Cynical politics reported on world stage damage our reputation

‘Flashpoint’ in a foreign news story usually brings to mind the Middle East or the border between North and South Korea. It is not a term usually associated with New Zealand but last week it was there in headline type.

News outlets around the world carried reports of the hikoi and protests against Act’s Treaty Principles Bill, with the overwhelming majority characterising the events as a serious deterioration in this country’s race relations.

The Associated Press report carried the headline “New Zealand’s founding treaty is at a flashpoint: Why are thousands protesting for Māori rights?”. That headline was replicated by press and broadcasting outlets across America, by Yahoo, by MSN, by X, by Voice of America, and by news organisations in Asia and Europe.

Reuters’ story on the hikoi carried the headline: “Tens of thousands rally at New Zealand parliament against bill to alter indigenous rights”. That report also went around the world. So, too, did the BBC, which reaches 300 million households worldwide: “Thousands flock to NZ capital in huge Māori protest”.

The Daily Mail’s website is given to headlines as long as one of Tolstoy’s novels and told the story in large type: “Tens of thousands of Māori protesters march in one of New Zealand’s biggest ever demonstrations over proposed bill that will strip them of ‘special rights’”. The Economist put it more succinctly: “Racial tensions boil over in New Zealand”.

In the majority of cases, the story itself made clear the Bill would not proceed into law but how many will recall more than the headline? Continue reading “Cynical politics reported on world stage damage our reputation” →

No news is not good news

The University of Auckland alumni magazine Ingenio has published a commentary I wrote as part of my campaign to increase public awareness of the consequences of allowing journalism in this country to deteriorate to the point where it is effectively dead. You can read the commentary here.

An arid outlook for local media and local democracy

New Zealand is about to feel the widespread effect of one of the consequences of media climate change – news deserts.

NZME’s announcement last week that it is “proposing” to close 14 of its community newspapers – that is a nice way of saying it has already decided to do so – will leave gaping holes in local reporting. Journalists, whose sole task is to tell people what is happening in their small communities, will lose their jobs.

The story, reported with uncharacteristic frankness (about itself) by the New Zealand Herald, also mentioned that the announcement came on the heels of major cuts this year by TV3 and TVNZ.

There is, however, a significant difference. TV3 contracted Stuff to fill the hole it created by closing Newshub, and TVNZ has sufficient means to cover news and current affairs even if it does so in reduced form. Once the NZME community titles go, residents will be deprived of vital links to information.

The Herald’s Shayne Currie, made no bones about it. He described the closures as “a body blow to local news in many New Zealand regions”, adding: “In some regions, these titles are the only source of local news, covering their local councils and other public bodies.” Continue reading “An arid outlook for local media and local democracy” →

Tar from Trump’s brush could splatter NZ media

Do not look upon incoming President Donald Trump’s widely anticipated assault on the American media with sympathetic detachment. Watch, instead, the way our own media systematically becomes spattered with tar from the same brush.

Attitudes are no longer formed solely from domestic influences. The Internet has not only broken down national information boundaries: It has removed the distinction altogether.

For those who receive most – or all – of their news through social media, the source has become either irrelevant or undefined. As a result, attitudes toward journalists and the institutions in which they work have become as transnational as the platforms from which the viewpoints are formed.

Yes, it’s early days but virtually all of the alarm over Trump’s well-signalled assault on press freedom is being directed at how he will make life very difficult for United States media. It has led to expressions of deep sympathy from abroad for American journalists and a collective exclamation: “Thank God we don’t live there’. Continue reading “Tar from Trump’s brush could splatter NZ media” →