Tag: Official Information Act

Rise in press freedom ranking but ‘could do better’

Let’s start with the good news: New Zealand has risen three places in the World Press Freedom Index and has the highest ranking of any Commonwealth country. It now sits at 16th.

The latest index was released on World Press Freedom Day on Saturday.

Last year Canada was five places ahead of us. This year it is five places behind, pulled down particularly by coverage of indigenous rights protests which has seen journalists arrested. We continue to outrank the United Kingdom by four places. Our neighbour across the Tasman continues to lag well behind – weighed down by the concentrated ownership of its media. However, Australia has improved by 10 places and has risen from 39th to 29th.

The top of the index continues to be dominated by countries in Northern Europe: Norway, Estonia, Netherlands., Sweden, Finland, and Denmark again fill the first six places.

Last year, the United States had dropped ten places to 55th in the face of public distrust and official antagonism. Many may have been surprised to see it is now down only two more places to 57th. The reason is simple: The index reflects activity in the previous January to December year.  The open assaults on media and challenges to the Constitution by the Trump Administration had yet to register. Expect next year’s ranking to plummet.

Conditions for journalism are poor in half of the world’s countries and, for the first time in the index’s 23-year history, the global state of press freedom is now classified as a “difficult situation” – only one place above the bottom.

The index measures five main indicators: Political, social, legal, economic, and security. Its authors, Reporters Without Borders (RSF), say economic pressures are proving a major – yet often underestimated – factor in seriously weakening the media. And here is where New Zealand’s good news ends. New Zealand is picked out as one of the countries adversely impacted by media shutdowns.

Reading the country-by-country analysis it appears New Zealand owes its rise in the ranks more to the deterioration of other nation’s media freedoms than improvements in our own position. Continue reading “Rise in press freedom ranking but ‘could do better’” →

TikTok…TikTok…it’s only a matter of time

Like death and taxes, the digital world has its certainties. One of them – alongside the inevitability of Apple launching yet another higher specification (and more expensive) iPhone – is the prospect that audience trends in other countries will wash up on our shores.

That is why the latest report from Britain’s telecommunications regulator, Ofcom, has excited the interest of more than a few media people in New Zealand.

It shows that, for the first time, online has overtaken television as the biggest source of news in the United Kingdom. Broadcast TV had been the leading source of news there since the 1960s, when it overtook newspapers and radio.

The Ofcom survey shows that online – social media, podcasts, messaging and other digital apps – is now narrowly ahead with 71 per cent of adults getting their news from those sources. Television, which a year ago sat at 75 per cent, is now down to 70 per cent. A little over half the adult population get their news from social media alone. Meta (Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp) now outperforms ITV, while Google is barking at the broadcaster’s heels. Continue reading “TikTok…TikTok…it’s only a matter of time” →

Andrea Vance makes me mad as hell, and it’s a good thing too

I have been a member of the Andrea Vance Fan Club since she became “mad as hell” about Parliamentary Services tracking her movements around Parliament and logging her telephone calls.

The surveillance of the Stuff political journalist’s movements and communications in 2013 were revealed during an enquiry into the leaking of a report on the Government Communications Security Bureau. The leak of the Kitteridge Report had been a Vance scoop and the aftermath played out like the old Mad Magazine comic strip Spy v Spy.

I am sending in my application for platinum membership after last Sunday’s recounting of the stonewalling, obfuscation, and obstruction she has encountered in following up her latest scoop. The week before, writing in the Sunday Star Times, she had broken the story of allegations that Te Pati Māori had misused personal information gathered for the last census.

The Manurewa Marae facilitated the collection of data from tangata whenua by providing a collection centre. Vance broke the story that Stats NZ was investigating claims the party used information on the census forms collected at the marae to help its local candidate’s election campaign. The party and its president John Tamihere have vociferously denied the claims of misuse.

Vance’s column in last Sunday’s edition was devoted to recounting her “Sisyphean endeavours” to find out what agencies of government were investigating the matter, and on what aspects each was focussed.

Her reference to the Greek myth of Sisyphus no doubt related to the punishment the gods imposed on him – eternally pushing a boulder up a hill only to have it roll down again. The to-and-fro she experienced with government departments must have felt exactly like that. Continue reading “Andrea Vance makes me mad as hell, and it’s a good thing too” →

Silent majority must speak out to save vital journalism

In the wake of the announcements on Newshub’s closure and TVNZ’s cuts, I received an email from Pat, who lives in the Auckland suburb of Orakei. The email asked a simple question: “Is there anything a member of the public can do to register shock and horror at the loss of current affairs programmes and the talented people who make and present those programmes?”

I replied, suggesting Pat join the advocacy group Better Public Media. More importantly, I believe people like Pat must speak up in defence of what I now call democratically significant journalism.

‘Democratically significant journalism’ describes the sort of journalism that serves the interests of those living and interacting within a public sphere. It enables individual communities to know about themselves, and for communities to collectively share information to inform a broader consensus. In the past I would have said ‘public interest journalism’ but that phrase has been so maligned by people with agendas that benefit from destroying trust in journalists that I have stopped using it.

Pat’s dilemma is shared by all ordinary New Zealanders sensible enough to see the importance of journalism in a democratic society: How do they make it clear that they value it? Continue reading “Silent majority must speak out to save vital journalism” →