I must apologise for the absence of the Tuesday Commentary again this week. The effects of COVID are persisting.
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
Covid-affected column
I regret there will be no Tuesday Commentary on April 18. I have Covid.
Terrorism, the media, and an awful dilemma
While you read this, I will be enjoying my first holiday since Covid hit our shores. So I have cheated…just a little. In place of the Tuesday Commentary, here is a speech I gave last week to combined North Shore Rotary clubs.
No matter where you were, the horrendous attacks on innocent worshippers at two Christchurch mosques in March 2019 made the front page of newspapers and led television and radio bulletins.
Those acts and others like them have affected our journalism but, before I get into the detail of those events, I want to talk about motivation, and the awful dilemma that terrorism presents for journalists.
Horrifying though it may sound, the victims of acts of terrorism such as that carried out in Christchurch are no more than a means to an end. They are the currency used to pay for the world’s attention. Continue reading “Terrorism, the media, and an awful dilemma”
News avoidance and lack of trust MUST send a message to media
More than two-thirds of New Zealanders actively avoid news coverage and more than one in ten do so regularly.
Findings released this morning by AUT’s JM&D journalism research centre make sober reading. Its latest Trust in News report shows Kiwis are avoiding the news because they think it is depressing and biased.
In its 2023 survey, which is based on an international study by the Reuters Institute at Oxford University, JM&D asked for the first time about news avoidance and political influence. It used Horizon Research to conduct a nationwide online survey of 1120 adults in February.
Sixty nine per cent said they sometimes or often avoided the news. That is a statistic that sits well above the Reuters Institute’s multi-nation findings. That study found 54 per cent of Brazilians avoided news, followed by 46 per cent in the United Kingdom, 42 per cent in the United States and 41 per cent in Australia. At the bottom of the avoidance table were Japan (12 per cent) and Finland (20 per cent).
At the other end of spectrum, New Zealand’s international ranking of those ‘highly interested’ in news was equally alarming. Little more than a third expressed a strong focus, compared to more than two-thirds of Finland’s population. Continue reading “News avoidance and lack of trust MUST send a message to media”