Gavin Ellis is a media consultant, commentator and researcher. He holds a doctorate in political studies. A former editor-in-chief of the New Zealand Herald, he is the author of Trust Ownership and the Future of News: Media Moguls and White Knights (London, Palgrave) and Complacent Nation (Wellington, BWB Texts). His consultancy clients include media organisations and government ministries. His Tuesday Commentary on media matters appears weekly on his site www.whiteknightnews.com
Why doesn’t the National Party and its coalition partners simply admit that they want Radio New Zealand to die a natural – or perhaps unnatural – death?
First, the National government under John Key froze RNZ funding for eight years. Then the coalition led by Christopher Luxon wasted little time to impose a $4.9 million annual reduction. Now the latest Budget imposes a further $1.4 million a year baseline cut. The broadcaster was already operating at a net deficit of $886,000 on last year’s accounts.
That $6 million cumulative annual cut is in addition to the effects of inflation, which has breached the 1-3 per cent target in the past two quarters and is expected to hit 4 per cent in the current quarter. Treasury predictions of a future rate fall fail to allow for a demagogue in the White House and a dictator in the Kremlin.
It is clear that National and its bed mates do not like the state-owned broadcaster, and Christopher Luxon installed a minister to reflect that attitude. Paul Goldsmith has been anything but a champion for RNZ and, as result, it has had no-one to fight its corner in Cabinet
RNZ is seen as a bunch of Lefties whose sole aim in life is to bring unjustified grief to the good people on the other side of the political spectrum who really do know how to run the country.
RNZ chief executive Paul Thompson’s announced departure will forever be linked in the public mind with the last salvo fired by ACT leader David Seymour. The state-owned media’s leader deserves better, much better.
If Seymour – publicly or privately – claims a scalp he will be both wrong and, once again, in breach of the spirit of the statute he is charged with upholding as RNZ shareholding minister.
I say “once again” because I stated publicly that I believed he was in breach of the spirit of the Broadcasting Act when he criticised the appointment of John Campbell as Morning Report co-host and hinted in the same breath that Thompson could lose his job.
Speaking to The Platform, Seymour did not name Thompson in his criticism of the Morning Report appointment, but it was obvious he was referring to Thompson when he said “Look, that guy’s got an awful lot to answer for, and I suspect that he won’t be answering the call at RNZ for much longer.”
To many, it will appear that Seymour now has his wish – in spite of an emphatic statement by RNZ board chair Dr Jim Mather that the chief executive had signalled to the board last December that he intended to step down at the end of 2026.
After that announcement by the RNZ board last Friday, Seymour stated that he had been unaware of Thompson’s disclosure to the board last year. We must take him at his word but I have to confess I wondered what had happened to the much-emphasised ‘no surprises’ policy that successive governments have demanded of not only ministries but state-owned enterprises. Continue reading “Political potshots should not define RNZ CEO’s term”→
As I sat at my desk in a vague cerebral search for answers to a perplexing question, my gaze settled on two objects on my bookshelf. Far from providing those answers, the small artifacts were stark reminders of the complexities of the challenge I had set myself.
The objects were a small brass rendition of the Three Wise Monkeys and a piece of iron pyrites. The question I had set myself: What is journalism?
The presence of the small objects suddenly brought home to me the paradoxes I was confronting in trying to define an endeavour whose current public perception is, itself, adrift in an ocean of contradictions.
My Wise Monkeys exhorted me to See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil. In all the years since they were given to me by my mother on my first day in journalism, it has been a metaphorical reminder of the values that journalists must apply to their work. Yet reporting on evil of one sort of another was a recurring element of the journalism I have practised and observed over the past six decades. I saw evil, heard about evil, and my job was to report on it. I do not feel I, or the journalism for which I was responsible, have let my mother down. Her gift was a statement that values and standards were important. However, I also recognise the message my monkeys impart to individual members of society, and see it taking on ever-increasing validity in the toxic environment of social media. That is a paradox.
The second inconsistency was symbolised by the piece of iron pyrites. Did Fool’s Gold sitting beside my monkeys suggest that the value of journalism that I had long embraced was illusory? Certainly, the attacks by New Zealand politicians and their supporters over the past month suggest journalists may be kidding themselves that their roles in a democratic society have real (and recognised) value. Given that democracy demands the free flow of verified facts, the devaluing of journalism by politicians might be seen as equally paradoxical…and alarming.
However, I will not crush my question into a ball and throw it into the too-hard basket. I hope the definitions I am about to offer recognise the complexities and nuances that attend the reasons why journalism exists, the means by which it is practised, and its validity in an age when ordinary members of society can be mass communicators.
Why am I bothering? After all, so many New Zealanders appear to have little regard for journalism. That is evident both in declining audience numbers on those vehicles that embrace journalism as their primary mission, and in the minimal public reactions to statements and actions that are eroding the field at a rate that has alarming similarities to the effects of climate change.
I am making the effort because it is vital that we, as a society, begin to understand the distinction between journalism and (for want of a better term) ordinary public discourse. The latter now exists in an environment that is demanding of rights but negligent on responsibilities, where motives and even identity may be readily hidden, and where fact and opinion are interchangeable or conflated into a ‘new reality’. At times, it is the antithesis of principled journalism. It is an environment readily embraced by institutions, organisations, and individuals who eschew pre-publication scrutiny in order to directly embed their messages with largely unquestioning audiences. Continue reading “How do we define journalism? The public needs to know”→
