Pay for play media

Newsroom reports:

Tomorrow, Newsroom unveils the first story in Who Benefits, a year-long project, supported financially by a grant from The Integrity Institute, tracking and disclosing lobbying and influence.

This is a new development in NZ media. A lobby group (the Integrity Institute) has paid a dollop of cash to Newsroom, in exchange for Newsroom running a series of articles that support the mission of the Integrity Institute (which as far as I can tell is that lobbying is evil when done by anyone with a commercial stake in a decision, but is wonderful when done by anyone without a commercial stake).

This isn’t just giving a column or op ed space to a lobby group (which is common) but taking money from a lobby group in exchange for an editorial direction that they will run a year long series of articles.

Could you imagine the outcry if for example the NZ Initiative paid BusinessDesk to run a year long investigation into how bad regulations are harming NZ businesses. It would be the lead item on Mediawatch and decried as money undermining media.

I think Nicky Hager called it pay for play, which is ironic as I think he now works for the Integrity Institute.

Hang on, though. Isn’t Newsroom the subject of influence by accepting a grant from The Integrity Institute? 

Yes

Well, the institute partnership has provided funding, has suggested some places to look, but Newsroom has developed the subject areas, will be led by what we uncover and will retain full editorial control. Our team – Fox Meyer and me, David Williams – are reporting to Newsroom’s co-editors, not the institute, and we aim to show influence from all sides of policies.

Does anyone think that they would receive further grants, if the output doesn’t please the funders of the Integrity Institute (who pulled funding from VUW because VUW wouldn’t comply with their wishes)?

To argue that yes we are taking their money, and yes they have “suggested” where we focus, but hey this doesn’t compromise our independence is laughable. Even more ironically they are trying to make the case that money in politics has too much influence, while insisting that money in media has no influence at all! The hypocrisy is immense.

Their first article appeared on Thursday, and it is about freshwater policy. Over thousands of breathless words we discover that MFE and MPI spent around 60 hours in consultation meetings with every stakeholder you could think of. You and I might think this is actually a great example of government doing its job well. So what is the problem? Well of the 60 hours, 35 hours was spent meeting industry groups (farmers etc) and 25 hours meetings councils and NGOs. This it seems is terrible.

To me it is no surprise that slightly more time is spent with the groups and organisations that have to implement the regulations. They are the ones directly impacted and also often have the technical expertise of how a regulation on paper actually impacts things in the field.

NGOs with an interest in the policy issues should and do get consulted. But the number and duration of meetings should be based on need, not arbitrary criteria.