My review of Part 1 of veteran journalist Jim Tucker’s memoir Flair and loathing on the front page has been published in the Pacific Journalism Review. (click for link)

The Australian government is taking a tough line with social media companies like Google and Facebook over use of local news content. New Zealand is taking a softer line. I examine the moves on both sides of the Tasman on Auckland University’s The Big Q. Here is a link to the article: https://publicinterestmedia.blogs.auckland.ac.nz/2020/05/26/are-google-and-facebook-taking-new-zealand-for-a-ride-a-trans-tasman-divide-on-social-media/

 

A companion article to the submission I made this week to Parliament’s Epidemic Response Select Committee has been posted on The Democracy Project website. In it I call for a balanced approach to the preservation  of the New Zealand media ecosystem. We need strong public AND private sector news organisations. Here is the link The Democracy Project

 

Research into trans-Tasman media coverage of the Christchurch mosque attacks has raised questions about how, in the internet age, editors need to take account of the fact that their content can be seen by those most closely affected by a horrifying event, and that distance no longer provides the licence it once did to publish material that is distressing to those directly involved.

Almost 300 stories published by New Zealand and Australian metropolitan newspapers in the days following the attacks, together with web-based content by television broadcasters, were analysed by Dr Gavin Ellis, an Auckland media consultant and former editor-in-chief of the New Zealand Herald, and Dr Denis Muller, a Melbourne University researcher and former associate editor of The Age. They also interviewed news executives in both countries. Continue reading “Christchurch mosque attacks:The media’s proximity filter” →