Author: Gavin Ellis

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

This could be 1 News at 6

CBS_Evening_News_with_CronkiteTuesday commentary July 2020

Television New Zealand does not need a Covid-19 revenue nosedive as a reason to rethink its two-person early evening news hour. The format is a 1980s American import that should have disappeared with power shoulders and Miami Vice.

There is no journalistic benefit in presenters taking turns in reading from a teleprompter and if female/male partnerships are a gesture to gender equality, who says a single news reader must be male?

The double act hit our screens in 1989 after TVNZ brought consultants from the United States to tell it how to face competition from TV3. The advisors were surfing the wave of neoliberal marketing and peddling razzle dazzle formats. Continue reading “This could be 1 News at 6” →

[Don’t] read all about it!

mastheads
The latest readership survey shows New Zealand newspapers are very good at reporting other people’s bad news but not their own.

Last September the New Zealand Herald bragged that its Nielsen readership statistics had “soared to record levels” and this year ran an extensive story about NZME titles increasing readership in the February Nielsen survey, which it claimed was “highlighting Kiwis’ love affair with print”.

TUESDAY COMMENTARY

Last week Nielsen released its latest survey. It received no coverage in the Herald or in the Waikato Times or in the Dominion Post or in The Press or in the Otago Daily Times. Continue reading “[Don’t] read all about it!” →

Name change: Knightly Views

UPDATED: White Knight News has become Knightly Views. Nothing changes but the name – a move made necessary by unfortunate associations. The old URL will still bring you to the site but please amend saved links to www.knightlyviews.com

Knightlyviews.com  emphatically has no connection with any white supremacist organisation and utterly rejects any the doctrines of hate to which they adhere. The knight image envisaged here is a chivalrous champion and one prepared to ride to the rescue of (in this context) journalism and the principles for which it stands.

The current image depicts a knight slaying a dragon. The previous knightly image on the banner was the white knight from the Lewis chess pieces, carved from walrus ivory in the late 12th or early 13th century (probably in Trondheim, Norway).  Such a shame that his good name has been sullied by bigots.