Kiwiblog

Fun summer reading can be decisions of the Broadcasting Standards Authority. Some recent decisions:

1. They reject four complaints against TV3 for Ali Ikram’s satirical piece of Maori TV getting the Rugby World Cup rights. It wasn’t that funny a piece of satire, but no way should it be illegal!
2. They also turn down two complaints against TVNZ and Paul Henry over his comments re the Maori flag.
3. ACT member Peter Taskhoff is sucessful against TVNZ for a story at an arms show than unfairly portrayed him in a negative light.
4. Kerry Bolton wins against Radio NZ for Chris Laidlaw’s programme which made holocaust denying accusations against him withotu verifying them.
5. Henk van Helmond loses against TV3 for door stopping him at is home in relation to threats about Sue Bradford.
6. A complaint against TV3 for coverage of the Boobs on Bikes parade was not upheld.
7. A complaint fron a Patty Towl against Solid Gold FM for the joke that Ellen DeGeneres is the second most powerful lesbian on the planet, and Chris Carter being the first – was not upheld.

The HoS looks at all the complaints against Paul Henry and Michael Laws:

They’re among our most controversial presenters, but Paul Henry and Michael Laws remain unrepentant about their on-air behaviour.

I suspect they actually get paid bonuses for every complaint they attract

Laws said the decision was an example of the authority stifling freedom of speech. He said defamation laws offered safeguard enough and the authority was wrong to apply news reporting standards to talkback.

“The BSA should be disbanded. There is no need for it.

“My job’s not to offer balance, it’s to offer strong opinion. I never, ever go too far. I’m not a namby-pamby left-wing liberal commie journalist.”

As a commenter said, there are some days you can really like Michael

Henry has triggered a catalogue of complaints since the start of 2008.

They include accusations of bias in an interview with John Key, describing people with obsessive compulsive disorder as “crazy freaks” and a suggestion that obese children be taken away from their parents and put in car compactors.

None were upheld.

The suggestion that obese children be put in car compactors is so Henry.

Pippa Wetzell was responsible for the only complaint against Breakfast upheld by the authority for an interview this year with Garth McVicar of the Sensible Sentencing Trust found to have breached the standard of balance.

Now that is funny. Henry gets a dozen complaints – none of which is upheld, while poor Pippa actually gets her complaint upheld.

Henry didn’t know why complaints against him were on the up but said it didn’t bother him. “I think it’s an indication that I say what I think and in television that is not overly common.” He thought there were “a lot of people that don’t have much of a sense of humour” and “a large number of people who have nothing better to do than complain”.

A lot of complaints come from the same people. I reckon they should look at limiting the number of complaints one individual can make!

Now this is a serious case of egg on face. You run an ad on TV, radio and the Internet about how John Key can’t be trusted. And the Advertising Standards Authority finds that in fact it is the advertisement that can not be trusted as it is misleading.

What is interesting is that the TV and radio ads are governed by the Broadcasting Standards Authority (appointed by the Government) as “election programmes”. But because Labour placed it on You Tube, it meant the online version could be scrutinised by the Advertising Standards Authority (industry appointed).

The reason the advertisement got pinged was because Labour claimed John Key was cutting KiwiSaver in half, and the ASA found this is not factually correct. Only the employer contribution has been reduced from 2% to 4%, but the employee tax credit remains, as does the initial $1,000 and help for home loans etc.

Labour now has to decide whether to pull the advertisement from television. They do not legally have to do so, but it won’t be a good look to keep running an advertisement that has been officially found to be “misleading”.

The Fijian Government complained about an interview with Michael Field on Nine to Noon on 7 March 2008. Radio NZ rejected the complaint so they went to the BSA. And they won.

They’ve sent me a copy of the decision: bsa-decision-28-8-08 (large pdf) that upholds four complaints of inaccuracy.

Now I have been a pretty strong critic of the Commodore and his Government myself. But there is no reason to make things sound worse than they really are there. The four items the BSA upheld were:

1. Radio NZ were wrong to state the management of Fiji Broadcasting was military appointed (the Board is unchanged from before the coup)
2. Radio NZ were wrong to broadcast that a journalist had been given just 8 days notice to leave Fiji when it was 21 days
3. Radio NZ was wrong to state a Judge who got mugged had publicly criticised a report which upheld the legality of the coup. There was no evidence the Judge had done this, yet alone if it was linked
4. Radio NZ were wrong to state the Judge’s house was burnt down, when it was not

Radio NZ do not have to broadcast a correction. The publication of the finding is meant to be “punishment” enough. The BSA hasn’t actually got around to putting it up on their website yet despite the decision being made on 28 August 2008.

TV3 tonight reported that a number of complaints by David Benson-Pope against TV3 (over the Dunedin South selection) were all rejected by the Broadcasting Standards Authority. This got me interested enough to go to the BSA website. Now sadly that decision is not yet up, but oh what fun it is to go through some of the other recent decisions. Where do I start?

How about this one, where a Martin Taylor complained about Jeremy Wells on Eating Media Lunch starting the programme by saying:

Good evening, kia ora, fuck your mother.

Now this is classic EML, and you wonder why someone would watch it if they were not going to enjoy Wells in your face offensiveness. But Mr Taylor said:

In Mr Taylor’s view, the comment was equivalent to the host “labelling me a ‘motherfucker’”.

TVNZ responded with the wonderful:

he was not suggesting that the audience literally “fucks their mother”.

Mr Taloyr then wrote to the BSA:

Dissatisfied with the broadcaster’s decision, Mr Taylor referred his complaint to the Authority under section 8(1B)(b)(i) of the Broadcasting Act 1989. He maintained that “sex with your own mother is not humorous in any context”,

Well personally what I am laughing at is the complaint itself. If all the complaints are like this, I’d love to be appointed to the BSA – it would be great fun.

Then another complaint against EML A Jim Brock complained:

I object to the way an erect penis was waved and whacked about in the forefront of the screen in the item satirising infomercials.

Alas the said penis was in fact only a dildo.

One also has a complaint about a 60 minutes item regarding Jackass imitations.

And finally we have a complaint against South Park. No not the Bloody Mary episode, but the “bi-curious one”. The BSA summarises the episode:

Another character then told Cartman that he was now gay and that the only way to “cancel out the gay polarity” was for Butters to put Cartman’s penis in his mouth. The following scene involved Cartman trying to trick Butters into allowing him to put his penis into Butters’ mouth. Cartman blindfolded Butters and told him that he had a “surprise” for him. Cartman then took down his pants and was about to put his penis into Butters’ mouth when Butters’ father walked into the room and saw what was happening. Butters was still blindfolded and he did not realise what Cartman had been trying to do to him. Believing his son was “bi-curious”, Butters’ father sent him to a Christian camp to “cure” him.

It was a hilarious episode. People either love or hate Southpark. It is crude and offensive but has some very sensible messages underlying it. This one was about tolerance, but anyway onto the complaint:

The complainant argued that the character Butters had been raped while asleep by the “fat child” (Cartman). PB maintained that “the fat child said he was going to give Butters some cough mixture so that he would go to sleep…and the fat child performed oral sex [on Butters] and took a photo”.

I suspect PB has never watched South Park before if he doesn’t know Cartman is not fat, just big boned!

TVWorks responded:

The broadcaster maintained that Cartman’s behaviour was always placed in a context that highlighted his lack of ethics, as opposed to trivialising his lack of ethics. It argued that although Butters was unknowingly suffering abuse at the hands of Cartman, an adult audience would take it for granted that this occurred between two eight-year-olds and not an adult and a child. It considered that while still immoral, this made the item less sinister.

TVWorks stated that “part of the comedy of Cartman’s character was the contrast between his sadistic nature and the innocence he has as an eight-year-old. It pointed out that Cartman was “initially naive to the impression that the photo of Butters’ penis in his mouth gave until his friends pointed out how it looked”.

The broadcaster pointed out that South Park was in its eleventh season and that it was “unlikely that any regular viewers would have been offended by the programme”.

I also note the following:

The complainant maintained that the episode contained rape and scenes of sexual violation, and that the actions of Cartman came under the broad definition of rape on the Wikipedia website.

Hmmn I like Wikipedia, but I’d rather not have it cited as the authority on what constitutes rape – as oppossed to the Crimes Act!

I am going to have to check out the BSA site more often.

And for all those who are offended by Eating Media Lunch and South Park – I respect the fact you find it offensive. I hope you will respect the fact that hundreds of thousands of people like myself find them bloody hilarious, and you of course have the option of simply just not watching them.

Very pleased to see the Broadcasting Standards Authority has again not given into pressure, and has not upheld complaints about Californication – just as they also did with Southpark.

I only started watching Californication after Family First started knocking out advertisers (something they are entitled to do), as I always regard the more a show is protested about, as a good guide for whether I will like it.

And the thing is, while the show has segments many find morally objectionable, such as a dream sequence with a nun and sex with a 16 year old, they are actually part of what is a well constructed plot. The sleeping with the 16 year old actually sets up a plot line throughout the entire first series, coping with the ramifications. And the lead character regrets doing it once he finds out her age (and more to the point funding out she is the daughter of his ex wife’s fiancee.

Southpark can be similiar. Yes it has some appallingly offensive scenes and language.  It  is often truly disgusting (just think Mr Hankey). But it often has a message behind its episodes, and many of the messages are good ones, that even religious and family groups would approve of  – such as  debunking the moral  panic over parents abusing their children. Of course there are some episodes, such as where Cartman tricks Scott Tenorman into eating his parents which don’t have much of a hidden message, except maybe don’t play tricks on people with an evil streak!