Kiwiblog

Kate Chapman at Stuff reports:

Labour leader David Shearer is attempting to capitalise on the Maori Party’s apparent demise by extending his visit to Ratana.

Whoa. There is no way that should be asserted as fact in a news story. You can and should refer to leadership tensions, infighting etc. But to label a mere leadership challenge is the apparent demise of a party is not appropriate for a news report. It would be okay in an opinion piece speculating on what the struggle may do to the Maori Party.

All parties have leadership challenges, except those which are personality cults. You don’t label a party as having apparently demised, just because of one.

Reuters reports at Stuff:

The Communist Party chief of Guangdong province has reportedly stepped in to mediate a standoff over censorship at a Chinese newspaper, in a potentially encouraging sign for press freedoms in China.

A source close to the Guangdong Communist Party Committee said Hu Chunhua, a rising political star in China who just took over leadership of Guangdong province last month, had offered a solution to the dispute that led to some staff at the Southern Weekly going on strike.

The drama began late last week when reporters at the liberal paper accused censors of replacing a New Year letter to readers that called for a constitutional government with another piece lauding the party’s achievements.

Under Hu’s deal, the source said, newspaper workers would end their strike and return to work, the paper would print as normal this week, and most staff would not face punishment. “Guangdong’s Hu personally stepped in to resolve this,” the source said.

“He gets personal image points by showing that he has guts and the ability to resolve complex situations. In addition, the signal that he projects through this is one of relative openness, it’s a signal of a leader who is relatively steady.”

The standoff at the Southern Weekly, long seen as a beacon of independent and in-depth reporting in China’s highly controlled media landscape, has led to demands for the country’s new leadership to grant greater media freedoms.

China will never be a democracy as we have them in Europe and down under. Change will be evolutionary, not revolutionary. But it has been moving in the right direction for most of the last couple of decades and may end up with a Singapore system of governance one day – semi-democratic.

Reuters reports:

An Afghan insurgent warlord has branded Prince Harry a shameless, drunken “jackal” out to kill innocent Afghans while on duty as an attack helicopter pilot for NATO forces in the country. …

“It seems that some British authorities still dream about the times of the 18th and 19th century and they want their ambassador to be treated like a viceroy and their prince to go out in uniform to hunt for human beings and play the Satanic role that they used to play in the past,” Hekmatyar said in translated comments.

He said Britain had gained nothing by entering an “unjustified, useless but cruel conflict” to please its ally, the United States, speaking in a recorded video response to questions put by the paper.

“The British prince comes to Afghanistan to kill innocent Afghans while he is drunk. He wants to hunt down Mujahideen with his helicopter rockets without any shame.

“But he does not understand this simple fact that the hunting of Afghan lions and eagles is not that easy. Jackals cannot hunt lions,” Hekmatyar added. …

The US State Department lists Hekmatyar as a “terrorist” for supporting attacks by Islamist Taliban and al Qaeda insurgents, although he became a hero to many Afghans while leading mujahideen fighters against the Soviet occupation of the Central Asian country in the 1980s.

So a terrorist disapproves of Prince Harry’s deployment. This is of course globally important news.

I don’t how to put this diplomatically, so I’ll be direct.

Dear Fairfax,

Please, please, please exterminate the abomination that is Stuff Nation. 

I of all people am a supporter of allowing readers and commenters to contribute content. I think that is a good thing.

But it is a bad thing when you put that content on the front page of your website, and mix it in with the articles written by actual journalists. It devalues their work, and the entire site.

Take an example of a “story” that was on Stuff’s front page yesterday. It was this one that said:

A few years ago I applied for a job at a factory making trampolines.

The manager’s first question was: “Are you a married woman?”

I thought ‘ughh you creep’ but bit my tongue and asked why he needed to know.

His answer left me speechless: ”I don’t employ married women because their place is in the home to raise their children properly.”

Guess what though? I truly hate to admit it – being a (reformed) seventies feminist  - but he’s dead right.

Let’s even put aside that a company that has a majority of female employees publishes on their front page a story saying married women shouldn’t get jobs, because that makes them bad mums who can’t raise their children recently. Let’s agree that is a valid debate (personally I think it was a valid debate in 1912 not 2012).

But the 81 word “story” doesn’t even make a case for or against. It just says an employer asked me this once, and he was right.

Danyl McL has a theory that Stuff Nation is in fact a cunning plan by Fairfax to make people appreciate real journalists even more. If so, it is working!

Look I understand the commercial attraction of Stuff Nation. Get hundreds of people to write for us for nothing, in the hope their contribution makes the front page of Stuff, and we get to make advertising revenue from the ads we place on their content. And that is a fine model for GP Forums, and other bulletin boards.

But this mixing of banal reader contributions and actual journalistic articles and columns is hideous. Has Fairfax asked their staff what they think of it? I’m pretty confident they hate it.

Is there a solution, short of my preferred option of a large radioactive nuclear bomb?

How about just removing Stuff Nation articles from the front page of Stuff? I’ve already removed the Stuff Nation section from the Stuff front page, but their articles still turn up under “Editor’s Picks”. The article on why married women should not work was an Editor’s Pick!!!

Why not make Stuff Nation a standalone website. Make it nation.stuff.co.nz. Have a link to the site from Stuff, but don’t mingle together the content from your professional journalists with your reader contributions.

Either that, or nuke the abomination!

UPDATE: The new editor of Stuff Nation has responded in the comments:

Ouch! I’m totally up for debate on this (as the new editor of Stuff Nation and Stuff’s digital communities), but abomination might be a bit rough.

I think there’s some fair points in this blog though and also in the comments. I’m glad BlairM pointed out the obvious flaw in the fact that this is a blog, based on the opinions of an individual, much like the majority of content on Stuff Nation. I think it’s dangerous as journalists for us to assume that one person’s opinion is more valid than another’s.

There was a lot of debate yesterday about the quality of the ‘job interview nightmare’ mentioned above but I think in the context of readers sharing their stories and opening up debate on key issues, it’s a very valid form of citizen journalism. And by publishing it we weren’t endorsing the content – in the same way we don’t agree with every op ed piece we publish in our papers or websites.

I think it’s fair to mention that Stuff Nation – like any new major project – is a work in progress and we’re constantly working on ways to improve it and the quality within it. We have had some really beautifully written pieces from our readers (like this http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff-nation/8059106/Remembering-loved-ones-My-world-ended-that-day ) that have not only been amazing reads, but have provoked discussion around tough issues such as suicide, miscarriage, and loss, and that we would have struggled to produce through traditional news gathering channels.

In the meantime though, the stories are very clearly marked as Stuff Nation content, so if you’re not keen, you can easily avoid them. And I’ll just work away in the next few months to win you back 

Thanks to Janine for a constructive response to my rather inflammatory post. To some degree I find the dross puts me off discovering the gems like the ones cited above. Maybe have people vote on the best pieces and have them displayed more prominently, so that the signal to noise ratio is higher?

But here’s an example of what I was complaining about. I follow NZ Stuff Politics on Twitter. My expectation is that tweets from that account will be linking to stories written by journalists on politics. One tweet this afternoon was:

Call for new Education Minister

I clicked through on this, thinking it was a significant story. That a lobby group or school or union or MP had called for a new Education Minister.

Instead the link was to this Stuff Nation story. It was basically a letter to the editor, or a short piece by a reader called Peter Condon that he thinks Parata should go.

This shouldn’t be tweeted as a political news story by the Stuff NZ Politics twitter account. It isn’t a story. I’m not saying don’t have the opinion on the website somewhere, but this treating of a Stuff Nation opinion as no different to a news story is I think bad.

Some have said just don’t read Stuff Nation stories. I generally don’t. But when the Stuff twitter accounts promote them as if they were actual news stories, I have no way of knowing until I click on them. Set up a Stuff Nation twitter account, and leave the nation stories ou of the other twitter accounts.

7 News reported:

A record number of New Zealanders are arriving in Australia, and thousands are doing it thanks to cash handouts from their own Government.

Umm, not thousands. Six people.

The outrageous unemployment policy is turning Australia into a dumping ground for the out-of-work Kiwis.

Yes those six extra Kiwis last year have grown the Australian population by 0.000027%. How will they cope.

news.com.au reports:

THE boss of the radio network at the centre of the hoax call suicide tragedy has defended radio pranks as the government watchdog begins to investigate the incident.

A visibly shaken Rhys Holleran, CEO of Southern Cross Austereo that owns the radio station, has expressed the network’s “deep sorrow” at the death of nurse Jacintha Saldanha, 46, on Friday just days after she answered Sydney radio station 2DayFM’s hoax call.

I think there is a place for prank calls, but I don’t regard what that radio station did as a prank call. I think it was a nasty little lie. There is nothing clever or funny in ringing up a nurse and pretending to be someone else to access the private health records of a patient – no matter how famous.

If they had even an ounce of empathy, they should have realised in advance their call, if successful  would result in the employees concerned being massively distraught at their mistake in trusting them not to be lying. Also I don’t see what is funny about a young women having her first baby being in hospital due to complications.

No the suicide of Jacintha Saldanha was not predictable in advance, and I am sure they are genuinely upset by what has happened. However it was predictable that that nature of the call and the hoax they were enacting was going to cause great distress to the hospital staff they conned. The only thing unknown was the extent.

Now two children do not have a mother, and Kate and William’s first child will always be associated with the death of an innocent. Prince William already hated the press for what he saw as their role in the death of his mother. No doubt this addition to the media death toll will only harden that hatred.

Paul Harper at NZ Herald reports:

A New York newspaper’s front page photo of a man’s final moments before he was hit by a subway train has sparked outrage.

New York Post freelance photographer R Umar Abbasi captured Queens man Ki Suk Han, 58, desperately scrambling back on to the platform after a “deranged man” pushed him off the platform at Times Square.

The image took up the entirety of Tuesday’s New York Post front page with the headline “DOOMED” and the subhead “Pushed on the subway track this man is about to die”.

I thought the photo and story were appalling. This man has family. There is no news value in seeing a man be killed.

Abbasi told the Post he was using the flash of his camera to warn the driver, however the published photo has been widely condemned by the Post’s readers and other media.

I think that is bullshit. The photo is near perfectly focused and centered on the man.

However I think Abbasi bears the lesser blame. He may have been too far away to help, and a photographer’s instincts will kick in to record it. The decision I criticise more is the  newspaper editor who made the decision to publish it, especially in the way they did.

I understand Han was on the tracks for 22 seconds before the train came. It is appalling that he was not helped up by anyone. He may have survived. Arguably, he may have been better to lie flat on the track, but hard to think calmly in such a situation. Also I am unsure if all trains are high enough above the track that they can pass over a human. Anyone know?

The Press editorial:

The British tabloid press at its worst has never been a pretty thing to contemplate.

Hyper-competitive, unscrupulous, concerned more to get something that might be tricked up as a “scoop” no matter who got trampled on in the process, its unlovely ways have often been deplored. When British Prime Minister David Cameron appointed a Court of Appeal judge, Lord Justice Leveson, to conduct an inquiry into the operation of newspapers and to suggest how they might be better regulated, it was the seventh inquiry in 70 years to traverse much the same ground. When the inquiry was set up the papers’ reputation could hardly have been lower and nine months of hearings, in which some 337 witnesses were heard and 300 more gave statements, have done nothing to improve it. Despite all that, Leveson’s principal recommendation, for tougher regulation supported by law, is unlikely to be acted upon, and for very good reason.

I think there will be tougher regulation, but I don’t think it will be statutory regulation.

At the end of it all, Leveson found one of the central allegations that had been made – that Cameron had become too cosy with the Murdoch empire and had tailored policy to suit it – was not made out. He further found much of the press excellent. But the judge also found Britain’s system of newspaper self-regulation weak and inadequate and he proposed a new, much stronger one, ostensibly independent and voluntary but in fact coercive, with powers to fine heavily and, most crucially, backed by statute.

In NZ broadcasters can be fined, but not print media.

Direct state control over newspapers has not existed in England for more than 300 years. The idea of putting at risk the hard-won freedoms developed over centuries because of the excesses of a few tabloids is rightly regarded as anathema. To his credit, Cameron immediately spotted the dangers and while accepting Leveson’s findings, he has rejected that part of his report. A strong and effective regulatory body is undoubtedly needed, but not one established by the state, no matter how far removed from the immediate grasp of politicians. The practically inevitable risk of further political meddling is too great.

I agree.

New Zealand does not have the tabloid rabble that London does. It is also fortunate in having in the Press Council an effective body to deal with complaints. A few months ago, though, the Law Commission, fretting about alleged problems with the web, proposed a new statutory body to regulate all media. It is not a good idea, nor is it necessary, and with luck it will go no further.

I agree there should not be a statutory body. However I do think the idea of one combined industry self-regulator for print, broadcast and online is sensible and the best way to stop state regulation would be for media to proactively start work towards a combined self-regulator with no gaps as currently exists.

UPDATE: Sean Plunket writes in the Dom Post:

This isn’t to say there is no bias in New Zealand media. There most certainly is at an individual and institutional level. Most often, it is unconscious or unwitting, incredibly hard to positively identify and virtually impossible to eradicate.

To attempt to do so by writing a new set of rules and regulations would be a waste of time. It would hamstring the majority of genuine journalists doing their best to inform their readers/viewers/listeners of the opinions and activities of our politicians.

Impartiality has always, and ever will be, an aspirational goal for the media but kidding ourselves that some code of conduct can ever actually achieve it is a vain hope.

Events in Britain, where media bias is generally accepted, are far more concerning. The issues there are not about how the fourth estate presents the news but how it gathers it. In the case of Rupert Murdoch’s empire it would seem the catch cry was “by any means necessary”.

I’m happy to say that in my 25 plus years in New Zealand media it is not the prevalent attitude here. I don’t know any Kiwi colleague who has bribed, hacked or blackmailed to get a story. The teapot tapes suggest some of us aren’t above a bit of covert surveillance but it is most certainly the exception rather than the rule.

The Leveson inquiry showed us that attitudes were different among a large sector of British media but despite the fact that I find that abhorrent, I think Mr Cameron is doing the right thing.

I have not detected any great enthusiasm for Leveson’s recommendation to have a statutory basis for media regulation.

AP report at Stuff:

Britain needs a new independent media regulator to eliminate a subculture of unethical behaviour that infected segments of the country’s press, a senior judge has said at the end of a year-long inquiry into newspaper wrongdoing.

Lord Justice Brian Leveson said a new regulatory body should be established in law to prevent more people being hurt by “press behaviour that, at times, can only be described as outrageous.”

But UK Prime Minister David Cameron balked at that idea, warning that passing a new law to set up the body would mean “crossing the Rubicon” toward state regulation of the press.

I agree with Cameron that it is undesirable to have the state regulating the media. The ball is in the UK media’s court to set up a new regulator along the lines recommended by Leverson.

The full report is here. He notes:

the press is given significant and special rights in this country which I recognise and have freely supported both as barrister and judge. With these rights, however, come responsibilities to the public interest: to respect the truth, to obey the law4 and to uphold the rights and liberties of individuals. In short, to honour the very principles proclaimed and articulated by the industry itself (and to a large degree reflected in the Editors’ Code of Practice).

Do we have that reflected in codes here?

Turning to the Press Complaints Commission (PCC), I unhesitatingly agree with the Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition who all believe that the PCC has failed and that a new body is required. Mr Cameron described it as “ineffective and lacking in rigour” whilst Mr Miliband called it a “toothless poodle”. The Commission itself unanimously and realistically agreed in March 2012 to enter a transitional phase in preparation for its own abolition and replacement.

A fascinating recommendation here:

I have recommended as a first step that political leaders reflect constructively on the merits of publishing on behalf of their party a statement setting out, for the public, an explanation of the approach they propose to take as a matter of party policy in conducting relationships with the press.

Not quite sure what this would be. Would a political party have to state that their general approach is to take journalists out for boozy lunches so they write nice things about them?

Some key recommendations:

• An independent self regulatory body should be governed by an independent Board. In order to ensure the independence of the body, the Chair and members of the Board must be appointed in a genuinely open, transparent and independent way, without any influence from industry or Government.
• The requirement for independence means that there should be no serving editors on the Board.
• The Board should not have the power to prevent publication of any material, by anyone, at any time although
• The Board should have the power to impose appropriate and proportionate sanctions, (including financial sanctions up to 1% of turnover with a maximum of £1m), on any subscriber found to be responsible for serious or systemic breaches of the standards code or governance requirements of the body.
• The term ‘off-the-record briefing’ should be discontinued. The term ‘non-reportable briefing’ should be used to cover a background briefing which is not to be reported, and the term ‘embargoed briefing’ should be used to cover a situation where the content of the briefing may be reported but not until a specified event or time. These terms more neutrally describe what are legitimate police and media interactions.

Our own media regulation in New Zealand is also being reviewed by the Law Commission, whom I expect will publish a final report next year.

The headline in Stuff:

High pay rates stay despite firm’s loss

Note the journalists doesn’t write the headline. Then the first para:

State-owned coal miner Solid Energy has more than a quarter of its staff earning double the average wage and a chief on $1.1m when the company made a loss of $40 million this year.

Solid Energy’s 2012 annual report shows it chief executive Don Elder was paid $1.1m in the year to June and weeks later announced he was axing the jobs of a quarter of the staff to save millions of dollars in costs.

So at first the impression is that despite Solid Energy losing money, the CE is unaffected or even getting a pay increase. But you then read:

Elder’s 2012 pay is $250,000 less than what he was paid the year before because he received less in performance payments.

Hmmn, so in fact the CE has taken a 20% cut in remuneration – not such a sexy headline though is it.

The board was prepared to pay him a short term performance payment of $164,350. That was only 40 per cent of what he could have earned in that category.

However Elder declined to take anything in that short term category.

And the CE voluntarily declined any short-term performance payment even though he met some of his objectives. A laudable decision, in light of the company’s struggles.

Elder told the board he wants to take a 10 per cent cut to his base pay in this 2013 financial year.

And he has voluntarily offered a cut in his base pay rate.

It’s good all this detail is in the story. It is just a pity that the headline didn’t reflect it with a more accurate headline such as “Solid Energy boss takes pay cut as company struggles”

Some of you may have noticed that Stuff recently decided to mix in the content from their staff (who have spent four years getting a degree and journalism school) with content from, well anyone at all. Now the only thing that distinguished an article from a 30 year veteran of the Dom Post and a story from an 18 year old about how when they were 13 a boy turned them down for a date is the little Stuff Nation logo.

They have the “best” of Stuff Nation proudly displayed near the top of their home page. Another recent highlight is how a mother hopes her 16 year old daughter will date her best friend when they are older.

Now of course we should all learn just not to click on the links. But the headlines are often tempting. So you click away, and then the neurones in your brain disintegrate as you read a few lines.

Anyway someone on Twitter pointed out that you can protect your health by deleting Stuff Nation from your Stuff homepage. Just click on the pencil icon for the Stuff Nation section and click on the word “Remove” which comes up.

Now this is not a total vaccination as Stuff have embedded some Stuff Nation content in their other sections. But it does help.

Maybe a smart reader can design some plugin which will delete every Stuff Nation article from appearing anywhere on the website? I think it would be popular!

The Houston Chronicle reports:

Masked gunmen publicly shot dead six suspected collaborators with Israel in a large Gaza City intersection Tuesday, witnesses said. An Associated Press reporter saw a mob surrounding five of the bloodied corpses shortly after the killing.

Some in the crowd stomped and spit on the bodies. A sixth corpse was tied to a motorcycle and dragged through the streets as people screamed, “Spy! Spy!”

No doubt the evidence was carefully considered in a fair trial.

Witnesses said a van stopped in the intersection, and four masked men pushed the six suspected informers out of the vehicle. Salim Mahmoud, 18, said the gunmen ordered the six to lie face down in the street and then shot them dead. Another witness, 13-year-old Mokhmen al-Gazhali, said the informers were killed one by one, as he mimicked the sound of gunfire.

They said only a few people were in the street at first — most Gazans have been staying indoors because of the Israeli airstrikes — but the crowd quickly grew after the killings. Eventually several hundred men pushed and shoved to get a close look at the bodies, lying in a jumble on the ground. One man spit at the corpses, another kicked the head of one of the dead men.

“They should have been killed in a more brutal fashion so others don’t even think about working with the occupation (Israel),” said one of the bystanders, 24-year-old Ashraf Maher.

One body was then tied by a cable to the back of a motorcycle and dragged through the streets. A number of gunmen on motorcycles rode along as the body was pulled past a house of mourning for victims of an Israeli airstrike.

Funnily enough, Hamas brutally murdering Palestinians gets far fewer headlines, than Israel missile strikes killing Palestinians.

UPDATE1: A Hamas official has criticised the killings, or at least criticised “The way these collaborators were killed and the images after their death …”. 

UPDATE2: Egypt has announced a truce between Israel and Hamas. This is a good thing. Now if Hamas could just drop their objective of destroying Israel, then a durable peace for land settlement could be contemplated.

Stacey Kirk at Stuff reports:

Nowhere in the Gaza Strip is safe from Israel’s “terrifying” bombardment, a New Zealander living in Gaza City says.

Speaking via Skype while military drones could be heard hovering over her house, freelance journalist Julie Webb-Pullman said it was an “absolutely terrifying” place to be. …

She said yesterday a group of people were targeted by an Israeli drone which killed a nine-year-old girl and her brother.

“It’s a crime against humanity what’s occurring, kids are being targeted, [Sunday] alone 31 people were killed – 10 of those children, six were women and five were babies and toddlers,” she said.

“They are not military targets, they are civilians. Israel is committing war crimes plain and simple.”

Now I am not suggesting the views of Ms Webb-Pullman should not be reported, as she is able to report first hand.

But surely the media have an obligation not to present her as a disinterested freelance journalist!

She is a long-standing political activist for the communist regime in Cuba, the revolutionary leftist Zapatistas, and the Kia Ora Gaza and NZ Palestine Human Rights Campaign. She disputes that Israel even has a right to exist as a legitimate state, and people can judge this statement for themselves:

New Zealand’s Prime Minister might have his own personal reasons for choosing to forget such behaviour and welcome a Zionist embassy in New Zealand

This is short-hand for those Jews stick together.

Now again I am not in any way suggesting no one should be reporting what Webb-Pullman says. What I am saying is that merely describing her as a freelance journalist, and the implication of neutrality is grossly misleading and does readers a disservice.

NBR reports:

A call from the Dominion Post may have been the “final straw” which pushed leading crime lawyer Greg King to take his own life.

Wellington lawyer Nikki Pender says it looked like Mr King did get a call from the Dominion Post which she says was just the “final straw”.

This confirms the story broken by Truth. The only other media publication to touch on this revelation is NBR. I’m amazed that Mediawatch did not deem it worthwhile to even ask the Dominion Post if their staff called Greg King just before he died. Did the Herald ask any questions of the Dominion Post such as “Is it true you had written a story on Greg King, which you pulled just before the print deadline”.

Greg King’s death is tragic and profoundly sad. It is even more tragic if the catalyst was a story about a dispute over $1,500 of legal aid hours. Would journalists at the Dominion Post accept a refuse to comment from any of the subjects of their investigations? So, why is it acceptable from the newspaper itself?

I’m not saying the Dominion Post has done anything wrong. But I am saying they should front up and explain exactly what their involvement was.

When Christine Rankin was thought to be involved with the family of a woman who killed herself, the Dominion Post and other Fairfax papers pursued the story with vigour. There was no sense of being inappropriate to comment until the Coroner’s Report. The double standards in this case are hypocritical. I can understand the double standard from the Dom Post (who naturally do not want bad publicity), but why are other media and shows that are meant to focus on the media not reporting on this?

A typical story on this issue has been this Stuff one:

 SkyCity boasted about bringing high-rolling gamblers to New Zealand aboard China Southern Airlines through a fast-tracked visa process a year before Immigration New Zealand recommended that the Government sign a deal with the carrier.

Immigration Minister Nathan Guy was this week forced to reveal an agreement with the airline, which comes into effect next week, for its gold and silver frequent-flier cardholders to skip normal border checks after leaked documents were released by NZ First leader Winston Peters. …

Mr Peters said yesterday that SkyCity had been pushing for the scheme for years. “Their high-rollers already operate under these new rules, which means a casino and a communist government airline have under [Mr Guy's] deal with them, now acquired privileges for their customers not available to any other group of people anywhere else in the world.”

Police listed common offences by Asian crime syndicates as extortion, drug trafficking, identity fraud and people smuggling, he told Parliament.

This story may be the biggest beat up of the year. The media seemed to have gone out of their way to be as non-specific as possible as to what has been agreed, because the truth is boringly mundane. Here are the facts.

• This agreement has nothing to do with anyone in China getting a work visa, a residency visa, a long-term visa or even citizenship (apply via Dover Samuels). It is purely about being able to visit New Zealand temporarily.
• 57 countries can have their citizens visit New Zealand without any visa at all. So what Peters say about privileges not available to any other group of people in the world is absolute nonsense. If you are a citizen of any of those 57 countries you can visit NZ without even needing a visa so long as you are not a criminal or been deported from another country
• Those countries for which we require a visa, tend to be relatively poor countries. We do not allow unrestricted visiting rights because of the well documented risk that they then become overstayers, illegal immigrants etc as the standard of living in NZ is much higher than those countries.
• So Chinese citizens need to get a visa to come here.  To get a visa they need to provide the following:
  • Proof of good health
  • Proof of good character
  • A proper purpose for visiting
  • Proof they plan to leave
  • Proof of funds to cover stay in NZ ($1,000/mth), and departure
  • Not have a serious criminal record
• The application form for a visa is 16 pages long. A China Southern Airlines frequent flyer still has to fill in the entire 16 page form.
• As I understand it, the only “variation” is that their status with China Southern Airlines is taken as proof of sufficient funds rather than have to provide certified copies of bank statements, letters of credit etc. Now considering that you have to have flown around the world at least twice in the last year to get frequent flyer status, then it is not a bad assumption that they have funds in excess of $1,000 a month!
• That’s it. That’s what this is all about. A decision that proof you have flown twice around the world recently is a good proxy for you have sufficient funds to cover your expenses while in NZ.

So, an absolute beatup. And also consider that if you are visiting from say Mexico or Taiwan you don’t even need proof of funds, as we assume all citizens of those countries have sufficient funds to be allowed to visit NZ.

As I understand it, the initial concern by someone in DIA was based on thinking there was going to be a general visa waiver or the like. There is not. The ONLY thing agreed to here is that proof you fly so often to get frequent flyer status is acceptable proof that  you have funds in excess of $1,000 a month!

Sky City has not engaged with the Government at all on the South China Airlines arrangement, according to both them and the Government. They support it, as it makes it easier for high rollers (who are in no way exempt the good character test) to avoid the hassle of proving they have NZ$3,000 (when in fact they have several million dollars) each time they visit. These high rollers then spend hundreds of thousands of dollars in New Zealand, boosting the tourism sector and tax revenues.

Again, an absolute beat up of a story. What annoys me is that the media could have made clear in their stories that the so called “skipping border checks” is no such thing. They get treated no differently at the border. They still need a visa in advance. The only difference is what document they have to supply in advance with their visa application – proof of frequent flyer status rather than proof of funds. But that isn’t as sexy a story.

This is in fact a very smart arrangement. South China Airlines is the third largest in the world. It means they will promote NZ as a destination to their customers on our behalf. The Tourism Industry Association thinks it is great. It doesn’t mean a single person will be allowed to visit, who doesn’t fully meet the rules. It is simply saying that you can use a frequent flyer status as proof of funds, rather than a bank statement.

Karl du Fresne writes:

I recently had what might be termed a clash of professional opinion with some of my fellow journalists. It was touched off by a newspaper editorial that took a whack at “enthusiastic amateurs” sounding off on such issues as climate change, vaccinations and fluoridation.

Everyone was entitled to their opinion, the editorial writer loftily pronounced, but not all views should be accorded equal weight. The views of people with years of study and experience behind them were worth more than those of non-experts.

A member of an internet journalism discussion group to which I belong applauded the editorial, saying she couldn’t agree more. “These amateur know-it-alls are a menace,” she declared.

I thought this a peculiar position for a journalist to take. I mean, aren’t we supposed to believe in freedom of speech?

Another member chimed in that the Sensible Sentencing Trust’s Garth McVicar should be added to the “list of nutters”. Then someone else suggested a couple of other names for what was shaping up as a blacklist: David Round and Lindsay Mitchell.

I am on the mailing list where this discussion occurred and I thought it interesting that the only names of people who should be ignored, are those associated with a centre-right view on controversial issues.

Mr Round is a University of Canterbury law lecturer who has written extensively over many years about Treaty of Waitangi issues. He dismisses the Treaty settlement process as a rort and a gravy train.

Ms Mitchell is a Wellington researcher who, in her own words, sets out to debunk the myths surrounding the welfare state, which she describes as economically, socially and morally unsustainable. Her voice is a courageous and lonely one, challenging the vast body of agencies, bureaucrats and academics with a common interest in propping up an unwieldy and seriously flawed welfare system.

What was immediately noticeable was the individuals dismissed by some of my fellow journalists as not deserving any publicity were, loosely speaking, all Right of centre.

I don’t agree with Lindsay Mitchell on all the welfare issues, but she is very well reserached. She has gathered a huge amount of data under the OIA.

In any case, let’s examine this question of “expert” versus “non-expert” a little more closely.

It was clear from the discussion that the word “expert” is generally equated with a university degree. In the climate change debate, you’re not considered credible unless you have a relevant academic qualification.

But in more than 40 years in journalism, I’ve come across any number of highly qualified “experts” whose opinions seemed to owe more to ideology than to academic credibility. Many academics are moralists by nature, always ready to lecture us on what they see as the world’s failings.

Whatever the subject – whether climate change or alcohol law reform, to choose two topical examples – they are inclined to cherry-pick the theories that suit their political leanings.

Exactly. Not one alcohol expert ever mentioned the fact that the prevalence rate of youth drinking had dropped 40% in the last five years.

I’m not arguing all opinions are equally valid. Absolutely not. But they should be judged on the quality of their research and argument – not on their degree status.

Once again the media do not tell us something important. The Herald (on Sunday) reports:

The dire shortage of houses for sale in the Auckland market has desperate buyers going door-to-door pleading with homeowners to sell. …

Auckland couple Kate Sutton and Oliver Mannion have taken a different approach, asking Remax agents Peter Thomas and Roshni Sami to use their names in personal letters to homeowners to try to secure their first home.

So does this random couple have a solution?

They said the situation in Auckland was so bad the Government needed to introduce a capital gains tax if there was to be any relief for buyers.

They believed taxing investment properties was the only way to make home ownership affordable for families and less attractive for investors.

On a minor note, they are economically illiterate. There are some sounds reasons to have a capital gains tax. But reducing house prices is not one of them. A tax on housing will increase house prices, not decrease them.

But is it a coincidence that this random couple said that the solution is capital gains tax – the key tax proposal by the Labour Party?

Either the reporter was unaware that Kate has been the Womens vice president of the Labour Party for the last six years, or they decided not to tell the public this.

Kate was also a candidate for Labour in 2008 and 2011. The failure to disclose this in the article is appalling. Even worse it is their lead story online with the headline “Buyers begging for home”.

I would also point out the choice of “desperate” couple was shall we say debatable:

But even with a good deposit and a budget of between $600,000 and $700,000, the desperate couple are still flatting in an Onehunga property Sutton and her brother own.

So already part-owner of a property. So Kate was going to become an evil multiple property owner who needs to be taxed more!

Incidentially Trade Me has 5,220 properties listed for sale in Auckland that cost under $700,000 and are three or more bedrooms.

This is what you call desperate and begging.

UPDATE: Kate brags on Facebook how she managed to get the Herald on Sunday to write about Capital Gains Tax. So was the HoS an unwitting dupe, or an accomplice?

A senior journalist pointed out to me that after the first presidential debate, Radio New Zealand reported that Obama’s performance in the first debate was “disappointing”.

ABC in Australia used the more accurate and non-partisan description that it was “widely panned” because of course Obama’s performance was only disappointing if you were a supporter of his.

Language can be quite powerful, in the way it can reinforce impressions. The journalists who pointed it out to me said he is a believer in not using partisan adjectives in news reports. This is especially the case for state owned media.

And we even see this a bit today, with a Stuff story which says “Could Mitt Romney really steal the White House from Barack Obama today?” – I don’t think the use of language in this (otherwise good) story is a huge issue. But I do think that the use of language in reporting can be quite powerful in affecting views.

Nikki Kaye wrote on FB:

I sat through the Vodafone music awards and listened as Homebrew and other labour politicians effectively endorsed calling John a variety of offensive things. It saddens me that there doesn’t appear to be equity in the way certain politicians are held to account on what they say.

This is a valid point. Compare the number of column centimeters that have appeared on  a jovial comment on a radio show, and on the bile that was spewed at Key at the Vodafone Music Awards and how two Labour MPs tweeted their adoration for the band that did it.

We can contrast the total non-coverage in New Zealand to a similar case in Australia.

A comedian said some offensive stuff about Tony Abbott and his Chief of Staff at a comedy show. Several Labor Ministers were in the audience. Now none of them tweeted stuff about how much they loved the comedian or adored them. They in fact said nothing at all.

However this became a major story in Australia, reported in every newspaper, purely because the Labor MPs present did not immediately condemn the remarks. They later did so, after Gillard did. It was deemed a story just on the basis they were there. It would have been many times worse for them if they had actually expressed admiration for the comedian who made the remarks.

So you have a huge disparity in media treatment – not just within New Zealand – but between Australia and New Zealand.

Now just imagine for a second if senior National MPs had been present at a show where highly offensive things were said about the Labour Party Leader. Also imagine if they tweeted how much they loved the person or persons who said them. Does anyone really think this would not have become a major news story?

Bernard Orsman at NZ Herald reports:

 Seven chief executives and their staffs plus 49 directors are responsible for 75 per cent of the Super City’s services.

Auckland ratepayers are spending $13.1 million a year to pay for seven boards of directors, seven chief executives and seven executive teams who run much of the Super City.

The seven council-controlled organisations (CCOs) run about 75 per cent of Super City services at arm’s length from the democratically elected Auckland Council.

I don’t know about you, but $13.1 million for governors, CEOs and executive teams seems pretty reasonable to me. The Herald doesn’t state how many staff are on the combined executive teams, but an average of under $2 million per CCO for a Board, a CEO and a senior executive team does not seem unreasonable. The combined Auckland Council spends $2 billion a year.

The chief executive salaries range from $330,000 for the head of Auckland Tourism, Events and Economic Development, Brett O’Riley, and Auckland Council Investments’ Gary Swift, to about $710,000 for Watercare boss Mark Ford.

The Herald estimates that Mr Ford’s salary is the equivalent cost of Aucklanders taking about 9.5 million showers.

This is the part I really wanted to blog on. I’m sorry, but what the fuck? How is this a useful or relevant stat? Tell me what his salary is as a percentage of Watercare revenue. Is the Herald now going to write about the salaries of Telecom CEO in terms of the number of e-mails of the same cost? Or the salaries of a newspaper editor in terms of the number of website ads served?

If the comparison had been to the number of days water to a household, I’d find that semi-useful. But unless you know how much of your daily water use tends to be a shower, then the comparison is useless. The suspicion is it is used to just make the salary sound really bad.

A lawyer e-mailed me on this. You can see at this site a massive article in the SST about a woman called Erica and how in a marital dispute she could not afford a lawyer, and how the Judge didn’t allow her to miss a court hearing due to her having cancer. It quotes her saying she needs $300,000 for her future medical care. The entire article is based on what she said, and no attempt was made it seems to talk to anyone else.

Two weeks later, this article appeared, quoting the Family Court principal judge. He provided an extract from the oncologist who said “This is a low grade disease …”, and also how she had withdrawn from various sale agreements which had been reached, and then finally refused to communicate with her ex-husband anymore to try and reach a resolution.

It gives a very different perspective to the original article, and this information should have been in the original article. How is it good journalism to just take allegations, and not seek a response?

Inforrm blogs:

 There’s quite a lot to digest in the recent decision of Hogan J. in Cornec v. Morrice & Ors. Most of the judgment deals with wider issues in the protection of journalists’ sources, and unsurprisingly the media coverage so far tends to focus on this aspect. But reading the judgment, I was struck by the way in which it considered whether non-traditional media could also benefit from similar protections. In particular, it appears to be the first Irish judgment to consider the position of bloggers.

In this case orders were sought to compel two individuals – Nicola Tallant and Mike Garde – to testify for the purposes of US civil proceedings. Both objected to the orders on various grounds, including the argument that requiring their testimony would reveal both their sources and the information provided by these sources, contrary to their journalistic privilege recognised by Irish law.

The Judge says:

While Mr. Garde is not a journalist in the strict sense of the term, it is clear from that his activities involve the chronicling of the activities of religious cults. Part of the problem here is that the traditional distinction between journalists and laypeople has broken down in recent decades, not least with the rise of social media. It is probably not necessary here to discuss questions such as whether the casual participant on an internet discussion site could invoke Goodwin-style privileges, although the issue may not be altogether far removed from the facts of this case.

Yet Mr. Garde’s activities fall squarely within the “education of public opinion” envisaged by Article 40.6.1. A person who blogs on an internet site can just as readily constitute an “organ of public opinion” as those which were more familiar in 1937 and which are mentioned (but only as examples) in Article 40.6.1, namely, the radio, the press and the cinema.Since Mr. Garde’s activities fall squarely within the education of public opinion, there is a high constitutional value in ensuring that his right to voice these views in relation to the actions of religious cults is protected. It does not require much imagination to accept that critical information in relation to the actions of those bodies would dry up if Mr. Garde could be compelled to reveal this information, whether in the course of litigation or otherwise. It is obvious from the very text of Article 40.6.1 that the right to educate (and influence) public opinion is at the very heart of the rightful liberty of expression. That rightful liberty would be compromised – perhaps even completely jeopardised – if disclosure of sources and discussions with sources could readily be compelled through litigation.

A decision I welcome. It does not mean all bloggers can get journalistic protection. But that some bloggers could, if they are blogging on issues of public interest.

Gallup has released the latest of its annual polls measuring trust or distrust in the US media by Americans.

A record high 60% say they have not very much trust or no trust at all in the media to report the news fully, accurately and fairly.  This has declined 14% over the last decade.

What is interesting is the breakdown by affiliation. 58% of Democrats say they have a fair or great deal of trust in the media and only 26% of Republicans say the same. Now some may say that this is because Republicans are detached from reality, but they also found that Independents have only 31% trust in the media. What this suggests to me is that the majority of the media are seen as Democrat-aligned and too sycophantic to the Democrats – hence the rest of America has little faith in them.

John Roughan writes:

Do you know how they chose which schools to close in Christchurch? I don’t. I could find out butI shouldn’t have to, there has been so much television coverage of the subject this week we should be well informed.

I have seen sad, angry and bitter teachers. I have been told over and over what a blow this is for people who are still trying to recover from earthquakes, particularly when their school suffered little damage.

I have seen school children lined up for the cameras and saying the same things, exactly the same, as the sad, angry and bitter teachers. I have seen the kids with placards made in class and I’ve seen them having a protest march.

Has anybody explained to them how and why their school is on the list, or are they simply learning this is what you do when you don’t like a decision? That strikes me as a good reason to close the school but doubtless there were other criteria.

I have listened to John Campbell, thinking he would want to know what they are, but if he knows he doesn’t seem to think his audience needs to know.

I watched his reporter cover a school protest meeting the other night, jumping excitedly from one sad, angry, bitter teacher to the next and then to one well-primed child after another, and Campbell thanked him for that report.

Maybe I missed an interview where an education official got a chance to explain the reasons but I would have thought the rationale, whatever it is, would be mentioned in every report.

Journalists are trained to cover all obvious questions. When one is left begging like this, be very suspicious.

One can only agree – no balance at all. No attempt to explain, just to elicit an emotional response.

John Armstrong writes in the NZ Herald:

Here is a blunt message for a couple of old-school Aro Valley-style socialists:

Get off our backs. Stop behaving like a pair of tut-tutting old dowagers gossiping in the salons. In short, stop making blinkered, cheap-shot accusations of the kind you made this week – that the media who went with John Key to Vladivostok and Tokyo concentrated on trivia, interviewed their laptops and parroted Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet press releases. …

Do the likes of former Listener columnist and Greens propagandist Gordon Campbell and former Alliance staffer and now Otago University politics lecturer Bryce Edwards have the faintest idea of the difficulties, obstacles and logistics of reporting an overseas trip by a prime minister, especially one which incorporates a major international forum like Apec?

Does it occur to them to actually pick up the phone and try to talk to those journalists about what is happening and why things are being reported in a certain way?

Of course not. That would risk the facts getting in the way of, well … interviewing their laptops and having yet another ritual poke at the parliamentary press gallery.

To read their drivel while stuck in a Tokyo traffic jam with your deadline approaching faster than a Japanese bullet-train makes your heart sink. …

But never mind. The rules that apply to journalists in terms of accuracy do not apply to Campbell and his echo chamber Dr Edwards – who is not be confused with Dr Brian Edwards, another blogger, but a far more original one when it comes to ideas and analysis.

Bloggers can blog when they like at what length they wish. Admittedly, they are normally not being paid for the privilege. Journalists are. But on a trip like last week’s one, the hourly rate slumps drastically by virtue of the hours worked.

Few media representatives travelling with John Key would have got more than four or five hours’ sleep each night – probably less – because of the Prime Minister’s schedule, which ran from 6am (earlier if a flight was involved) until well into the evening.

Days were spent clambering on and off buses in 35C heat and 100 per cent humidity.

Time has to be found within that schedule to write news stories and other articles – but not just for the following day’s newspaper. News organisation’s websites have to fed – especially if there is “breaking” news.

Deadlines in Asia are punishing, as countries such as Japan are three hours behind New Zealand, meaning deadlines are effectively even tighter.

Then there is the no small matter of filing stories back home. Equipment breaks down, mobile phones that are supposed to be in harmony with Japan’s system turn out not to be.

To Campbell’s credit, he does do his own digging. He is also a regular attendee at the Prime Minister’s weekly press conference. His blog is one of the more valuable. But he does have a blind spot with regards to the press gallery.

The rapidly growing influence of Edwards’ blog was initially down to its being an exhaustive wrap-up of all of the day’s political news. It is now starting to develop a much more political dynamic that is unlikely to please National.

Edwards’ blog is the extreme example of the fact that most blogsites rely on the mainstream media for their information and then use that information to criticise the media for not stressing something enough or deliberately hiding it.

Unlike the mainstream media, the blogs are not subject to accuracy or taste – and sometimes even the law.

It is the ultimate parasitical relationship. And it will not change until the media start charging for use of their material.

Monday’s media summary by Bryce will be an interesting read.

For my 2c I think John makes a very fair point about the reality of being a working journalist on on overseas trip, and the coverage of issues.

To be fair to Edwards, what he does everyday is not so much about blogging. His summary was originally circualated by e-mail, and it was his collection of links that people most valued. I know, as I sponsored it.

Since then his narrative around the day’s stories has become more prominent, and that is what most now read. Few actually read it I suspect on Bryce’s blog. Most I’d say read it off the NZ Herald and NBR websites, who as I understand it pay Bryce for his work – so not quite an unpaid blogger!