Browsing: Guardian

News
Data dump: papering over the cracks?
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For some, ink on paper is anachronistic and wasteful. For others, there’s still some romance to tangibility. And, unlike vinyl or CDs, books are still a pretty efficient delivery system for words and pictures as there are no batteries to charge, you can read it relatively safely in the bath and it’s resistant to sand. The media is predisposed to covering the old vs. the new. The old generally tends to lose, so ears pricked up after word of increased physical book sales and declining e-reader sales in major markets in December. So how are physical book sales tracking in New Zealand? And is it a blip or a curve?

Opinion
Meta-news: the good online oil on the phone hacking scandal
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It has all the key ingredients of a holy grail story that would be right at home in the News of the World: secrets, politics, royalty, skullduggery, dubious ethics and alleged bribery. And yet the 168-year-old tabloid renowned for nabbing such stories closed on Sunday after it emerged it had hacked into the phones of murder victims and allegedly also 9/11 victims, royals and politicians. As you can imagine, there’s a whole heap of information, commentary and satire available online about the scandal. And we’ve collected the best of it so you don’t have to.

News
New Zealand’s 100% Pure brand gets flamed by BBC
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For over ten years now, Tourism New Zealand’s 100% Pure New Zealand campaign has been a staple brand for marketing New Zealand to the world. But whether we ought to be laying such a pure claim at all has come under fire on many occasions, most recently on BBC programme Hardtalk where John Key was left sweating after host Stephen Sackur put some tough questions to the Prime Minister about the clean and green image on which New Zealand prides itself.

News
Anarchy in the USA
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Four decades of monster-related carnage, epic natural disasters and ruthless alien invasions caught on film and mixed with a jaunty Gershwin number. Those New Yorkers are a resilient bunch.

Despite what mother said, laughing at the expense of others is the best kind of laughing.

An …