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

It takes more than global chaos to change the front page

The computer chaos that enveloped much of the world on Friday told us something about almost all of this country’s daily newspapers: Either their deadlines mean they are no longer newspapers, their priorities lie elsewhere, or their ‘news’ values are shot to hell.

I say “almost all” because one newspaper stood out from its contemporaries. The Otago Daily Times was the only paper that led its Saturday edition with the story of the catastrophic worldwide effect of a bad update of security software for Microsoft Windows-based computers.

For the Weekend Herald, it was more important to report on an elderly man’s inability to sell his house – in a story that contained NZME’s magic word OneRoof (its real estate site). The Post thought mouldy old Onslow College trumped global chaos, and The Press was more concerned about contaminated conservation land.

The ODT led with a seven-column story under the headline “Update causes global IT outage”, combining both a local angle on the impact on local airline and emergency services with an explanation of the global outage from an Australian computer science academic.

The Herald relegated the story down page on page 2, despite an intro which read: “A global IT network outage caused chaos last night, downing banking services, disrupting flights, preventing supermarket purchases and causing havoc for public transport commuters”. The Stuff mastheads ran no more than a single column story on page 3, devoted mainly to a measured statement from acting prime minister, David Seymour, saying the government was “moving at pace” to ascertain the extent of the crisis.

I would have thought there were enough pointers there to suggest this was a major story and one that potentially affected millions of people. I would have thought that a paragraph in the Stuff story saying a number of airlines had asked the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration to initiate a global ground stop on all flights would have been one of those large, flashing, red pointers. Continue reading “It takes more than global chaos to change the front page” →

Old white male prude wants [expletive deleted]

I have previously admitted to being an old white male (although emphatically denying the other stereotypical label of bully). Now it looks like I will also have to put my hand up for being an old prude.

I am certain that is how I will be dismissed by those who do not share my aversion to the use of profanities.

I cannot claim that profanities have never passed my lips. Traffic cones and bad drivers have been known to cause me to drop my guard. In my defence, the expletives are usually confined to the interior of a VW Golf (not a large space), are loudest when I am alone in the car, and are usually regretted. I say ‘usually’ because traffic cones in Auckland deserve all they get.

There is a difference, however, between these isolated short distance explosions and their use in mass media, where they have been used repeatedly to the point where they are ‘normalised’ as apparently acceptable speech.

As an editor I had no problem with reporters using a string of asterisks to signal the use of a profanity if the context made such recognition appropriate. If a politician used a profanity, it was worth noting. If a foul-mouthed gang member did so, why bother? I did not, however, favour preceding the asterisks with the first letter of the word in question because it was little better than spelling out the word itself.

Now these explicit abbreviations appear regularly in printed news stories. In some media the most common swear words are spelt full out. Continue reading “Old white male prude wants [expletive deleted]” →

What if Newshub’s owners had been walking our streets?

When Newshub met its end last Friday night I was left with a niggling question: If Newshub been owned by local interests rather than an American corporation, would it have been summarily executed?

You see, I have a theory that local ownership exposes proprietors to pressures that are not felt by directors and executives sitting thousands of kilometres away.

If owners walk the same streets as the people they serve, they are confronted and held to account. Even the most isolated find themselves being questioned by the members of the social sets in which they move. They are forced to consider the impacts and consequences of their decisions.

Anonymous overseas executives and directors do not see the results of their abstract decision-making, apart (perhaps) from a small blip on the next set of financials.

TV3 has been losing about $35 million a year and, although no owner wants to see continued deficits, the amount ($21.5 million in US dollars) is not much more than a rounding number for WBD, which last year earned revenue of $US41.3 billion from its worldwide operations. That was roughly what this entire country earned from its goods exports.

There is little doubt that Newshub was costing TV3 too much money and something had to change, but was total closure of the news division the only option? At the time of its announcement, WBD said “there was nothing anyone in our New Zealand network business could have done better”. Maybe not, but could they have done things differently? Continue reading “What if Newshub’s owners had been walking our streets?” →

Biden cannot rise from the ashes after debate’s funeral rite

I am wracked with guilt over the way I sat transfixed and watched someone die on live television. Ghoulish? Macabre? Insensitive? Yes, I was guilty of all of those things.

In my defence – and I admit it is a weak excuse – it did look as though the person had already died some time ago.

But before you take to social media to flay me alive, I do ask you to consider your own reaction to the end-of-life display by President Joe Biden in his debate with Donald Trump.

And, of course, I am talking figuratively. Biden took to the hustings after the debate in a desperate attempt to prove he was very much alive and planned to remain so after being re-elected. I’m not sure he succeeded.

There is no getting away from the fact that he died a death in front of the cameras in CNN’s Atlanta studios. Even the most ardent Biden supporters had their fingers crossed behind their backs when they said Trump’s falsehoods were more damaging than their own leader’s fumbling missteps.

Media commentators were excoriating in their descriptions of Biden’s performance, and none more so than the Daily Mail’s Richard Littlejohn who drew on an imaginative array of metaphors to describe not only Biden’s performance but also the spectacle of two bizarre opponents slugging it out. Here are a few examples:

Last night’s US Presidential debate in Atlanta, Georgia, made a bar-room brawl in the Bronx between two incontinent old age pensioners look decorous…Biden and Trump reminded me of Statler and Waldorf, the quarrelsome geriatrics from the front row of the balcony on The Muppets…If the President had been a racehorse at Ascot last week, the steward would have put him out of his misery with a single shot to the temple…The post-match quarterbacks on Republican-friendly Fox News were enthusiastically describing last night as a victory for Trump. Which, because of Biden’s cringe-making meltdown, it probably was. But honestly? Trump was kicking a cripple. It was excruciating to watch. Continue reading “Biden cannot rise from the ashes after debate’s funeral rite” →