Media Council must review its Mona Blades cold case decision

The New Zealand Media Council has gone where angels fear to tread by questioning the fairness of republishing something that was already common knowledge.

The council has upheld a complaint – on fairness grounds – by the family of a man investigated as a suspect in the disappearance of Mona Blades 50 years ago. Police found nothing to substantiate those suspicions and closed that line of enquiry. The Mona Blades mystery, however, remains an open cold case.

The complaint was made by the daughter of the man, a deceased traffic officer who had been implicated by a retired policeman who is now also dead. The Media Council found Rotorua’s Daily Post was unfair in “the unnecessary naming of him on the flimsy and entirely unsubstantiated theory of one deceased man” in a story marking the 50thanniversary of the day the 18-year-old disappeared while hitch-hiking from Hamilton to Hastings.

The decision was not unanimous. Four of the ten members of the council dissented. You can read the decision here .

Let me put it bluntly: The Media Council majority got it wrong. Continue reading “Media Council must review its Mona Blades cold case decision” →

Charlie Kirk elevated to sainthood in new state religion

Donald Trump and JD Vance yesterday elevated the hard right of America to a form of state religion by canonising Charlie Kirk at a memorial service that will galvanise the president’s followers but create a sense of dread among those committed to democratic freedom.  

Charlie Kirk was assassinated on September 10, and irrespective of his hard right views and often inflammatory comments, he most certainly did not deserve to die. His killer must face justice (but not the death penalty that more civilised nations have abolished).

However, if his murder was reprehensible so, too, is the way in which Donald Trump and his supporters have used the killing to create a propaganda-fuelled campaign against free speech and political opposition by lionising a flawed character, punishing those who would dare to tarnish his newly burnished reputation, and turning his memorial service into a political rally.

The acts are from an old playbook. Watching the memorial service – attended by what has been variously described as 70,000 or 200,000 people – was not so much witnessing history in the making as sitting through a rerun. Continue reading “Charlie Kirk elevated to sainthood in new state religion” →

The sands keep moving on news deserts

Here is an op-ed I wrote on News deserts for today’s Sunday Star Times. At the end of the article is also a link to an interview on the same subject that I did with Mediawatch’s Colin Peacock.

The op-ed:

If you are reading this, consider yourself blessed. You still have a news outlet providing you with news of what is happening in your community and what may affect your daily life.

Others are not so lucky. They live in areas where there is little or no local news produced through professionalised public interest journalism and distributed on a regular basis through recognised outlets.

These areas are called news deserts.

There is no reliable data on the full extent of news deserts in New Zealand but, be in no doubt, they are here.

The closure of more than 40 mastheads over the past seven years, and downsizing of newsrooms as the financial state of the news industry demands ongoing belt-tightening, has created holes in the fabric of newsgathering and news dissemination.

Like the natural ecosystem, it is the fine ends of the media environment that have been the first to go. Community newspapers have been particularly vulnerable, and it is here that hyperlocal news is reported.

The news outlet in which you are reading this commentary will keep you apprised of what is happening in your wider community. But it has neither the space nor the resources to tell you about proposed changes to parking restrictions in your local shopping centre.

It cannot let your local doctor reflect on the impact of the latest edict from the Ministry of Health. Nor can it show people you know pumped up with pride at the primary school prizegiving. This is daily bread for community news outlets.

We are starting to see what is already manifest in other countries where news deserts have reached alarming proportions.

I was the lead author of a paper on news deserts that was published today by Koi Tū Centre for Informed Futures. It examines the extent of news deserts in other countries, their impact, what is being done to stop their encroachment on the news environment, and ways New Zealand can do likewise.

Frankly, the numbers are appalling. More than 200 counties in the United States have no local newsgathering while a further 1500 only have access to a single limited source. Over the past 16 years, 347 Canadian communities lost their local newspaper.

Spain has experienced major rural depopulation, and more than three quarters of its local authority areas now could be considered news deserts. In the United Kingdom, 38 local authority districts have no dedicated local news outlet and a further 10 are described as ‘drylands’ because they are poorly served.

Closer to home, Australia has found the Red Centre blowing sand under newsroom doors. More than 200 regional newsrooms have closed in the past decade, and 27 local body areas have no local news outlet.

Among them is Broken Hill, which has a population of about 17,500. An Australian Federal Government survey suggests that neither radio nor digital services fill the gap once local newspapers close. It found that approximately a quarter of respondents did not receive, or were unable to access, news that was important to their own community.

More disturbing are the consequences that come from being deprived of local news.

Countries with identified news deserts have found evidence of ‘democratic disconnect’ and lower voter participation, a sense of community isolation, increased corruption when officials are no longer under scrutiny by journalists, and declining transparency by local authorities. There are increased incidences of misinformation (factual errors) and disinformation (deliberate untruths).

There is no magic formula that will reflower the deserts or prevent them developing in the first place. In other countries, a broad range of measures by central and local government, by community groups, and by media organisations are being used to fight the problem.

They range from direct financial support and tax rebates, through new incentives and technical innovation, to a rise in not-for-profit news organisations. All are based on wide recognition of the fact that journalism – and the outlets that disseminate it – contribute to democracy and social cohesion.

Principled public interest journalism is a public good that not only deserves support, but whose future must be protected for society’s sake. And the public good lies not only in reporting the pronouncements from the Beehive. It also lies in informing our smallest communities about themselves.

News Deserts: Local Journalism at Risk can be downloaded on the Koi Tū Centre for Informed Futures website: informedfutures.org/news-deserts 

Link to Sunday’s Mediawatch on RNZ National

https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/573660/mediawatch-news-desert-warning

News deserts: A problem coming to a place near you

Remember the fable about frogs in a pot slowly being brought to the boil? News deserts are a little like that: You don’t realise you are in one until the sand starts to choke. 

Today Koi Tū Centre for Informed Futures has published my report on the growth of news deserts around the world, and the implications for New Zealand.

Millions of people around the world – 55 million in the United States alone – have limited or no access to local news. The ‘local rag’ that told them what was happening in their community has gone.

In Australia, 27 local authority areas have no local news outlets. In the past decade more than 200 regional newsrooms have closed.

In New Zealand, over the past seven years the two largest publishers (Stuff and NZME) have announced the closure of more than 40 newspaper titles. There are fewer journalists employed in New Zealand than by the New York Times (1400 versus 1700).

Too often, what replaces the long-established local newspaper is either inadequate or non-existent.

News deserts spell danger for social cohesion and democracy. They are already apparent in areas where the scrutiny of local journalists has been weakened or entirely removed. These are some of those effects:

  • Decreased public knowledge and participation in local democracy
  • Decreased social cohesion
  • Increased misinformation and disinformation
  • Increased official corruption
  • Higher costs of public finance
  • Less effective commercial advertising.

Many governments at national, state and local levels have acknowledged the need for intervention and have implemented measures to prevent or ameliorate the impact of news deserts.

No measures are currently in place that will prevent the growth of news deserts in New Zealand. Schemes such as the government-funded Local Democracy Reporting programme operate out of existing newsrooms which could themselves be threatened by cuts or even closure.

The report recommends a range of measures – by central and local government, the media industry, and the community – to prevent the sands smothering local journalism. You can access the report, written with the able assistance of several colleagues, on the Koi Tū website

Picture credit: iStock Piyaset