Tag: Oranga Tamariki

Tom Phillips: Your right to know is bottom on a sliding scale

A positive element of the Tom Phillips saga – perhaps the only positive apart from the safe recovery of his children – has been in highlighting the fragile nature of the public’s right to know.

It is an outstanding example of attempts to control the narrative in a story that has generated worldwide interest and raised a plethora of questions about Phillips and about official handling of the case.

The interests of the three Phillips children are paramount, and no-one in this country wishes to see them face any further trauma. They endured almost four years of deprivation, and one witnessed the violent death of her father after he attempted to take the life of a police officer.

But where does the wellbeing of those children end, and the self-interest of all the other parties associated with this case begin? There are serious questions about the Oranga Tamariki handling of the domestic arrangements for the children during the custody dispute, and certainly after Phillips’ first abduction of his offspring. There are questions about the police operations throughout the case. And there are many questions about the character and actions of a man who would deprive his daughters and son of a normal childhood while normalising criminal behaviour.

Oranga Tamariki has invoked the children’s right to privacy. Police have fallen back on the old trope of ‘ongoing investigations’. And sitting over it all is an interim court order that – temporary or not – has almost the effect of a super injunction where even the purpose and justifications for suppression of facts are shrouded in secrecy. Continue reading “Tom Phillips: Your right to know is bottom on a sliding scale” →

We need journalists: Here’s proof

It is one of the fallacies of the digital age that its ubiquitous communication places the power of information in the hands of individual citizens.

At one level it is said to have provided each of us with the means to communicate with an almost endless number of people. At another level it is said to have given us the ability to choose for ourselves the information we receive. On a third level it is said to have given us the power to collectively hold power to account without mediation by mainstream media.

In fact, this apparent universality has had effects that not only fall well short of those utopian goals, but which create environments in which social cohesion and the foundations of democracy are put at risk.

Instead of broadening our range of contacts to give us a greater understanding of the views of others, it has created silos in which we take comfort from people with the same views as ourselves – irrespective of whether those views are reasoned, misguided, or malevolent.  If anything, our contacts have become narrower in scope and outlook.

Instead of allowing us to choose the information we receive, we are hostage to algorithms that direct us to particular sources and, on the basis of our use of digital services, may reinforce our silo mentality. And our desire to seek information, without employing any of the skills needed for verification, has opened the field to those who use disinformation as a weapon.

Instead of allowing us to collectively hold power to account, with a few notable exceptions, that power has been allowed to hold the field. The promise of amateur ‘citizen journalism’ – even the flawed publish-then-filter model that allows facts to emerge over time through a process of online changes and corrections – has not been realised. It fails to hold power to account because it lacks throw weight. That term refers to the size of payload a missile can deliver, and citizen journalists cannot make a bang as big as their professional counterparts in the news media. The result is that the holders of power can ignore or minimise their endeavours.

Yet the fallacy persists, and it has eroded the standing of journalists and the organisations that employ them. The rationale is that society doesn’t need them because society can find out for itself.

This may be part of the reason for alarmingly low levels of trust in media, although the full scale of distrust in institutions is a complex matrix. Perhaps people distrust journalists in part because they think they can do a better job themselves, now that they are armed with the tools of communication.

If that is the reasoning, those people are living in a fool’s paradise. And, if they are looking for proof of their folly, they could look to last Saturday’s Otago Daily Times and ask themselves a question: ‘Could I hold people accountable as powerfully as Mary Williams has done?’ Continue reading “We need journalists: Here’s proof” →

RNZ thrown by horns of dilemma

Radio New Zealand has just discovered that a bull will toss you no matter which horn you grasp.

The particular horns it found itself upon belonged to the dilemma over whether it should broadcast material obtained illegally.

This was not another Rawshark data dump from Cameron Slater’s Dirty Politics email server. It related to material placed on the Dark Web by a group of international cyber extortionists. Continue reading “RNZ thrown by horns of dilemma” →

No third-party cover in TV3 privacy breach

When did my privacy become someone else’s business?

Let me put it another way: What right does someone else have, without my permission, to claim my privacy has been breached?

The questions have been raised in my mind by one of the Broadcasting Standards Authority’s latest decisions. Continue reading “No third-party cover in TV3 privacy breach” →