the cover stories themselves aren't purely indicative of the content, and indeed just because the covers are venerations of our anti-intellectual culture (which in my opinion isn't even necessarily a bad thing), it doesn't mean the content is fundamentally different.

Let's take the issue from December 3 to 9 I have in front of me. Its cover story is admittedly quasi-bourgeois ("Why Smart People Underperform: the myth of multi-tasking and How To Beat Stress"), but inside, it has a good story about the Depression's effect on NZ, an analysis of whether The Lion The Witch and the Wardrobe is "reactionary" (yes, they used the word) and an interesting article about counter-colonisation with Britain in terms of our exports and branding. And yes, Brian Easton, Russell Brown and Jane Clifton have good articles in it.

I am becoming inclined to agree with your criticism of the Herald, after today's utterly awful performance, but still, read foreign papers for an extended period, and you'll see why I think we shouldn't obsessively be shitslinging.

Nationalism

But Tall Poppy Syndrome is not myth, it is fact. Tall Poppy Syndrome is what infected Labour in the 1980s and additionally what continues to infect the National and ACT parties. It is characteristic of much of the intellectual bourgeoise in this nation, and across other colonial societies where people are unable to escape from feelings of inferiority and inadequacy due to their distance from what they perceive to be centres of civilisation and development (Naipaul for one epitomises these people).

Either way, I don't think criticising the New Zealand media is criticisng the New Zealand nation, and thus this isn't actually linked intrinsically to nationalism, but rather just attacking aspects of New Zealand's culture in an unnecessary manner without providing a viable alternative.

And finally, there seems to be an implication that nationalism itself is linked intrinsically with the political right, which is absolutely false. In New Zealand currently, I'd say that nationalism is actually linked with the economic left (Labour, Progressives, NZ First and the Greens) and that the dominant parties of the right (ACT and National) have totally rejected nationalism instead in favour of free-market internationalism.

The Sunday Herald is by and large, a disgrace. Instead of coming up with a quality product to rival the Star-Times, they simply decided to take on the NZ News and Truth tabloids and use the NZH name to sell it. The smaller format is simply barbaric and WH took the easy way out as far as I'm concerned.

Haha yeah definitely agreed. I can't stand reading it either.

:chiang:

As a patriot, I believe that it would be appropriate to criticize the faults in our society and government. For example, in the 'Herald' you get only 1.5 pages of international news (they's not even enough to be used as a cheap towel after showering) and the rest are mostly trashy sections (apart from employment, local news and business). What goes on elsewhere in the world has always been more interesting, and I'd like to see more international news.

There is no proof that cosmopolitanism is a direct opposite of nationalism. You can be as global as you want, but always remember that everyone has a country or place of origin. By adopting foreign ideas, it does not mean that one must shed his own culture.


As I was asking earlier, why is this being compared to the Toer of Bable? Is it just because of the height or does it entail a reach to Heaven?

No, it's cause of the Taco store they're putting in on the ground floor.