Written By: - Date published: 10:27 am, November 1st, 2008 - 56 comments
Categories: election 2008, Media -
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A week out from the election, Granny Herald has still yet to do any proper coverage of the effects on individuals and the economy of National’s four flagship policies: privatising ACC, gutting Kiwisaver, reducing work rights, and weakening the RMA and ETS.
Yet, they can find the space to tell us which politicians would make the best Halloween character or could mentor according to their online polls (always biased towards the type of people who are sitting in front of computers all day [clue: it ain't the working class]).
Here we are, in the middle of the process of choosing the people who will have the most powerful jobs in the country, and the largest newspaper is engaging in inanities that tell us nothing more than the demographics of its online readers.
How my heart yearns for a decent media in this country.
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Many have suggested a trust to accumulate capital to launch a newspaper with a charter that would see it be non-partisan or at least not owned by the few who own everything already.
Like the Guardian or the Toronto Star.
I’d be a starter for donating to such a fund.
And here we are, in the middle of the process of choosing the people who will have the most powerful jobs in the country, the Labour Party President is crossing the Tasman to search through 20 year old court documents in an effort to smear the leader of the National Party.
It annoys me that the majority of papers are under one conglomerate. Fairfax are terrible.
Whats happened to media reporting of the election nowadays anyway? I swear its dropped off the radar in the last week or so. Now we’re reverting back to the usual news items eg. The trials and tribulations of Amy Winehouse, where Rachel Hunter is living now, the list goes on.
SW Great idea i’d throw in for that. They used to have fairly good policies and were almost bi-partisan once. I’m sick of the sensationalising crap and hidden political brain washing through mediocre right wing reporting and angling.
We need some right slanted journos
when I first came to this blog my thing was and still is the infantilising process of the media and nothing has changed
we are being talked down to by a whole cohort of solipsistic twerps with no experience of the real world, no university degrees and their only qualifications being able to do funny writing and grease up to their rightwing tutors at j-school for a reccomendation for a good job
until this syndrome is tackled a t the source then this is what we will get from now on in as all these jealous little creeps play their schoolyard bully fantasys out in real life
understand now?
I wholeheartedly support Steve Withers idea ” a trust to accumulate capital to launch a newspaper with a charter that would see it be non-partisan or at least not owned by the few who own everything already.”
“Like the Guardian or the Toronto Star.”
“I’d be a starter for donating to such a fund.”
Hear hear. I would also support such a fund. Perhaps Steve we need to urgently research the setting up of a media trust and begin bankrolling it now in time for 2011. We also need to be super cautious legally so that such a trust, and the newspaper it supports cannot be infiltrated and taken over by the right.
And here’s me thinking I was pompous
Yes utterly….and???
No, HS, just bitter, cynical and frequently needlessly unpleasant. Which is a shame because when you decide to not be snarky you can be well worth listening too.
SP – just read that article earlier. Definitely tops my list of awful and masturbatory electoral ‘journalism’. Jeremy Rees – please give up your day job, or find a way to get rid of the donkey who made you write that piece.
No-one’s stopping you, Mary. Go for your life.
I do not agree with your assessment of National’s policies, but I do agree that the media should have spent more time on it.
All we have had up until now is personality politics and Labour hasn’t helped by having a campaign theme of trust. Along with the attacks on John Key that have really gone no-where to helping the “left” increasing their votes, I have now had a pamphlet in my mailbox with the “Two Keys” print advert and the theme of “don’t risk it all” with National. All of this says: don’t look at the detail, vote for the people you like. Not exactly a great way to choose our leadership!
I would definitely support the concept of a non-partisan resource such as a newspaper that looked at the policies of every party asking for power, but I am not sure how many people would read it!
Cheers, Chris W.
Mary, should the same safeguards be put in place to ensure that this “non partisan” media outlet is not taken over by the Left, as well?
[lprent: Too late. It was set up by the left as a partisan left media outlet - read the About
Perhaps we should look at writing an About for the Granny? ]
I dont care what party they belong to
thats another red herring
what I care about is that they fulfill their own promise to be the guardians of the truth
at the moment they are only guardians of their truth
you know
the solipsistic post modern relatavist bullshit that they define as their truth
at the moment we are being talked down to by a whole claque of petulant greedy and last but not least jealous little creeps whose only qualification is funny writng at j-school and too much time as teenagers listening to another brick in the wall till they are stone deaf
none of them have ever done anything except lokk in the friggin mirror
and dont forget after this election that espinner must go. he’s been there far too long without contributing anything
LP, you missed my point, perhaps because I was imprecise, although it’s clear in the context of what Mary said that I’m referring to her proposed “non-partisan” newspaper entity to rival the so-called right-wing Herald. It wasn’t a reference to the Standard.
[lprent: Sorry. I read backwards from the most recent to older so I wouldn't have gotten the context. As you know, I'm a bit sensitive when people assert that this site should be 'non-partisan', and generally refer them to the About. It might be on the top left of the front page, but ....]
I do like the idea of the fund towards a non-partisan paper.
But: Is objectivity in journalism never possible, simply because journalists vote like the rest of us?
Therefore, could it ever Truly be non-partisan.
Tim I understood what you meant and good question. IMO good for one good for all, same standard should apply for both sides!!! (Although more likely to happen from wealthy right leaning sympathisers).
Chris White: “All we have had up until now …………All of this says: don’t look at the detail, vote for the people you like. Not exactly a great way to choose our leadership!”
Haven’t you looked at any of the National pamphlets in your letterbox. I’ve received six in the past three weeks and your phrase above definately covers every one of them.
Chris G,
You are correct, absolute objectivity is impossible. But probity and fairmindness is. The UK Guardian seems to have achieved something close to the ideal for many years.
The critical ingredient appears to be an independent, trust-based ownership model.
How my heart yearns for a decent media in this country.
You mean a decent media – or a media that writes what you want it to write? I really wish you’d understand what journalism actually is.
How would you define what a ” decent media” is?
[you're not honestly saying an article on the results of online polls is good journalism? SP]
Whats with the psycho satan emoticons? Someone been reading too much BOFH.
I digress, what about those acerbic articles in the DomPost as well?!
http://www.stuff.co.nz/vote08/4745875a28480.html
Labour sure have burnt their media bridges days out from the polls.
[lprent: ...because they are there (read the FAQ under smilies). I happen to remember about 3 or four of them, and that is the one most appropiate from a BOFH
]
What a pity that Granny or any media for that matter fails to do the analysis of John Key’s wisdom such as that done by Ann Else on Scoop 31 October. Scary stuff. Thanks whoever it was who pointed me there.
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0810/S00433.htm
1) People who want news buy newspapers and watch the TV news
2) People who want to be entertained have many ways to get that entertainment so don’t watch so much TV or buy newspapers.
TV News and newspapers think – “our reader / viewer ship is falling”, people are obviously not interested in news – let’s entertain them.
Go to 2)
Alienate 1)
End result, no more newspapers (but still lots of pissed off 1)s.
I agree we need another major circulation daily that is an alternative to the Herald, Dom Post, media monopoly run papers.
i don’t think it needs to be non-partisan, as that’s really hard to do completely. We do need a better level of political and social reporting and analysis in a daily paper tho. The Guardian is actually a centre-left paper. But it works in the UK because their are various papers, each with it’s own political leanings (Times Right, Telegraph left I think, Mail right… or whatever). The Independent was set up to be non-partisan, but actually I think it’s fairly liberal centrist, probably on balance.
The Scoop was set up as an alternative to the MSM. With the increasing fragmentation of the media, hopefully we will get more alternatives. Like there’s Alt TV, Media7, Native Affairs etc.
I have been thinking there should be more done to draw most Kiwis’ attention to the biases and shoddy reporting of some of the main media outlets. Like some imaginative kinds of protests. I can remember times when I was in the UK, back in pre-Internet days, when some groups went into the offices of major news outlets to protest particular stories: eg there was a rowdy sit-in in The Guardian offices.
Was it a Kiwi TV show where some protestor got into the news room and hung onto the leg of the anchor person while they were reading the news? Or was it in the UK? My memory is getting hazy.
But basically, the MSM needs to be given a bit of a jolt IMO.
But a new daily as an alternative to what we’ve got now would be great!!
the MSM needs more than a jolt. It needs to be put out of its misery.
since the introduction of JOurnalism schools thyere has been a procession of ‘product’ marching across the teevee screens and through the press
none of it much good and seemingly all rightwing lickspittles
and furthermore the other night I saw the editor of the Herald taking part in a debate in jeans a tweed jacket and no tie
did he think he was at some sort of sports event
tarting himself up with the debonair image
all the rags have become pap
i.e. breast milk past its use by date
they are owned by a whole legion of coupon clippers thousands of miles away and meanwhile the junior journos are running rampant
this is bloody sad
none of them can write wortha damm and yet they have control
the inmates have taken over the asylum and its very painful indeed
I really like this idea of a trust owned newspaper. Even a weekly magazine for indepth, non partisan investigative journalism. Kinda like investigate likes to think it is but not run by a bitter little man who believes that jesus rode into jerusalem on stegosaurus
Stop calling the Herald ‘Granny Herald’. Grannies are about chocolate biscuits and stopping mummy from telling you off.
The Herald is more akin to the Aussie trapdoor spider as Australia writes the headings for the New Zealand Herald and is trying to influence our election and pull us down.
The Herald must have had lessons from Rupert Murdoch.
“Kinda like investigate likes to think it is but not run by a bitter little man who believes that jesus rode into jerusalem on stegosaurus”
Haha awseome. He must be good mates with the Maxim institute also, the bitter little man that is… not jesus
Any online poll is going to be a farce even before it has begun. The polls on Stuff are particularly bad as you can have an unlimited number of votes simply by turning cookies off – the right wingers have been exploiting this loophole for a while now.
The polls run by TVNZ have also been pretty irresponsible, the one they did on MMP definitely highlights this, being a phone in poll that costs each voter a dollar each. Then TVNZ got it’s pundits to essentially validate the thing by discussing the result as if it were true!
Wake the fuck up New Zealand!
sorry they are too busy vibrating and fulfilling their dream and passion of buying a motorbike and going to timbuktu
we have become the land of the noo noo heads
While this article is actually discussing the decline of American democratic institutions, it actually sums up (in my opinion) the power and influence wrought by the corporate owned media in the current NZ elections.
“For some years now we have lived with the Faustian bargain of the corporation. Large corporations are necessary to achieve those governmental and social necessities that small enterprises are incapable of providing. The checks on corporate power have always been fragile. Left unchecked, the huge economic power of corporations corrupts absolutely. Most of the checks are badly eroded. Is there still time to get the checks back in balance? Or will we be left with two unthinkable options?”
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article7260.htm
The above article tends to treat corporations and governments as somehow equal in a fascist state. This viewpoint obscures the serious power corporations wield over the state.
what are you talking about max? This thread is about bagging the NZH because they are not bigging up the labour party.
The NZH was fairly favourable to labour until the 9th floor tried to manipulate them and fucked themselves.
Max says “While this article is actually discussing the decline of American democratic institutions, it actually sums up (in my opinion) the power and influence wrought by the corporate owned media in the current NZ elections.”
As opposed to Labour’s EFA sponsored censure of opposition and abuse of incumbent status by using Govt dept ad campaigns, as well as trying to manipulate the media with bad stories dug up my Mike Williams and the 9th floor staff (paid for by tax payers)?
Given the right leaning blogs are all bitching and moaning about how the agenda is being set by left wing journalists, and how the left leaning blogs are all bitching and moaning about how the agenda is being set by right wing organisations…..maybe the reporting isn’t actually as bad as both sides are making out?
Both sides seem perfectly capable of drawing up a list of clear and obvious incidences of bias. Both sides can present a compelling argument as to why their problem is the greater miscarriage (the argument boils down to cover up of corruption/lack of policy analysis/trust from the left versus cover up of corruption/lack of policy analysis/trust from the right).
As someone not wedded ideologically to either extreme I have no problem accessing plenty of media that discusses both sides of both arguments. Arguments about meaningful media bias are a beat up that both sides use to push their ideological angle.