Kiwiblog

Charlie Brooker on how to make a news clip. It is spot on.

I didn’t blog previously on Woman’s Day outing Ali Mau, as frankly I thought it was distasteful and didn’t want to publicise it further. I did comment on the Journz mailing list which discussed the issue, as follows:

I think the decision to out Ali Mau is regrettable, and part of a slippery slope which points the wrong way.

I accept that if someone is in the public eye as a celebrity, then who they are dating will make the media. But when that information doesn’t just reveal who they are dating, but a sexual orientation that is not yet public, I think it should not be published unless there is hypocrisy etc. I prefer people to reveal their own sexual orientation, not have the media do it for them – especially when they may have children etc. Her kids may now have to put up with teasing at school from classmates that their mum is a lesbian.

If Ali was going to come out anyway, then it is a different matter, but as Dean said I would not want to be an editor approving such a story unless I was certain.

A few people have said they broadly agreed with my stance.

Now since then Ali has hit back at Woman’s Day with force, as reported here by Stuff:

High-profile Television New Zealand presenter Alison Mau has struck out at a magazine editor she says hired a “creepy” paparazzi photographer to stalk her children, friends and family.

Today, on TV One morning show Breakfast, Mau addressed her recent tabloid coverage during a regular slot on the show dedicated to reviewing the weekly New Zealand gossip magazines.

Holding up the latest issue of Woman’s Day magazine – opened to a story titled “Alison Mau’s sleepover” – Mau questioned when the magazine’s editor, Sarah Henry, would leave her family alone. …

Mau then said some people had said she was “fair game” because of her public profile.

“But, here’s my question, now that they’ve run this story, I have a question for Woman’s Day editor Sarah Henry and her offsider Catherine Milford.

“Perhaps you’d both be kind enough to let me know when this, when this kind of thing, will stop?

“Just give me an idea when the dogs will be called off and me, my friends and my family can go about our business without having creepy guys in Corolla station wagons following us around?

“I hope that’s a fair question, if you’d like to comment at all, being our breakfast viewers, or pose the same question, drop us a line or send it direct to Sarah Henry at Woman’s Day, she’s on shenry@acpmagazines.co.nz”

The TV show then ran Henry’s email address on screen.

And below is the video of the Breakfast show:

Now I have no problem with Ali striking back. In fact I admire her for doing so, and all strength to her. Woman’s Day deserve to be called out for what they did.

But I do have an issue about whether TVNZ should be assisting Mau with her campaign. They not only flashed the e-mail address up on the Woman’s Day editor on screen (would they do that for anyone else) for people to fire hate mail off at, they also covered the story on Close Up that night. And again, I ask if they would have done that, if one of the protagonists didn’t work for them.

So again to be clear, I have absolutely no issues with Ali Mau hitting back, and wanting to use whatever opportunity she has. Good on her. But I do think TVNZ needs to be cautious about its role in this.

The Herald reports from Parliament:

Finally it was back to the Prime Minister for the last question – this time about his holding of shares in Jackson Mining.

Asked how he could not have known the company had merged with another and was now involved in uranium mining, he began with: “There was the small technical issue – I have been busy running the country.”

He added that he would be the first to admit it was “sloppy” but said the last time he had looked they were trading at 3.5c “and when I offered them to my son, who was 12 at the time, even he did not want them”.

I was absolutely stunned that TVNZ had as their lead story that the PM had admitted he was “sloppy”, as if this was Watergate II.In fact there was nothing that came within a million miles of being a conflict of interest.

John Key had declared the mining shares in his register of interests. This is what you are meant to do.

Now a conflict of interest tends to relate to something favouring a specific company, not something that affects an entire industry.

The mining company in question is Australian, does not operate in NZ, and has no plans to operate in NZ. Anyone who thinks this creates a conflict of interest, just because the Government is promoting mining is biased or stupid.

The Government promotes agriculture. So should Jim Bolger have had to sell his family farm when he was PM?

Helen Clark was a residential property investor. Should she have sold all her houses because the Government made decisions that affected rental properties?

Of course not. No reasonable person thinks that is a conflict of interest. If you adopt that standard, then every MP would be forced to liquidate all their assets and have only cash in a bank. But oh no, wait Government can affect banks, so lets force them to store their cash under their bed.

Having shares in an Australian mining company that does not operate in NZ is not a conflict of interest. Even if they did operate in NZ, it would not be a conflict of interest. The conflict of interest would be if a decision was made to grant some licence to that particular company, which the PM took part in.

The PMs statement that he had been sloppy, simply relates to the fact he hadn’t bothered to keep track of what the company was doing, as its shares were near worthless.

Now that may deserve a couple of paragraphs in a political story in a newspaper, but to have TVNZ make it their lead story is unbelievable.

UPDATE: Colin Espiner has previously blogged much the same thing:

As for the mining story, I’m a bit nonplussed. Frankly I don’t give a monkey’s whether Key owns shares in an Australian mining company, and I think TVNZ’s pretext that it’s a story because the Government is planning to mine national parks is a little flimsy.

If owning shares in a mining company could become an issue, it should already be an issue, since there is already extensive mining in this country. And we’ve known for ages that Key’s share portfolio includes mining companies. I remember him talking about it during the election campaign.

As for the second leg of the story – that it’s a bad look for a PM of a nuclear-free country to own shares in a company that mines uranium – I’m sorry, but I don’t get that. Uranium might be a precursor to the manufacture of plutonium, which is used in nuclear weapons.

But it’s also used in a vast array of medical and scientific procedures. I’ve always thought it funny that people claim we’re “nuclear free” when there’s enough plutonium in our hospitals and universities to make your hair fall out.

This is about TVNZ promoting itself. Because the so called “revelation” was made on a TVNZ show, that means they feel they have to keep it alive as a news story.

Shayne Currie writes his final editorial for the Herald on Sunday:

This is the 280th edition of the Herald on Sunday – and my last as editor. Some people will be relieved about this. Mike Hosking, perhaps. He’s not the paper’s biggest fan.

Charlotte Dawson has not really been a happy camper, either. She has always thought, wrongly, we have had it in for her and she takes particular offence at anything written by our irrepressible gossip columnist Rachel Glucina.

Thankfully, Hosking and Dawson aren’t the norm. In five years, we’ve grown our readership to more than 370,000, become the third-biggest newspaper in New Zealand, and won every major newspaper award.

It is no small thing to start a new newspaper from scratch. You need to earn every single reader, and the HoS has done very well in bringing back competition to the Sunday newspaper market. It is almost the only newspaper market in NZ where we still have choice.

Over the years we’ve become known as the property paper, the car crash paper, the Tony Veitch paper, the All Blacks paper and the Millie Elder paper. We don’t mind any of this.

We’ve always tried to adapt to what our readers want – and buy. Selling the paper is of utmost importance, and to achieve that it’s not always what might be considered the best, traditional journalism that makes the front page.

The front page has to excite, titillate and capture your interest within three seconds – we rely much more heavily on retail sales than a daily newspaper with its larger subscriber base. Of everything we do, the front page is always the most frequently discussed aspect of the HoS. (Except when we stuff up the crossword grid – then all hell breaks loose.)

That is a fair point about the lack of a subscriber base, so the need to give people a reason to buy the newspaper.

The worst thing we can do is be boring. A good guideline is National Radio. If its media commentators start tut-tutting about one of our stories, it usually means we’re on the right track. National Radio staff have no concept of working in a commercial market.

The point is, if we don’t sell the newspaper, we won’t have a product or pages to present the work of some of New Zealand’s best journalists and columnists.

The HoS is quite heavy with columnists, and relatively light on news reporting. But I actually quite like that as I get straight news reporting from other sources, and like getting analysis and opinion.

It will be interesting to see who gets appointed as the new editor, and what changes she or he may make to the paper.

The Herald reports:

Television NZ bumped Prime Minister John Key from its prime-time current affairs show so it could feature former All Black Robin Brooke saying sorry for groping a teenage girl. …

John Key’s office has refused to comment on the Close Up show’s decision not to talk to the PM about his state of the nation speech.

Instead, most of Tuesday’s show was devoted to host Mark Sainsbury interviewing Brooke about his explanation for the New Year groping incident in Fiji, a story that has featured in newspapers.

Close Up ignored the changes the PM foreshadowed to the tax system.

Mr Key’s chief press secretary, Kevin Taylor, said: “It is TVNZ’s editorial decision for the programme and we will not be saying any more about it.”

But it is understood the Prime Minister was surprised by the decision to ditch a scheduled interview with him just two and a half hours before it was due to go out live.

Such “bumping” is common in television entertainment shows when they run out of time or there are better offers.

From a ratings viewpoint, sadly I guess more people would tune in to Robin Brooke. But having already pencilled in the PM, I am surprised they didn’t find a way to include both. It is meant to be a news and current affiars show after all.

No surprise there has been another collision as the stated aim of the Sea Shepherd Society is to sink the opposition. I am amazed that the media breathlessly report on each clash with doubt over who is responsible.

Wikipedia states on Paul Watson:

As of 2009, Paul Watson has said that the organization has sunk ten whaling ships while also destroying millions of dollars worth of equipment.

Their aim is to destroy and sink whaling ships. So who do you think causes the crashes.

Of course every time there is a crash, the Sea Shepherd people claim they were not at fault. Anotehr quote from Wikipedia may help the media:

Watson’s public relations savvy is shown in an episode of Whale Wars when he creates an international media “storm” after two crewmembers are detained on a Japanese whaling vessel.^[18] In his book, Earthforce!, Watson advises readers to make up facts and figures when they need to, and to deliver them to reporters confidently.^[9] He also states that the “truth is irrelevant” due the nature of mass media.[19

So Watson has written a book telling his followers to lie to the media in a confident way, and the media still fall for it and report the claims without scepticism.

TV One News kept referring to the National Standards as being about whether a kid is beow or above the national average.

This is totally wrong. The standards are about saying this is the level we think an x year old should be able to read and write to this level.

In an ideal world 100% of kids will be meeting the national standards. This is very different to comparing people to an average, where by default around half the people will be below average.

It is not about comparing one kid to another. It is about saying whether kids are on track to leaving primary school able to read, write and do maths.

Throng blog:

Ok, so I’m not 100% sure on the math here (need to check up the tax rules) but both bulletins can’t be right here in their calculations.  Using IRD’s website, currently for a minimum wage earner, they pay $2.27 in total for their tax and ACC levies.  I’m trying to double check these figures quoted, but I think 3 News is wrong – it can’t be right thatminimum wage earners are taxed 40%!

ONE News: $10 – $2.10 in tax – $0.20 in ACC levies = $7.70 in the hand
3 News: $10 – $3.00 New ACC levies in April – $1.00 PAYE tax = $6.00 in the hand

Note: Trevor Mallard also said about $6 in his 3 News interview.

Trevor Mallard is of course wrong, and if TV3 relied on him, shame on them.

One News had is absolutely correct. The marginal tax rate for a FT worker on the minimum wage is 21% and the ACC levy for next year will be 2%, so a $10 gross increase will be a $7.70 net increase.

This should be displayed in every newsroom.

Hat Tip: The Standard

An amusing AAP story on what NZ stories got reported in Australia:

1. William Stewart avoiding the police for 100 days
2. Westpac accidentally giving a customer a $10 million overdraft, which was utilised to flee overseas
3. A man vying for the title of New Zealand’s most incompetent criminal left his name and contact details with a shop before robbing it and fleeing
4. Kiwi primary schoolteacher Rachel Whitwell posing nude for Australian Penthouse
5. Policeman Guy Baldwin captured on camera interviewing a late-night carjacker who was trying to claim he was merely off to buy a meat pie at the local service station. Baldwin’s witty reply was: “That pie has probably been in the warming drawer for about 12 hours. It will be thermo-nuclear – always blow on the pie.
6. A beloved family cat had an extra chilly brush with death after his owners accidentally shut him in the freezer for 19 hours
7. Sweet maker Hanna Frederick developed venison chocolate truffles
8. A Kiwi canine was in the dog box after driving his owner’s ute into the front of a cafe
9. New Zealand’s most superstitious town has gone all out to be rid of bad luck by banishing the number 13. Palmerston North has a council policy to jump street numbers from number 11 to 15 to avoid the unlucky figure in between.
10. An Auckland man who killed his dog and barbecued it for tea expressed genuine shock when local authorities baulked at his actions
11. The Kiwi recession was responsible for many an oddity in 2009. For one, Kiwi men were more likely than ever to get “the snip” on their most intimate assets as a reaction to the financial squeeze
12. A curious baby seal shuffled more than 100km across New Zealand farmland after an overexcited fishing expedition.
13. Tourists at a Kiwi aquarium got an eyeful when they saw a heavily-pregnant female shark get a Caesarean section from an aggressive male shark in the tank
14. A would-be Kiwi politician was creamed with an iconic Australasian treat, the lamington, while trying to convince the public to vote for him. John Boscawen was hit in the head with the square chocolate and cream coconut sponge and then further shocked the audience by continuing his speech, unfazed
15. A toddler gave her parents a nasty shock when they found she had bought a NZ$20,000 earth-moving digger on New Zealand auction website TradeMe

No wonder they think we are strange.

Following on from the earlier ratings for each media organisation, these are the ratings for each person listed as a full-time member of the gallery.

Now again I want to stress that these are subjective ratings of journalists by MPs and press secretaries. A low rating is not necessarily bad, just as a high rating can mean you never offend anyone. Also for the avoidance of doubt the ratings are not my personal views, which would be considerably different.

These are the top ten rated journalists. The full list of all 34 is over the break for those who want it, but I prefer to focus on the top ratings.

Colin James tops the ratings, and NZPA has all three of its main staff in the top ten. NZ Herald has two, and Radio NZ’s Jane Patterson and ZB’s Felix Marwick (who sadly is leaving I think) also score highly. Jane Clifton and Marie McNicholas also there. Not that I think it is a factor, but five women and five men each in the top ten.

The range of scores show there is no unanimity with every journalist in the top ten having someone who gave then a two or lower.

The journalist with the lowest standard deviation was Tim Fookes with a 1.8 S.D. and the largest standard deviation was Guyon Espiner on 3.1 followed by Vernon Small on 3.0 – so opinions varied greatly on them. The party breakdowns may be interesting.

The Nats top ten go from Peter Wilson to Jane Clifton. Claire Trevett and Rob Hosking are the only two in the Nats top ten, not in the overall top ten.

You can see in the table the breakdown for each party’s responses, plus the weighted average. The full set of data is over the break also.

Labour respondents have a very different top ten. Colin, Felix and Marie are on it, as with the Nats, but the five Radio NZ reports all are included, as is Scoop’s Gordon Campbell and TVNZ’s Fran Mold.

Those with the biggest difference between National and Labour ratings are Rob Hosking (2.2), Claire Trevett (2.1) and Audrey Young (1.9) in terms of a higher Nat rating. Those with a higher average Labour rating are Gordon Campbell (4.0), Brent Edwards (3.5), Jon Hartezelt (3.1), Marie McNicholas (2.5) and Liz Banas (2.3).

These are the top ten by Third Party respondents.

(more…)

I blogged on Friday the topline data from the survey of MPs and Press Secretaries on the press gallery. I’ve now got the breakdown by party and by type of respondents.

The question asked about institutions was:

For each media organisation please give them a rating from 0 to 10 for how well you think they do in their parliamentary reporting.

This should take account of all relevant factors – accuracy, fairness, thoroughness etc.

Now again these are highly subjective ratings from the subjects of the stories written. So a low rating may just mean that an MP or press secretary feels that organisation has been too tough on them (and members of the public may feel they are not tough enough).

There were 70 responses. 39 from National, 22 from third parties and 8 from Labour. One did not specify. 46 respondents were MPs and 24 were press secretaries or comms staff.

National respondents ranked the Herald highest, followed by NZPA, Newsroom, Radio Live and Newstalk ZB. The five lowest were SST, Scoop, Radio NZ, Fairfax and Prime TV.

Labour respondents ranked the five top as Scoop, Radio NZ, Newsroom, Newstalk ZB and NZPA. The five bottom were NBR, TVNZ, SST, Prime TV and TV3.

Comparing differences between National and Labour respondents, those most ranked higher by National than Labour are NBR (2.2 difference), TVNZ (1.7) and NZ Herald (1.6).  Those ranked higher by Labour than National are Scoop (3.3) and Radio NZ (2.9).

Those ranked evenly by both National and Labour are Fairfax (0.0 difference), SST (0.3), Maori TV (0.4) and TV3 (0.4).

Third Party respondents ranked the top five as Maori TV, Radio NZ, NZPA, Scoop and Newsroom. The bottom five were TVNZ, TV3, Fairfax, SST and NZ Herald.

Third party respondents rated TVNZ, TV3, Fairfax and the NZ Herald lowest compared to the two big parties. This may reflect a view that the four big media do not give them enough air time?

I have given each outlet a weighted average. This is based on National being 58/122, Labour 43/122 and Third Parties 21/122. When weighted the top five become Newsroom, NZPA, Scoop, Radio NZ and Newstalk ZB. The bottom five are SST, TVNZ, TV3, Fairfax and NBR.

Finally I look at the difference between ratings from MPs and press secretaries. The four outlets significantly rated by MPs than press secretaries are Scoop, Maori TV, Radio NZ and Newstalk ZB. The three outlets rated significantly higher by press secretaries than MPs are NBR, Newsroom and NZ Herald.

Tomorrow (if I have the time) I’ll blog results for individual journalists.

As I did last year. I conducted a survey of MPs on the press gallery. This year I extended it to press secretaries also, and am very pleased with the 70 responses I got. Many thanks to those who responded.

The first initial data is below. This is the raw data. I will also blog next week results for each party (National, Labour, other) and a weighted average to take account of more National MPs than Labour MPs responding.

Respondents were asked to anonymously rate each media organisation and full-time gallery journalist from 0 to 10. The results for journos will be next week also.

I want to stress that this is not an impartial poll on the gallery. It is a poll of the subjects of the articles the gallery write about. Hence a low rating may indicate a media outlet or journalist has written very good stories that happen to damage that party or MP, and a high rating may indicate they are seen as a soft touch.

There are also some differences by medium, Print media will always tend to rate higher (in my opinion) than TV as they have a greater ability to cover more details in a story.

So basically I am saying don’t regard these ratings as some neutral indicator of who is good or bad. Those judgements can be left to individuals. Also do not assume these ratings are my personal opinions. They certainly are not.

Now the data:

The mean is pretty self-evident, and they are ranked in order of highest to lowest. I am not surprised NZPA and Newsroom rate at the top, as they both concentrate more on information, rather than analysis. They are not into selling copies of papers – but into supplying information.

It is interesting that Maori TV rates so highly.

The median is the mid point value. Normally close to the mean.

The mode is the most common score given for that outlet.

The minimum and maximum and range (difference between the two) show how diverse the opinion is petty much every outlet. There is no group-think. Most outlets had some MPs give very low scores and some very high scores.

The S.D. is the standard deviation and again gives some idea as to how varied the ratings were. Radio NZ had the highest standard deviation, or variation.

The media had a field day reporting and condemning the travel subsidy for MPs. For weeks on end we had story after story. But there was one story the media forgot to cover. It was the one about their massive travel subsidy to attend CHOGM in Trinidad and Tobago.

You see seven journalists flew to this lovely resort location on the PMs RNZAF aircraft. APN had one person attend, Fairfax one person, TVNZ and TV3 had two each and Getty Images also had one person. And they only had to pay $100 each.

Now if these media companies had to pay themselves to send their journalists, it would costs at least $4,000 economy to get there (including stop over). So this is a 97.5% subsidy for their travel costs. Or a savings of around $27,000 for the owners of those media companies.

If it is reprehensible that MPs get a 10% to 90% travel subsidy, then where has been the media outrage at this 97.5% travel subsidy?

What if a blogger decided he would like to attend a CHOGM in Trinidad and Tobago and got a lift over there with the PM for $100? Would that suddenly become a media story? You bet it would.

Now I am not saying that the media should not be allowed to travel on board the RNZAF plane if there is capacity. I’m not even saying that there shouldn’t be some cost saving for them (mind you 97.5% seems extreme). I am saying that it would be nice if they were as transparent about their own travel subsidies, as they were over those of the MPs.

I blogged Friday on the pillow attack case and quoted the Herald story which said:

The judge also blasted the police as “ridiculous” and “petty” for bringing action against Mr Taylor.

And I commented:

This is the aspect that will cause more legitimate concern amongst opponents of the anti-smacking law. The Government and PM puts great stock in the discretion available to Police. When you see the Police applying such discretion badly, it makes you nervous.

Now Police HQ have sent me a response to the Herald story, that is worth quoting:

A media report last night stated Police were petty and ridiculous in charging a man with throwing a cushion at a child.

Police were called to a family violence incident involving Mr Taylor on New Years Eve last year. Police were told Mr Taylor had assaulted a seven year old child, was intoxicated and refusing to leave the address. Occupants of the house were frightened of him and were found outside by Police on arrival.

Mr Taylor has a long history of alcohol, drug abuse and family violence which was a factor in laying the charge.

An assault had taken place on a child who was not involved in the original dispute which was between the Mother and Mr Taylor. Taylor refused to leave the address and left Police with no option but resolve the matter by arresting him.

An arrest does indeed seem justified in that case.

The charges initially laid by police were legally correct. An alleged assault had been committed on a child. On the information provided by the complainant and witnesses present, the assault was neither trifling nor trivial. The child had made a complaint that the assault had caused him pain, and redness to his forehead, that he has been whacked.

The defence counsel elected trial by jury and made no attempt to negotiate a lesser charge as indicated by the Judge.

The charge was later independently reviewed by the Crown Solicitor after Mr Taylor was committed for trial. The Crown laid an indictment for the same charge.

The Judges decision to discharge the matter under Crimes Act 1961 s.347(2) was available in the circumstances. However, Police would point out it was the defence tactic to take a relatively minor case to trial where it could have been concluded in the summary jurisdiction. The case was laid in the summary jurisdiction and would have been disposed of as the Judge had suggested should have happened, had there not been an election of trial by the defence. In addition, the application under s347 could have been made by the defence at any point prior to the hearing. The application was brought by the Judge on the day of trial.

Also useful context to the story.

The TVNZ report stated police were petty and ridiculous. This comment was not made by the presiding Judge who did not criticise the police laying a charge in respect of this case. Rather, the Judge formed the view that the case could have been resolved with a lesser, included charge, which was unavailable to the Crown due to the election of the defence of a trial by jury.

This is quite a different impression to that of the original stories. Good to see the Police being proactive with their version of events.

I wonder if any of the media that ran the original story, have run the Police response? As far as I can tell, they have not.

The ODT reports:

To the outrage of many Britons, a white-supremacist fringe party riding a wave of electoral success has been invited to participate in a BBC prime-time TV show on politics.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s Labour Party government says it is appalled that the far right British National Party will get such high-profile exposure to millions of viewers. The BBC, however, says as a publicly funded broadcaster it must cover all political parties that have a national presence.

The BNP is a loathsome vile racist party. But they also won two seats in the European Parliament. It is not for state owned media to decide not to cover a party, just because of their views.

Personally I believe exposing extreme views, and ridiculing them, is much better than ignoring them.

Having said that media should be careful not give a minor party disproportionate coverage just because they are controversial. For example Winston First should get the same coverage as any other party not in Parliament that is polling 1% to 2%.

There was a fascinating radio interview at 7.40 am on National Radio today. It was from a specialist newspaper that reports on the UN, and complaining about the refusal of Helen Clark to do press conferences, how Clark and Heather Simpson try to handpick journalists for interviews and a general lack of accountability.

You can listen to the interview here.

It sounds like the UN media is less compliant than some of the NZ media has been. Some extracts from the interview with Matthew Lee the founder and editor of the Inner City Press that focuses on the UN:

In the six months she has been in office there have been a number of UNDP issues that have arisen and repeatedly, I would say half a dozen times, myself and other journalist have asked that she comes and do a press conference, an actual Q&A and take questions and it is yet to happen.

He points out she is the third most senior official at the UN, and not a single press conference in six months.

It has become somewhat striking, a total failure to answer questions about the agency as they arise. … Once requests were made for Helen Clark to do a press conference there were a flurry of calls from her two spokespeople at the UNDP to specific media outlets saying do you want a one on one. One of them responded and said Okay here’s the journalist who will do it. But UNDP responded No No we prefer this other journalist who works for you. That’s a degree of micro-management of press coverage that is almost unheard of in the UN.

But very familiar to people back in New Zealand. And many in the media went along with it, or they risked losing access.

If she is the third highest official in the UN, she needs to come and take questions because everyone else does. The Secretary-General does it on a monthly basis, the head of peacekeeping every two weeks.

Almost funny that Helen’s managed to actually lower the standards at the UN!

He also goes on to say how the only briefing anyone in the UNDP has given for some months has been about relief efforts in Samoa and Tonga.

Geoff Robinson: Are you the only journalist, is yours the only organisation raising this as an issue?

Lee: No, No … In July an issue arose about a hiring, a kind of nepotism hiring took place in UNDP. Inner City Press had the exclusive but after that it was covered by the Times of London, Reuters and even newspapers in Italy. All four of these publications wanted answers from UNDP and none of them got them. I sent e-mails to her long time staffer, Heather Simpson, to make sure we got her answer as to why this nepotism scandal was not a problem. There was never any response at all.

Heather’s job is to block media, not facilitate them!

But here is what is really interesting. All the media listen to Morning Report. Yet this quite stunning and significant interview has not been reported anywhere else at all!

UMR polled 750 New Zealanders from 24 to 27 September on what they think of the NZ media. Very interesting results:

• Only 35% said the NZ media are accurate in reporting the news, with 25% saying inaccurate, 37% neutral and 3% don’t know.
• Over 60s have the lowest score for accuracy – 23% compared to 43% for under 30s.
• 30% say the NZ media are balanced and 30% say they are one-sided.
• 27% say they are willing to admit mistakes, and 46% say they are not willing.

It is a pity UMR did not report party identification, as I would be very interested in if there was any significant differences between National and Labour voters.

This is on the front page of Stuff, and also being run as a banner. It almost makes me weep. I’m not saying the media shouldn’t cover news about Jackson, as the public are obviously interested in it.

But please please don’t label it as “breaking news” as if it is of some importance.

NewstalkZB reports Andrew Little blast against the print media:

Labour president Andrew Little kicked off the party’s annual conference in Rotorua with a blistering attack on the print media.

He criticised the country’s three main daily papers for editorials supporting the Social Development Minister, Paula Bennett, after she revealed the details of two beneficiaries’ incomes. The women had made headlines for criticising government policy.

How dare the media take a position that more information is better than less information.

And Andrew overlooks that one of the women talked all over the Internet about her level of income support from taxpayers, and even appeared in a Labour advertisement talking about her situation a couple of years ago.

Mr Little called the editors who published the pieces “a disgrace” and said they had no place in an organisation such as the Commonwealth Press Union.

Yes how dare they belong to a union if Andrew doesn’t agree with one of theri editorials.

He says the affair demonstrated how fragile freedom of speech is…

Pardon me while I choke as I hear the President of the party that introduced the Electoral Finance Bill and passed the Electoral Finance Act shed crocodile tears for freedom of speech.

and what Labour is up against in trying to get balanced media commentary.

Oh yes. Everyone knows how the print media in New Zealand are terribly right wing. Just like the New York Times is a consistent supporter of the US Republican Party.

News.com.au has the following headline:

Maori ‘not retarded borderline psychotics’

It would have to be an Australian newspaper of course.

Just got a paper copy of the Dom Post. On the front page they have a list of the top five electorates that voted yes and no in the referendum. what the vote % was and what party holds the seat.

Their numbers are correct, but unfortunately they claim Waikato and Taupo are Labour seats.

I think Lindsay Tisch and Louise Upston would disagree with that!

I want to buy a copy of the Media Law in New Zealand textbook by John Burrows and Ursula Cheer,

Can anyone advise me what the latest edition is, and more importantlywhere one can easily purchase a copy? I’ve searched online with no success.

Also wish to purchase a copy of Steven Price’s Media Minefield. NZJTO list it for sale but you have to send off a postal order and cheque. I want to just order online and pay by credit card or transfer into a bank account. Happy to buy a second hand one.

A reader writes:

The truly pavlovian response by the media to the statement yesterday about changes to overseas investment rules, makes me marvel that we have any decent public policies in NZ.

The English statement today sets out facts that competent journalists would have worked out for themselves, if they were professional and not dependent on recycling statements from politicians and others with little or no interest in the truth. Their coverage has been truly pathetic.

The statement the reader refers to is this:

Removing the strategic asset test from the overseas investment rules will reduce confusion and uncertainty for investors but will have little other practical effect, Finance Minister Bill English says.

“The strategic asset test has never been used to block a sale by any government in this country,” Mr English told the Shareholders Association Annual Conference in Wellington today.

So a never used ill defined test is going, and this got the headlines about everything for sale.

“Contrary to Labour’s spin, it did not use this test to block the sale of Auckland Airport. Instead it relied on nine existing criteria in the rules relating to the sale of sensitive land. They were applied as part of the normal screening process.

Yet many media reported that this test was used to block the sale.

I blogged this morning on the case of Bruce Burgess, as reported in the Herald, and said there were questions about how one is facing losing a property you purchased in 1989, because of a job loss four months ago.

Well either as a result of that post, or by coincidence, the Herald has updated their story and answered some of the questions. We now learn:

Mr Burgess told the Herald today the couple own two properties in Auckland – a house in Papakura and an apartment in central Auckland purchased “in 2004 or 2005″ – but they were not currently returning any money.

This is presumably on top of the lifestyle block in Helensville. So the story now is that if you lose your job, and own three properties, you may have to give one of them up.

He said he paid about $385,000 for the Papakura property, though it was now worth about $340,000.

The apartment was purchased for “$260-something”, but he did not know the current market value.

So assuming the lifestyle block is worth at least $500,000 their propoerty assets come to over a million dollars.

But about four months ago, Mr Burgess – whose case was brought to the Herald’s attention by the Labour Party – lost his Avondale-based engineers job – and with it a $750-a-week paycheck.

And this was not disclosed in the earlier story. Now did Labour disclose to the Herald that Burgess owned three properties? Either Labour or Mr Burgess did not think this was relevant, or they did disclose it and the NZ Herald did not think it was relevant.

This is exactly why so many people are cynical about trusting what they read in the media. The Herald took a Labour planted story and ran it without checking the facts or even putting it through a logic check.

And Labour have shown us exactly what their priority is for all the money their pixies are printing. It is to give out welfare to a couple where one partner is working, and they have over $600,000 of investment properties.

This is not turning into a good week for Phil Goff. It seems he literally does advocate welfare for millionaires.

We see from this Twitter shot, that the story was obviously part of a Labour comms campaign. Goff twttering on it this morning, and asking questions in the House. So did Goff know this couple actually owns three propoerties worth around $1.4 million when he held them up as an example of why we should pay the dole to everyone?

I think Whale pointed out a couple of days ago TVNZ were running figures with the source being Labour. I hope they checked the figures before running with them.

UPDATE2: And it gets even worse for Labour. Duncan Garner blogs:

Labour has been dealing with Burgess for days over his plight and Goff has just given a vein-popping performance about poor old Bruce in Parliament.

“Why,” Goff asks, “should poor old Bruce be missing out?”

Why should 60-year-old Bruce lose his lifestyle block because his wife earns too much  for him to qualify for the dole?

Well, let me tell you what Phil Goff won’t tell you.

Bruce Burgess also owns two other rental properties on top of his lifestyle block. Burgess appears to have never told the Herald this.

But he did tell Goff. Oh yes. He told the Labour Party about his financial situation alright.

He told Labour he owned three properties. It’s just that Labour never told the media. Phil Goff never told the full story in Parliament about Burgess.

Labour did know about the other two properties. They told a deceptive story to the media and held this situation up as the poster child for their campaign. Shabby, shabby, shabby.