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Reader Comments on Aardvark Daily 4 July 2002

Note: the comments below are the unabridged submissions of readers and do
not necessarily reflect the opinions of the publisher.

 

From: Tom Vavasour
For : The Editor (for publication)
Subj: Arts funding vs net funding

Here's a link that combines the 2.

www.tbi.co.nz





From: Against Stupidity
For : The Editor (for publication)
Subj: Are you high?

Are you high?

I'm asking this question with regards to your front page
that advocates government subsidies for failed websites.

Firstly, I'd ask you how this could ever work in a
practical sense! How would you decide amongst the huge
range of media available on the internet who gets subsidies
and who doesn't.

And given that the amount of information available on the
internet is far higher than the number of New Zealand
musicians funded by the government how are you possibly
going to fund this thing?!

But not only is your idea impractical, your example is
totally ridiculous too and goes against any similar
criteria used by New Zealand on Air.

Just to remind you, your example was newsbox.co.nz a
website that only had about 20-30 users a day and is an
idea echoed and rehashed on hundreds of other different
websites (i.e. a forum for NZers).

Compare this to the instances where funding is offered for
New Zealand programs. The program has to be original or
there has to be a LACK of that kind of programming
available on Television at the moment. But REGARDLESS of
whether a program meets once of the first two criteria, a
program still has to have proven mass appeal or appeal to
government special interest groups such as Maori.

All of the above criteria would not be satisfied by
newsbox.co.nz.

Internet content as a whole would also fail to satisfy the
reason for NZ on Air Funding. New Zealand on Air funding is
dished out because there is little to no chance of a New
Zealand identity emerging on our television screens without
it(because of high production costs) , yet the internet
does not have this problem! There is a wide variety of NZ
internet content on the web at the moment made possible due
to low production costs and the ease at which material can
be setup. This also means that possible "internet artists"
can maintain a job whilst also maintaining a website (thus
invalidating a call for an "internet artists dole").

Subsidies for "Internet Artists" are unneccessary, wasteful
and are simply an example of good old fashioned stupidity.





From: Anne
For : The Editor (for publication)
Subj: Government money for websites

Government or corporate sponsorship of selected Kiwi web
sites certainly seems like a sensible idea. One could argue
that some of the NZ-on-air funding should go to the
internet because:
    1  people's on-line time is frequently 'taken' from
       their TV-watching time
    2  the reasons for government sponsorship of Kiwi
       programmes (so that we see our own views, faces and
       lifestyles) must be just as valid for net content
    3  people from overseas who wish to find out about NZ
       will probably use the internet -- and isn't in all
       our interests to have good sites in prominent
       positions for them to find?
    4  the most effective way to up-skill NZers in the use
       of this new medium is to have high-interest sites
       of relevance to NZers to visit.

Perhaps the reason there is no government funding at
present is simply that no-one has suggested or asked for
it.

How about a campaign similar to the 'faxyourmp' campaign
in Britain. In fact, why doesn't someone clever set up a
similar 'faxyourmp' or 'emailyourmp' site for New
Zealanders?

But in the mean time, perhaps lots of people should start
telling politicians that government assistance to worthy
websites promoting NZ or serving NZers would be a Good
Thing.





From: Dave
For : The Editor (for publication)
Subj: Is Snobbery Stifling Local Web Content?

Bruce wrote:

>> Can they get government funding?
>> Hell no!

Your article doesn't mention who has actually applied for
government funding. Have any applications with merit been
turned down?



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