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 was one hell of a way to do it, but Kensington Palace did society a huge favour by releasing a digitally altered photograph of the Princess of Wales and her children.
The photograph – distributed then withdrawn by picture agencies around the world – may have finally brought home to the general public the fact that they can no longer take ‘reality’ for granted. And it sent a message to the media-knocking public that charges should not always be laid at the feet of journalists.
The amateurish nature of the manipulation (I doubt the palace has the latest version of Photoshop) made it easy for the public to see that the picture of the family had been altered. Poor Prince Louis appears to have had a terrible accident to his right hand. Princess Charlotte’s wrist appears to have suffered a nasty sideways fracture. And shock, horror: Kate’s wedding ring seems to be missing. Continue reading “Kensington Palace’s family snap did the world a great service”→
If I were planning to set up a shonky, shady business to rip off consumers (and I assure you that would be entirely out of character) I would wait until Fair Go ceases broadcasting.
The programme that has been protecting the rights of consumers for 47 years faces the axe under the cuts announced last week by Television New Zealand although its staff – characteristically and courageously – will not admit defeat until they are deep into the Valley of Death.
It is unlikely that it will stay as part of the TVNZ inventory. There may be a faint hope that the format could be sold to another media entity but TV3 is out of the question given the imminent demise of its entire news and current affairs offering. Stuff and the New Zealand Herald could pick it up for streaming on their websites as could Sky but each possibility must be seen as unlikely in the current financial climate. It carries the added burden of being inherently local and therefore not attractive to a streaming service looking to maximise its value on the international market.
So, barring miracles such as a financial rescue package from the coalition government, Fair Go is destined to disappear.
I had two visions when the imminent demise of Newshub was announced last week. One was comical and the other spiritual. Both carried a message.
The initial government reaction to the news that a significant portion of the country’s journalism could disappear at the end of June was comical. It brought to mind the Black Knight scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail when King Arthur cleaves the knight’s limbs from his body, and the knight responds: “Tis but a scratch!”
It came to mind because neither Prime Minister Christopher Luxon nor his communications minister Melissa Lee seemed to grasp the significance of a decision made in New York that will reduce this country to one mainstream – and state owned – television news service and take out a sizeable percentage of New Zealand’s journalists and news crew.
Lee suggested there was plenty more where that came from, and the prime minister fell back on his lexicon of business school phrases, the most dismissive of which is ‘market forces’.
Coalition partner David Seymour brought only confusion to the table with his suggestion on how to even out those market forces. His solution – the logic of which escapes me – was to look at making the loss-making TVNZ pay a dividend. And the opposition had no meaningful suggestions either.
Only the other coalition partner Winston Peters seemed to grasp the impact that such a culling would have on a functioning democracy. Given Mr Peters’ long-standing combativeness toward journalists and their employers, he couldn’t resist an after-thought on media ‘wokeness’. Nonetheless, his recognition of the impact on democracy was a welcome reality check. Continue reading “Newshub bell is tolling but who can hear it?”→
The attack on TVNZ’s John Campbell for having the gall to express a clearly labelled opinion reminds me of an incident that occurred when I was in Rio de Janeiro. Police stormed a bus on which passengers were held hostage. They opened fire, killing a passenger and leaving the gunman unscathed.
Mysteriously, the captured gunman was dead when the police van arrived at the police station…but that’s another story. I am more concerned with well-intentioned actions that hit the wrong people.
Former Dominion editor Karl du Fresne criticised an opinion piece about the national hui at Tūrangawaewae Marae that Campbell penned for the TVNZ website. At the core of du Fresne’s criticism was the belief that a journalist working for a state-owned media organisation invalidated his position by expressing a personal view (critical of government policy) that nailed his colours to the mast. He called for Campbell to be dismissed.
A cover story in the latest issue of North & South interrogated the controversy. It quoted a number of journalists and academics and, although none called for the TVNZ chief correspondent’s head on a pike, most were of the view that his forthright opinion pieces should not have been published. Some felt it affected public trust in journalists, others placed TVNZ in the same public interest journalism sphere as fully taxpayer-funded RNZ (it is not) and saw this as an opinion-free zone (even RNZ is not).
The issue contained an eloquent – and compelling – defence by John Campbell in which he stated: “I have never been, and I am not, partisan. Full stop. My journalism has never, once, supported a political party.” He spoke of “work in which I am able to amplify other voices”. Adding “That’s still the journalism that matters to me most.”
I have no difficulty with John Campbell stating his opinion on the TVNZ website, so long as it is clearly identified as such – and it is. Thinking back to my days as editor of the New Zealand Herald, I liken Campbell to the paper’s then political editor John Armstrong, who wrote attention-getting opinion pieces but did not allow it to intrude into his straightforward reportage that earned the respect of Parliament and beyond. Continue reading “John Campbell the wrong target in reporter opinion controversy”→
