It wasn’t just $55 million

Winston Peters reckons media outlets were bribed by the $55 million Public Interest Journalism Fund.

He is not the first to make such an accusation.

Last year, the Platform outlined conditions media signed up to in return for funds from the PJIF:

. . . That is essentially how the Public Interest Journalism Fund is set up – like a loan. Not only do applicants have to thoroughly explain how they will adhere to the particular co-governance model of understanding the Treaty in order to get the funding in the first place, they have to agree that should they deviate from presenting this perspective NZ On Air can say that they have defaulted on the agreement and demand the funding be repaid. . . 

What are the odds that a funding application that included a ‘Te Tiriti response’ that disputed modern ideas of co-governance – even criticised it – would get funded? Slim to none would be my expectation.

Instead, Kiwis wanting to produce and create their content will need to leaf through the provided Framework, tick the boxes, and fall in line. That means, among other things, promoting ideas laid out in He Puapua, agreeing that due to colonialism we live in a society that perpetuates racism, supporting a vision for constitutional reform of New Zealand, and restructuring of “non-Government organisations…according to te Tiriti o Waitangi”. . . 

If you click on the link above you’ll find the general terms of the agreement include default if you breach the agreement or if we reasonably believe you are likely to breach this agreement.

That would have made the media very, very cautious and very, very unlikely to cover dissenting views.

Karl du Fresne called it Project Pravda:

. . . The government has done its best to ensure continued media support for this ideological project by creating a $55 million slush fund supposedly created to support “public interest journalism” but available only to news organisations that commit themselves to the promotion of the so-called principles (never satisfactorily defined) of the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi. 

What has been framed as an idealistic commitment to the survival of journalism is, in other words, a cynical and opportunistic bid for control over the news media at a time when the industry is floundering.  This is a government so shameless, or perhaps so convinced of its own untouchability, that it’s brazenly buying the media’s compliance. . . 

Was the PJIF bribery?

Definitions of bribe include: dishonestly persuade (someone) to act in one’s favour by a gift of money or other inducement; to try to make someone do something for you, often something dishonest, by giving them money, gifts, or something else that they want; and to give money or a favour in order to influence the judgment or conduct of a person in a position of trust. 

It’s going too far to say there was dishonesty but the fund required the media to adhere to the previous government’s Treaty-centric views and influenced the way Māori issues were covered.

Ben Espiner shows it wasn’t just $55 million.

. . . In 2022 TVNZ and Stuff accepted $500,000 between them from the Government in exchange for a number of programming and print deals, including an hour long 1news special on climate change, five news articles on 1news.co.nz, a selection of interviews with climate experts on Breakfast TV and a 7 Sharp interview with a government official.

All of these were presented as news content, none of them were adequately marked as government advertising. To quote broadcaster Mike Hosking at the time ‘if that isn’t media corruption, I don’t know what is’. The story received almost no coverage other than this comment. . . 

On top of that there was a lot of advertising paid for with public money and a friend who worked in the media was told to moderate criticism of the government for fear the outlet would lose these ads and the income that came with them.

It’s no coincidence that trust in the media has declined:

The AUT research centre for Journalism, Media and Democracy (JMAD) has published its fourth Trust in News in Aotearoa New Zealand report, authored by Dr Merja Myllylahti and Dr Greg Treadwell. The 2023 report finds that general trust in the news and news brands is continuing to erode.

In 2023, general trust in news declined from 45% to 42%, continuing a downward trend that was already evident in 2020 when the survey was first conducted. . . 

In 2023, all the major New Zealand news brands suffered a considerable decline in trust. Trust in RNZ fell 14.5%, Whakaata Māori 14.3% and Newstalk ZB 14%.Smaller brands such as interest.co.nz, BusinessDesk and Crux were less impacted. . . 

The media’s hysterical outrage in response to Peters will have done nothing to improve that.

At least one outlet said his criticism had distracted attention from the Prime Minister, failing to see the irony that it was the media’s response to the criticism that created the distraction.

Some went on to criticise the PM for not hauling Peters into line in a manner not dissimilar from children running to parents to get them to discipline a sibling.

The PM isn’t Peters’ parent and his response was refreshingly measured:

. . . Luxon said, “it’s not the way I would describe it, but I actually also don’t support the fund either”.

“Many New Zealanders, they don’t think it was a good idea … and I will be one of those people that didn’t think it was a good idea.

“It actually leads to perceptions of bias, rightly or wrongly, I just say to you, that’s the perception whether that’s real or not, doesn’t really matter. That’s what the perception creates.” . . 

The response of the media to the accusations which showed no self-awareness reinforced perceptions of bias, perceptions bolstered by a survey of journalists:

. . . Fortunately, the Worlds of Journalism Study in late 2022 has now provided some useful data through their survey of working journalists.

The study found a massive 81% of NZ journalists classified their political views as left of centre and only 15% as right of centre. So rather than have a 1:1 ratio of left-leaning journalists to right-leaning journalists, you have a 5:1 ratio.

This is in stark contrast to the New Zealand population. The 2020 election survey by Auckland University found 28% of respondents identified as left of centre and 43% as right of centre. So journalists are very unrepresentative of New Zealand in terms of political views.

New Zealand journalists were also far more likely to hold extreme left views. 20% of journalists said their political views are hard or extreme left, compared to 6% of adults. On the other side of the spectrum, only 1% said their political views are hard or extreme right compared to 10% of the adult population. . . 

That’s more journalists on the far left than the total who regard themselves as right of centre which explains the government war on the new government:

We are in an extraordinary situation where the mainstream media are openly at war with an elected government. This has never happened before in my lifetime, and to my knowledge never in New Zealand history.

Having adopted a nauseatingly sycophantic approach to the former government, consistently ignoring issues that showed it in a bad light and subjecting it to only the gentlest scrutiny while mercilessly savaging the opposition, the media are now in full-on attack mode.

The level of hostility toward the Luxon-led government is striking. All pretence of balance and neutrality has been abandoned. 

The hostility isn’t universal but it’s vehement.

The message is clear. The mainstream media are sulking because they think the voters elected the wrong government. They are angry and indignant that despite all their efforts, New Zealand swung right on October 14.

They are wilfully tone-deaf to the public mood because they think they know better. It means nothing to them that the voters had had enough of Labour’s ideological excesses. At best, the high priests of the media (or should I say high priestesses, since the worst offenders are female) are indifferent to democracy; at worst, they resent it because it gives power to the hoi-polloi – the deplorables, to use Hillary Clinton’s word. . . 

Perhaps it would help if the press gallery got out of Wellington, which opted for red and green at the election in sharp contrast to the blue wave that swept the country, they might understand that there are other views than theirs and then they might also understand why voters wanted change.

It’s not just $50m for media

Karl du Fresne called the $50 million Public Interest Journalism Fund Pravda Project.

But that isn’t the only money the government has given to the media.

There’s a lot of advertising by government agencies which look a lot more like bureaucratic back patting than useful information.

A current example is repeated advertisements on the radio introducing us to researchers and directing listeners to a website for no apparent reason than self-promotion.

But what, there’s more:

Chris Lynch says the government has been manipulating news with paid content in Stuff and TVNZ.

The Government is facing accusations of manipulating news narratives, after paying TVNZ and Stuff advertising to feature content with hand-picked experts in their news segments and platforms.

In July, National’s Simeon Brown wrote to Energy and Resources Minister Megan Woods requesting the government’s advertising expenditure.

Thomas Cranmer, (not his real name) an online political commentator, first reported that the Government spent $200,000 between March 11, 2022, and November 26, 2022 with Stuff, as well as the $300,000 in November 2022 with TVNZ.

Woods said Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority (EECA) entered discussions with TVNZ on a One special partnership on 23 May 2022.

On 31 October, the contract was signed, formalising the partnership.

A TVNZ staff member told Chris Lynch Media it was standard practice for governments to advertise with media companies – “but channelling those advertisements inside of programming – on-air time – as news content in television shows was unorthodox.”

The allocated $300,000 encompassed a package of multimedia coverage across TVNZ.

This included an hour-long prime-time climate special on TV1, online content hosted at 1news.co.nz and TVNZ.co.nz with a dedicated web page, digital banners, logo placement, and pre-roll commercials.

Additionally, five articles on 1News.co.nz, five social media posts on platforms such as Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram, a week’s worth of interviews with climate and energy experts on Breakfast TV, a Seven Sharp interview with an EECA ambassador, and 12 months of on-demand hosting for the Climate Special on TVNZ+ were part of this media package.

Cranmer said “the government paying the state-owned broadcaster to run news stories and interviews with hand-picked “experts” was pure political propaganda.”

However, a Television New Zealand spokesperson said “TVNZ is a commercially funded business and advertising supports our journalism.

Advertising has generally been regarded as what happens in breaks during or between programmes, not whole programmes.

“Transparency in advertising is important. We mark broadcast integrations with verbal and visual acknowledgements. Sponsorship credits are marked on TVNZ+. Digital intergrations include a ‘sponsored by…’ tag underneath the article headline.” . . 

However, former New Zealand Herald Media Writer John Drinnan said it was naive to think that a government agency using the taxpayer to pay for a journalist to promote policies is comparable to bank.

“There are special responsibilities for journalists, especially those in state media – to hold power to account.

“We have to acknowledge that the expectations of paid copy being separate from journalism are far gone.

“I disagree with apologists among journalists who say there’s nothing to see here.

“The main issue with paid journalism is that the story is defined by the client – in these cases the government – with interpretation defined by the government and designed to reflect government policy.

“There also appears to be a lack of transparency with TVNZ claiming one paid promotion to be a “documentary”.

The hour-long climate documentary was presented by TVNZ journalists, but didn’t have credits at its conclusion.

Drinnan said there has been a marked deterioration in “paid news” over the past 10 years, which coincided with a rapid slide in public distrust for journalists. 

“I understand TVNZ smartly avoided taking money from the contentious public interest journalism fund – because it recognised the damage it would cause to the integrity of its news operation.

“Unfortunately, it has not taken as much care to prevent politicians from subverting editorial independence by the more attractive means of commercial contracts and associations.”

Megan Woods also released a breakdown of the $200,000 spent between 11 March 2022 – 26 November 2022.

“This was for a partnership between EECA and Stuff to support our key public engagement campaign that was in market over this period.

“The partnership captured and amplified stories and images of New Zealanders undertaking energy-related climate action to encourage others to do so.”

The $200,000 package included five Stuff.co.nz articles/stories written and posted on the Stuff website, display advertising across Stuff website, with a minimum of 5 million impressions (shown to readers on the site), specific video advertising placement on Stuff.co.nz to launch the campaign, five newspaper articles in Sunday Magazine, Your Weekend and Life Magazine, five Neighbourly stories across neighbourly.co.nz, “Digital Hub” (dedicated section on Stuff.co.nz) to house all the editorial content and all stories created. . . 

Simeon Brown said on Wednesday “it is very concerning that the Government appears to be using taxpayers funds to purchase advertising which purports to be news.

“The Government should be more focussed on delivering outcomes, rather than using taxpayers money trying to mask over their failures.” . . 

Every dollar this government spends comes from taxpayers or adds to its debt. None of those should be spent on propaganda.

That the propaganda purports to be news is banana republic standard which reflects badly on both the government and the media outlets.

 

U-turn, parks and more tax

Did Chris Hipkins oppose several measures the cabinet of which he was a member under the previous Prime Minister promoted, or have the polls persuaded him to change his mind?

Whichever it is, he has announced a couple of u-turns.

The expensive and unnecessary media merger of RNZ and TVNZ is off.

That’s a good u turn but the waste of the millions already spent on the scheme is not.

The biofuel mandate is stopped. That is a u-turn and a welcome one.

The compulsory income insurance scheme is stalled.

That’s not  a u turn it’s a temporary park and it’s not good. It means that if Labour wins the election it will be back.

Hate speech law has been passed to the Law Commission. That’s not a u turn, it’s diverting traffic and it’s not good either. It too will be back on Labour’s agenda should they get another term.

What is not welcome is the steep increase in the minimum wage – another $1.50.

It looks like a small amount but it’s not just $1.50 and hour, it’s the added cost of Kiwisaver and holiday pay, and multiplied over multiple employees adds a big cost to business. It will also put pressure on wages of other workers on higher wages who will want to retain the gap between what they earn and the minimum wage.

It will also push anyone who works more than a 40 hour week into the 30% tax bracket. No-one on a minimum wage should be in that bracket.

It won’t help people with children. Any increase will be offset by a decrease in Working for Families payments.

It looks like it will help the majority of people on the minimum wage who are young mostly part-timers like students or entry-level workers, but it will be inflationary and inflation erodes the real value of wages.

The government is spinning the line it’s helping the strugglers.

What it’s doing is forcing employers to pay more, fuelling inflation as a result of which it will be collecting more tax through PAYE and GST.

If it was serious about helping people it would have cut taxes, allowing people to keep a little more of their own money; and it would be taking a far more serious approach to cutting its own spending.

Highest priority for $211m a year

Jacinda Ardern was asked what she’d do if money was not a factor.

Her answer, to make all pre-school education free was, as Lindsay Mitchell points out addressing a symptom, not a cause:

Why pose such a redundant proposition when governments are scrambling to spend less? Well, most governments.

But then I thought the answer might shed light on just how naive and ineffective the PM is.

Her big idea? Free early childhood education. 

“I’d make it completely free. Completely free. And when I say completely free, I’d also give choice to families about at what point and stage their child accesses it. Because for some we know it provides stability to kids that they might not have in their home life.”

Hang on. Back up. Isn’t this putting the cart before the horse?

Perhaps you need to address why ‘some’ kids don’t have stability in their home life.

You’ve already thrown a whole lot more money at the problem due to the first wrong diagnosis and now there are thousands more children in unemployed homes. Dare I say it, unstable homes. 

But let’s look at the evidence the PM might be inclined to take heed of. Evidence produced under her own administration.

Whether or not early childhood education improves outcomes for children is at best controversial. . . 

No-one can fault the goal of improving outcomes for children but free ECE wouldn’t be the best way to do it, even if money wasn’t a factor.

No doubt the PM was thinking about the announcement she made later on about increasing childcare subsidies.

The package included increasing thresholds for the subsidies and adjusting Working For Families for inflation.

That does beg the question of why increasing those thresholds and adjusting those payments for inflation is good when, they say,  increasing thresholds for tax brackets and adjusting them for inflation is not.

It also raises questions about priorities for Labour and its leader when money has to be a factor.

One of its priorities appears to be merging RNZ and TVNZ, the rational for which has yet to be properly explained, the cost of doing which is higher than the combined value of the two entities, and now we learn TVNZ will lose $100 million in advertising a year.

The Government’s new public media entity will witness the loss of a third of TVNZ’s existing commercial revenue, equating to about $100 million a year, within five years, according to advice from officials.

This lost revenue will need to be supplemented by taxpayer funding from the Crown, which is forecast to contribute $211m a year to the entity over 30 years, roughly half of which will be used to plug the shortfall in advertising.

The commercial details were revealed in a late draft of a business case for the Government’s RNZ-TVNZ merger, obtained by the National Party.

The party’s broadcasting spokeswoman Melissa Lee said the documents showed the Government was wilfully destroying TVNZ’s commercial model and forcing the taxpayer to pick up the tab. . . 

It’s difficult to believe anyone in the government can think this is a good use of so much money and it would be hard to find anyone in the general public who would think it is, even if it wasn’t going to be borrowed money.

It would be very easy to think of much higher priorities for $211m a year over 30 years – helping people on benefits who could work into work, which would help improve outcomes for children,  and increasing health spending to address the many factors contributing to the crisis in that sector would two of them.

Many more than 10

Mike Hosking lists 10 more reasons why Labour won’t get a third term:

. . . 1. The emissions announcement, which infuriated rural New Zealand, messed with the original deal that was negotiated, and does not improve the world’s environmental record, given we already are the best there is at producing food at minimal impact.

It’s not just rural New Zealand that’s angry and worried.

The government might not be able to join the dots between sabotaging food production, reduced supply and higher prices but a lot of urban people can.

2. The inflation figure this week, which reminds us yet again that the battle is far from over, and that the Reserve Bank’s 4.1 per cent cash rate projection is going to be blown out of the water.

With the domestic component of inflation at 6ish percent, the government can’t get away with blaming it all on international factors.

3. The immigration figures last week, showing for another year more people are leaving the country than entering it, and unlike last year when it was led by foreign nationals, this year it’s led by New Zealanders.

Among those people whose skills we desperately need.

4. The ongoing numbers produced by sector after sector as to the size of their labour shortage: hospitality 30,000, nurses 21,000, truck drivers 9000, and so they keep coming.

There’s a shortage of farm workers and contractors too, which is also adding to lower production and higher prices for food.

5. The extension announced for the mental health programme that came out of Covid – why is there an extension? The demand from the mental health toll of being a hermit kingdom, and the refusal to re-open at a proper time, has devastated and decimated thousands of New Zealanders, who are, and will be, paying the price for the decision-making for years to come, if not forever.

The number of people needing mental health help is climbing and waits for help are worsening.

6. The $9 billion bill we will be picking up because the Finance Minister indemnified the Reserve Bank when they started their money printing fiasco that’s led us to the inflationary mess we currently face, but also an astonishing loss-making exercise that any fool could’ve seen coming. And that $9b by the way is today’s number. It will grow. A question that will continue to be asked for years to come is what on earth was Grant Robertson thinking indemnifying such an exercise where if you place the responsibility at the doorstep of Governor Adrian Orr, would he have printed to the extent he did?

It will grow and so will interest rates.

7. Last week’s Taxpayers’ Union poll was another of the avalanches we have seen this year that tells the same story, National and Act are your new government, a sense of the death rattle has enveloped the Government, a fairly permanent picture has been painted, and each and every poll is a nail in that particular coffin.

MMP complicates matters and it could be a year or more until the next general election but this poll follows the trend against the government.

8. The revelation that of the $66 million spent so far on Auckland’s light rail, two-thirds of it has gone on consultants, reinforcing once again that when it comes to delivery this lot couldn’t deliver pizza. Not a piece of track has been laid, the very track the Prime Minister who promised, indeed it was her very first promise as a brand new leader, so we are going back a good number of years now, would not only be laid … but finished by 2021.

More waste, another delivery failure.

9. The revelation in the select committee papers that the Government’s fair pay agreements have no backstop for industry bodies should a pay dispute require mediating. Business NZ was going to do it but got so fed up with the process it stepped out, and as predicted all power is with the unions in an ideological idea that wasn’t exactly filling people with the confidence to start with.

Imagine the uproar if a National government attempted to force changes that gave businesses the power these unfair pay agreements give unions.

10. The media merger which has seen literally everyone in the industry step forward through the submission process and explain to the Government what a nonsensical, expensive and dangerous mess this will be. However, Tracey Martin, using all her years of experience in the industry, continues to defy logic and tell us we’re all wrong. And that’s before you get to Willie “I know broadcasting” Jackson, who busies himself insulting his own media outlets with claims of lack of trust. . . .

The cost of the merger is greater than the value of RNZ and TVNZ put together.

It’s also an indictment on government priorities, not least of which is the health system  and the people who deliver its services.

But then this government  doesn’t appear to understand delivery and that is another reason why voters shouldn’t allow Labour back into power next year.

 

What the f?

What is TVNZ thinking?

A new reality show has been rocked by the revelation one of its stars took advantage of a teenager’s drunkenness to get her into bed then covered her mouth and nose to keep her quiet when she called for help.

TVNZ’s FBoy Island NZ is less than a fortnight from going to air with Wayde Moore, 26, as one of 20 young men vying for the attention of three women who must decide if they are “nice guys” or “Fboys”.

The term FBoys is slang for “f*** boy”, a term for men who never intend a sexual encounter to involve a relationship or act as if entitled to sexual encounters. . . 

What is a programme like this doing on a publicly owned television channel even without this complication?

Massey University associate professor Tracey Nicholls, author of Dismantling Rape Culture: The Peacebuilding Power of ‘Me Too’, said the premise of the show reinforced negative stereotypes of sexual relationships.

She said it reinforced the idea of sexual competition among men and women as “notches on a bed post as a game”. “I feel there has been a race to the bottom ever since reality TV started.” 

This is a whole new and very dirty bottom.

It comes in the wake of news that Broadcasting Minister Willie Jackson doesn’t know what his planned merger of RNZ and TVNZ will achieve:

The Government must explain why it is spending $370 million to merge TVNZ and RNZ, National’s Broadcasting and Media spokesperson Melissa Lee says.

“When I asked the Minister for Broadcasting and Media Willie Jackson why he was spending taxpayers’ money to merge TVNZ and RNZ in Parliament today, he was completely unable to say what that spending will achieve.

“At $370 million, the Government is going to spend more to merge RNZ and TVNZ than the combined net worth of those entities.

That’s worth repeating – the merger will cost more than the combined net worth of the two entities.

How can that be good use of public funds?

“The fact that the Minister responsible cannot articulate why this merger is necessary clearly demonstrates how wasteful and pointless it is. The lack of a Regulatory Impact Statement or a cost benefit analysis shows no attempt at openness or transparency.

“This Government is addicted to spending. In the middle of a cost of living crisis, it wants to spend $370 million on a merger that submitters on the legislation have said has ‘no vision or substantial rationale.’

“Worse, as many submissions have said, the editorial independence of the merged entity is not guaranteed.

“Willie Jackson cannot help himself. In Parliament today, he continued his call for a ‘change in attitude’ at TVNZ, which sounds worryingly like an attempt to influence the state broadcaster.

“The Minister’s performance and his inability to answer simple questions shows he is unfit for the challenges of New Zealand’s broadcasting and media sector. Kiwis and New Zealand’s media landscape deserve so much better.”

The state broadcasters’ decision to air FBOy Island does support the need for a change in thinking but merging the television company with RNZ, even without that high cost, isn’t the answer.

Then there’s the question of what TVNZ was thinking when it decided to run the show.

The only answer I can come up with is another question:  what the F?

 

Log in left eyes

Winston Peters started the criticism of Mike Hosking as a National Party stooge.

Labour leader Andrew Little and Green co-leader James Shaw joined in, followed by several left wing bloggers lamenting bias in the media, especially on state-owned TVNZ.

Hosking has an unlikely defender in Brian Edwards who says rather than being right-wing he’s a social conservative.

. . . While I’d be surprised to discover that Hosking is a closet member of the Parnell, Remuera or Epsom branches of the Labour Party  – total membership five! – I’d also risk my bottom dollar that he isn’t a member of any political party. This is, or should be the default position for any broadcaster working in the field of news or current affairs.

What Hosking betrays on Seven Sharp, on commercial radio and in his writing is not political bias but social conservatism. The two may overlap from time to time, but are inherently different. It’s entirely possible and even commonplace to be left wing and socially conservative. . . 

Whatever his views, isn’t it strange that many of the people who are so upset by Hosking thought it was absolutely marvelous that John Campbell who wears his left wing heart on his sleeve was appointed to state-owned RadioNZ  National.

Perhaps the log in their own eyes blinds them to their hypocrisy and to Hosking’s professionalism.

Both he and Campbell are very good interviewers who are more than capable of putting their own views aside to ask tough questions of people across the political spectrum.

 

 

Vote Compass

TVNZ has a Vote Compass to help people work out where they fit on the political spectrum:

ONE News is hosting Vote Compass – an interactive online tool allowing voters to engage with public policy in a way they’ve never done before.

TVNZ’s Head of News and Current Affairs, John Gillespie, explains: “We want to help people connect with the issues that matter to them this election, and Vote Compass is a really empowering and engaging way to do that. It puts the power in voters’ hands, so they can get a clear picture of how their views match with the different parties.”

Visit onenews.co.nz/votecompass and give your views on a range of policy areas.

Once you’ve finished, Vote Compass compares your answers with the policy positions of the parties then displays your position on a grid, showing where you stand in the overall political landscape. If you wish, you can choose to share your results page on social media. Your results may surprise you!

ONE News will take this anonymous data as a snapshot, to identify the key policy issues that matter to New Zealand voters then report the findings as part of our overall election coverage.

Vote Compass was developed by political scientists from the University of Toronto in Canada. It is an independent, non-partisan initiative operated by university researchers and data scientists. They have worked together with a group of New Zealand academic advisers and ONE News to create a database of key political issues, based on an analysis of the party platforms, leading news sources and public input via social media.

ONE News also asked viewers on-air and online what issues they were interested in hearing more about in the lead up to the election. These responses have helped form some of the questions that make up the survey. . .

You can try it out here.

My results were:

National MP Maurice Williamson was at a meeting in Mosgiel yesterday and in explaining that we don’t get multiple votes to cover individual issues mentioned that even Keith Holyoake admitted to being in agreement with 80% of National’s policies. That puts me  good company with 82% in agreement with National.

This is similar to the result I got on the Australian version and this NZ one too.

This TVNZ Vote Compass has given me a far more accurate result than One The Fence.

Probably because Vote Compass allows you to answer on a spectrum rather than the more binary approach of OTF.

Hat tip: The Polly Jar, a welcome addition to rational discussion on the blogosphere.

 

 

 

Which issue matters most?

TVNZ is asking which issue matters most this election?

It is always the economy.

Only with sound economic management can we afford sustainable investment in education, health and anything else we expect the government to provide to a first world standard.

 

Covert’s the problem not overt

Maori broadcaster Julian Wilcox has no plans to stand for the Labour Party.

Maori TV said in a statement titled “Response to Media Speculation” that Mr Wilcox remained committed to his job as general manager of news and current affairs.

Chief executive Paora Maxwell said: “MTS accepts Mr Wilcox’s written statement and we will continue to value our editorial independence in providing impartial and independent news coverage of significant regional and national stories from a Maori perspective.”

Mr Wilcox was one of several journalists whose political ambitions or connections were questioned last week. . .

And a questions till remains – does he have any affiliation to or bias towards the Labour Party?

In the wake of the Shane Taurima furore, TVNZ has banned political journalists from joining political parties.

But as Karl du Fresne points out, the rules won’t eliminate the most troubling bias.

I struggle to accept that being a political journalist necessarily requires you to neuter yourself as a citizen. The crucial issue, surely, is how you do the job. Journalists should be judged on the fairness and impartiality of their reporting and commentary. It’s possible to be a party member and still be even-handed as a journalist.

I can think of relatively high-profile journalists who hold strong left-wing views in private but still manage to do their work with integrity, as the journalists’ code of ethics requires. There are also journalists and commentators (Paul Henry and John Campbell, for example) who quite openly lean one way or the other – but since their politics are no secret, viewers can decide for themselves how much weight to place on whatever they might say.

These are not the people who worry me. The ones we should really be concerned about are the journalists who hold pronounced political views that are not declared, but which permeate their reportage. There are a lot of them about, probably more than ever before, and they will never be controlled by arbitrary rules – such as TVNZ is now imposing – about declarations of political interest.

Last week news broke that lawyer and broadcaster Linda Clark, who is a political commentator for TV3 and occasional panelist on RadioNZ’s Afternoons, had been giving media training to David Cunliffe.

This wasn’t confirmed but du Fresne says she’s probably not the only one.

. . . If what I hear is correct, quite a few high-profile media figures have nice little undisclosed earners providing advice to politicians. In fact it’s an odd quirk of New Zealand politics that many of the commentators provided with media platforms for their supposedly objective views are hopelessly compromised.

If it’s fair to unmask Clark for grazing on both sides of the fence, then let’s complete the job by exposing all the others who are on the take. This could get very interesting.

It’s not the overt political leanings which are a threat to fair and balanced reporting, it’s the covert ones.

If we know the biases of journalists and commentators we can make an informed judgement on their work.

Without that knowledge we can only wonder.

Bias in business as usual?

TVNZ has announced the panel to review the misuse of company resources and alleged political bias.

It includes media law expert Steven Price and broadcasting figure Bill Francis.

Price is a barrister specialising in media law and lectures at Victoria University of Wellington’s law school. Francis is the Chief Executive of the Radio Broadcasters Association with more than 45 years broadcasting experience. . .

The review panel will be chaired by Brent McAnulty, TVNZ’s Head of Legal and Corporate Affairs, and be joined by others as needed – to provide Maori language expertise, for instance.

The panel will investigate the inappropriate use of TVNZ resources within its Maori and Pacific Programmes department for political means between February 2013 and February 2014.

It will also determine whether any obvious political bias can be identified in the department’s programmes during that period or in Q+A interviews conducted by the former General Manager of Maori and Pacific Programmes, Shane Taurima, during his time on the show (March to November 2012).

Stephen Franks has a defence for Shane Taurima whose activism in the Labour Party sparked the investigation.

He and his colleagues may have grounds to claim to the just announced enquiry, that they thought the employer had acquiesced in their activism, or tacitly approved it. In other words they were simply getting with the programme.

Employment Courts often over-ride terms of employment contracts and express workplace rules, if they’ve been ignored in practice.

State broadcasters work in a milieu of implicit support for the left, and barely suppressed contempt for and suspicion of others. Maori in State broadcasting have been allowed for decades to act as if they’ve had an exemption from Broadcasting Standards requirements for balance. They’ve almost universally acted on a right to promote “Maori aspirations” (often equated to the Maori Party), to call the ‘race card’ on anyone who questions those “aspirations” irrespective of the legal orthodoxy of the question or challenge. . .

It would not take much diligence to find plenty of examples of decades long practice from which Maori broadcasters might assume that the obligations of objectivity and political neutrality were waived for them.

Any regular audience members of Maori and Pacific programmes on TV and radio could find examples to support this view.

Topics chosen, the angle taken on issues, the people chosen to comment on them as well as the questions asked and the way they’re asked can all result in a lack of balance and fairness.

Business as usual can easily be biased, intentionally or not, if a particular world view is accepted without question.

 

 

Not fit for sale

Prime Minister John Key says Genesis Energy will be the last State Owned Enterprise to be partially sold by the government.

Asked why he had decided to end the sales programme if it was so successful, Mr Key said a company had to have the “right characteristics” to be part of the mixed ownership model. A company like Kordia did not fit as it was too small in value and a monopoly, like Transpower, did not fit the model.

The only other two which could be sold were Television New Zealand and New Zealand Post and neither was fit for sale.

Companies which aren’t fit for sale aren’t assets they’re liabilities.

Yet opponents of even partial sales are still clinging to the view that state owned companies are sacrosanct and that the portfolio should remain exactly as it is in perpetuity.

 

 

TVNZ reviewing programmes for bias

Using facilities at a state-owned broadcaster for Labour Party meetings and communications was a serious lapse of judgement.

But the bigger concern is whether there was political influence in editorial and programming decisions and interviews.

TVNZ’s Chief Executive Kevin Kenrick says:

. . . TVNZ will now launch an investigation into staff use of TVNZ resources to support political party activities. It will also review the editorial independence of the Maori and Pacific Programming division during Shane Taurima’s time as manager (February 2013 to February 2014).

The investigation will be led by Brent McAnulty, TVNZ’s Head of Legal and Corporate Affairs and report to me, as TVNZ’s Editor in Chief. Brent will head up a review team that has access to all TVNZ internal resources, and a search has begun to identify a suitably qualified external person to provide an objective and independent critique of our editorial performance. 

This investigation will be conducted as a matter of priority but it won’t be a rush job – we’re focussed on carrying out a robust and comprehensive investigation that looks into this matter thoroughly. 

The review findings and recommendations will be made publicly available.

Given our position as New Zealand’s most watched news provider we hold ourselves to the highest standards of editorial independence and balance. Clearly a line has been crossed here – it’s unacceptable and we make no excuses for what’s happened.

Our focus now is to clearly and fully understand what has happened; how this happened; and what we need to do to ensure it doesn’t happen again.

Social Development Minister Paula Bennett said she was treated unfairly by Taurima.

. . . Social Development Minister Paula Bennett says she was treated unfairly by TVNZ interviewer Shane Taurima.

The TVNZ unit manager resigned from the state broadcaster yesterday after it was revealed he took part in a Labour Party hui, and that TVNZ property was used to hold party meetings.

Bennett was grilled by Taurima on youth unemployment, in April 2012 on Sunday morning current affairs show Q+A.

“I felt that it was actually really biased,” Bennett told reporters this morning.

“I came out of there and couldn’t work out whether it was anti-National, anti-me, I don’t know what it was.

“It was one of the worst and the least-informative [interviews] for viewers, to be honest, that I’ve ever done in my career … I always felt that he was much tougher on National Maori women … but you have got to be careful that you don’t start over-thinking things, as well.” . .

Good interviewers don’t badger and interrupt.

They ask intelligent questions, listen to the answers and ask more questions.

They are firm, they can be tough, but they must be fair.

Taurima isn’t the only broadcaster who’s had political allegiances, but John Armstrong explains why they are different:

What about Paul Henry? Inevitably questions are being asked – especially by some in a smarting Labour Party – as to what difference in political terms there is between Shane Taurima, who has been forced to resign his management position at TVNZ, and Henry, who unsuccessfully stood for Parliament for National in 1999 but yet has been given his own late-night programme on TV3.

Well, quite a lot actually.

For starters, Henry is but one example of someone starting or resuming a career in broadcasting after a dalliance with politics. You can go back to Brian Edwards who stood for Labour in 1972 but lost narrowly, and Pam Corkery who also briefly hosted a late night TV show, in her case after leaving Parliament.

Labour’s John Tamihere became a talkback jock after losing his seat. John Banks has regularly interchanged political and broadcasting roles, even to the point of holding both at once.

However, all were hired because of their larger-than-life personalities rather than their politics which they were anyway totally upfront about.

Along with Corkery, Henry has shown no inclination to return to politics.

Taurima stood down from his TVNZ role while he sought nomination as the Labour candidate in the Ikaroa-Rawhiti byelection last year. After failing to win selection, he returned to work at TVNZ where he was head of the Maori and Pacific unit.

Given his management role in news and current affairs, TVNZ’s senior management should have sought assurances he had no intentions of standing for Parliament again.

TVNZ was aware, however, that Taurima was considering standing in another Maori seat at this year’s election. At that point, Taurima should have been confronted with two choices: either sever your political affiliations or quit TVNZ. . .

Act MP John Banks has used the issue to ask a very good question – why do we have state television?

TV3’s revelation that Shane Taurima, TVNZ’s former manager of the Maori and Pacific Programmes unit, hosted a Labour Party meeting last year on the broadcaster’s property and involving other TVNZ staff, shows another good reason why TVNZ should be sold, said ACT MP John Banks.

“This issue is not Mr Taurima’s politics. It is the fact that he and some of his staff wrongly used taxpayer’s property to further his political objectives” said Mr Banks.

“The easiest fix is for the taxpayer to get out of the television business. TVNZ should be sold.

“There is no reason for the State to be in the risky television business. We should sell now because TVNZ will soon be worthless as a result of technology changes.

“In private media if a journalist pursues a political agenda using company resources that is solely a matter for the management, shareholders and advertisers.

“If TVNZ were in private ownership no one would care about Mr Taurima’s Labour Party activities on the premises” said Mr Banks.

https://twitter.com/johnbanksnz/status/435576690576588800

Labour TV

Are Maori and Pacific programmes on television politically neutral?

Several times when I’ve watched the Maori news programme Te Karere, or Tangata Pacifica I’ve wondered if they were biased towards the left in general and Labour in particular. Revelations by TV3  add fuel to my suspicions:

3 News can reveal state broadcaster TVNZ is being used as a campaign base by Labour Party activists.

They’ve even held a meeting in TVNZ’s Maori and Pacific Unit aimed at fundraising for Labour.

The unit’s manager, Shane Taurima, has held ambitions to become a Labour MP and his staff have been arranging Labour Party business, using TVNZ facilities like email.

Mr Taurima has resigned following the revelation.

Mr Taurima’s a Labour Party activist. He could be standing as a Labour MP this election.

Documents obtained by 3 News show the state broadcaster is being used to help Labour’s cause.

Labour’s electorate committee for the Auckland Maori seat Tamaki Makarau has been using TVNZ as a base.

Last year, a meeting was held at the Maori and Pacific unit’s Hobson headquarters, next to TVNZ’s main building, with Labour Party activists swiped through security.

On the agenda was “fundraising” – making money for the Labour Party.

The unit produces news, current affairs and documentary programmes like Te Karere, Marae Investigates and Waka Huia. Mr Taurima has managerial and editorial control. . .

Using a workplace for political, or any other activity, without the employers’ permission is wrong but that would be between the employer and staff in a private business.

This employer isn’t a private business. It’s a publicly funded state broadcaster which is supposed to provide fair, balanced and politically neutral reporting.

Is it my bias which makes some of the Maori and Pacific programmes seem biased or has the political activism of some employees influenced what’s been broadcast?

The national in RadioNZ National has nothing to do with the party, it’s used in the sense of nationwide.

TVNZ’s board and management must ensure that anything to do with labour at the state broadcaster is in the sense of work, not the party or politics.

PM’s state of nation speech live stream

TVNZ is live streaming Prime Minister John Key’s state of the nation speech.

A tale of two polls

TV3 says LabourGreen are closing the gap on National:

National remains on top, with 47.3 percent – down 2.3 percent. Labour goes up to 33.1 percent; that’s up 2.9 percent. The Greens are up a tad, at 12 percent.

New Zealand First drop to 2.2 percent, beneath the 5 percent threshold required for leader Winston Peters to get back. . .

Patrick Gower says that’s proof the LabourGreen power play appeals to voters.

But TVNZ says National could rule alone:

National has jumped six points and is sitting pretty on 49 percent.

Labour has dropped three points, now at 33 percent.

The Greens have lost a big chunk of support, now in single digits on nine percent, while New Zealand First picked up a point to be on four percent. . .

Both polls are close enough to each other and both show that National is still fairly close to the support it got in the 2011 election which is an amazing feat given the natural and financial challenges the government has had to tackle.

But polls aren’t elections and there’s still nearly a year and a half until the next one.

Is anything of note happening here?

Many years ago a British TV programme lampooned New Zealand television for the items carried in the news.

I’m a little vague on the details but I think something to do with the theft of a few sheep had been a leading story at the time.

The implication was we were just a quaint little country where nothing of note happened.

Anyone whose been looking for serious current affairs on television could be forgiven for thinking this still applies.

Seven Sharp didn’t promise to be serious and has failed anyway.

I’d hoped for much better from TV3’s 3rd Degree. It promised much but delivered so little I stopped watching after a very few minutes.

I take it from several reviews, including One Guy too Many from Cactus Kate and why TV3 should hang its head in shame over ’3rd Degree’ and why I suspect Duncan Garner and Guyon Espiner would agree with me from Brian Edwards, that I was wise to do so.

There’s one last chance for television this morning. Q & A starts at 9am.

A media release from TVNZ says:

We speak to the Government’s Mr Fix It, Steven Joyce, about the deals with Novopay and SkyCity, and question how committed the government is to creating new jobs.

Also on the programme, should marriage be solely between a man and woman; we hear from a gay couple who question why they’re being treated as second class citizens. We debate the same-sex marriage bill with Labour MP Louisa Wall and Conservative Party Leader Colin Craig, and ask if gay couples should be able to adopt.

On the panel this week is political scientist Dr Raymond Miller, publisher Ian Wishart, and former Labour party candidate Josie Pagani.

Join host Susan Wood and political editor Corin Dann on Q+A at 9am this Sunday on TV One.

I probably won’t be. I have other things on my agenda this morning – as do most other people at 9am on Sunday. But I will try to catch up with what happened on MySky later in the hope that maybe one little corner of television thinks there is something happening in New Zealand which people ought to know about.

SOEs put govt blanace sheet at risk

Opponents to the partial sale of state assets complain about the loss of dividends, they forget about the costs.

Trans Tasman points out the risks of state ownership:

. . .there is a harsh reality to be faced, not only with Solid Energy (what’s a Govt trying to do in owning coal mines?) but with other state-owned entities whose profitability has shrunk: think of TVNZ, NZ Post, Kordia. Not surprisingly, Solid Energy’s troubles have thrown into relief how the Govt’s balance sheet, already structurally weak, can be pushed into dangerous territory by businesses where all the risks have to be shouldered by the taxpayer.

Opponents to the sales complain that the government will lose dividend income when up to 49% of shares in an SOE are sold.

They forget the risks and costs of ownership which ultimately fall on the taxpayer.

I’d rather have my taxes pay for core government responsibilities like defence, police, infrastructure, health and welfare than investment in areas best left to the private sector.

Sound move

Broadcasters are going to turn down the sound on advertisements.

TVNZ, MediaWorks and Maori TV say they have reached an agreement on the compression technology that makes many advertisements so much louder than the programmes they interrupt. Sky TV has not formally signed on to the initiative but says it will support it.

The agreement kicks in January 1, but TVNZ says it will start Sunday. In a statement emailed to NBR ONLINE, CEO Kevin Kenrick said “we just want to get on with it”. The state broadcaster will foot the bill for adjusting the audio on ads already submitted.

Sounds good, but there’s a but:

Earlier, TVNZ’s general manager of technology Peter Ennis told NBR free-to-air broadcasters here had agreed to follow the International Telecommunications Union’s IITU 1770 recommendation, already widely adopted overseas by bodies such as the European Broadcasters’ Union.

But he added the qualifier, “It’s important to remember, however, that while these standards go some way towards reducing the perceived loudness differences between and within programme and advertising content it is unlikely that all differences will be eliminated, mainly because advertisers and TV creatives will continue to want to use dynamic range for effect.”. . .

In other words, they still want to yell at us.

Yet another selling point for MySky which lets you fast forward through the ads so you can avoid both sight and sound.

Look, listen

The Pati, Pene and Amitai,  brothers have amazing tenor voices.

Their parents brought them from Samoa to give them better opportunities and they’re getting them.

TVNZ has the story – and their singing – here.