Thursday, November 12, 2009

Editing the Herald poll

As most of you will no doubt be aware, last week saw the sad, albeit hopefully temporary, end of the online Herald poll, after an army of online cybercriminals, probably learning their tactics from violent video games, made polls come out approximately 50%-50%, instead of the 96%-4% result they were designed to achieve.

I think that made us all a little sad, but I have good news - the first Editing the Herald poll! Every day every week whenever I can be bothered, you, the reader, will be able to express your opinion... in poll form! It's democracy in action.

Today's question is:

Which story would did you most like to see on page A3 of the New Zealand Herald?
  • A report on a daring cheese theft?
  • An article about the estranged, adopted daughter of a washed-up former celebrity?
I realise that this may be a tough decision, so here's a cheat sheet.

"Cheese burglars take the biscuit" *chuckle*

Two people have been arrested and charged with burglary after allegedly hauling several boxes of cheese off a train and into their vehicle.

[...] A rail worker passing by at around 7am spotted the pair running back and forth across a rail line, loading boxes into a car near Halcombe - about 30km northwest of Palmerston North.

As he approached, they sped off in the car before throwing boxes of cheese out of the window at him, trying to get him off their tails.

Sounds exciting. But then there's:

"Police drop charges against Millie Elder"

A smiling Millie Elder left court today after police dropped three serious drug charges against her.

The estranged daughter of broadcaster Paul Holmes was facing charges including possession of methamphetamine - also known as P, two charges of possessing ecstasy (class B) and one charge of receiving stolen property.

It doesn't look like she's smiling to me. Anyway, it's good to see that the Herald is giving an appropriate amount of attention to the struggles of a clearly troubled young woman, and giving her the support she clearly needs by putting photos of her in the paper. But in one sense it's worrying: if the newspaper business model folds, and quality journalism goes with it, who will bring these stories to the public's attention? How will democracy function, how will society function if... oh, sorry, I seem to have drooled on my keyboard.


Anyway, I don't actually know how to put a poll on here so you're all just going to have to imagine it.

19 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  3. 1 vote for the cheese story. It's the only way to add culture to the Herald....

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  4. I dunno, it's not really the Herald's fault that nothing happens in NZ. Maybe they should put the world news at the front and put the NZ celebrity cheese news in Sideswipe where it belongs.

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  5. Look, let's face it, if your country is the laughing stock of the rest of the world (you don't even have real names for your islands?!) then you might as well laugh along.

    http://tinyurl.com/cheesepuns

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  6. Dear Rude Person,
    There are a few small things happening here. They may not be newsworthy on your planet, ya know, stuff that might be boring for the Paritai Drive demographic, sorry bout that. Recession, Government debt at $1B/month, NZ troops in Afghanistan, Inflation, Unemployment, Housing shortages, Billion dollar tax frauds by foreign banks, yada yada.

    Let the unwashed masses eat cake. Gossip and trivia is what we need to sustain us in these times.

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  7. yeah sure ropata.

    what the media should do is just write stories over and over and over, regardless of whether there is any credible news of the day.

    the herald should just stick a revolving headline on the front page every day: recession day #435 - it's still not over. troops in afghanistan day #1001 - they're still there. inflation - it's going up / down. ad infinitum.

    What a great product that would be. And a prize to the first wise mother f*cker who posts 'but that's what they do anyway'.

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  8. "what the media should do is ..."
    drum roll...but that's what they do anyway.
    Your mistake is "should", and you've already acknowledged it, so I think you get the prize. (what was it? actually, don't bother)

    "What a great product that would be".
    Ah... NOW I understand the "should", you work in APN's marketing department (it's a separate department? chuckle...) and news is a traditional product.

    You have HALF the comments before this one. Please sit down and shut up, at least for while?!

    By the way: your final sentence in the last comment is dreadful.

    Anyway, sorry about that, James: For what it's worth I don't really care about the cheese story, it was short/weird enough, but the Millie Elder celeb-P saga makes me want to cut off someone's hands.

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  9. I've said before that anyone abusing anyone will get deleted. Anyway.

    I think there is plenty of news going on to report. If this is the first time you've been reading my blog, you may not know that I don't actually care about keeping a failing business model's head above water as it responds with a fire sale that destroys everything that was good about it in the first place.

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  10. sorry James, but fuck is now an acceptable word in New Zealand.

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  11. the prize, ken, is to post something that tries to be clever and fails miserably.

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  12. There are few things I enjoy more than a bad pun. I heart 'I *heart* Raclette'.

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  13. Did they really? Cool..well..not really for you, but you should write to the Herald and see if you can get yourself in there on A3 with a Frowny Faced victims report that re-iterates the ever escalating levels of violent home invasions caused by kilos of P being smoked by crazed youths who've played too much Grand Theft Auto and weren't disciplined well enough because smacking isn't OK or is it.

    Then you'd be famous.

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  14. Marty... then you'd be Christine Rankin. Also in a moment of self awareness I might add after years or swearing like blind blacksmith and never really giving it a second thought it has come to may attention that saying an expletive is far less confrontational than typing it because of the lack of intonation... TAAAAAANGENT. Apologies I have gone a little off topic.

    For what its worth the Cheese Story wins for me as "Cheese" seems to be the running theme of the Herald/Fairfax/New Zealands Media in general. That and Millie Elder is so five minutes ago

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  15. dont crackers go better with cheese? so wouldn't "cheese thieves take the cracker" have been cleverer and more appropriate? come on Herald pun writer. Your not earning your croissant (or maybe "bread" would have been better.....)

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  16. Oh I do apologise. Being English I write headlines in English, and cheese and biscuits is correct. Sadly, in this backward fuckshack of a country, you speak kuuuuuuuuywi.

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  17. @Anonymous

    http://ifyoulikeitsomuchwhydontyougolivethere.com/

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  18. I very much doubt you did write the headline.

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  19. Do the English seriously eat biscuits with cheese rather than crackers? How bizarre.

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