Herald censors criticism

Written By: - Date published: 3:58 pm, December 10th, 2007 - 13 comments
Categories: Media - Tags:

From frogblog:

The New Zealand Herald has censored part of a 200 word article that the Greens were asked to submit on campaign finance reform for yesterday’s edition. It deleted the opening paragraph that was critical of the Herald’s coverage of the issue, and replaced it with its own commentary at the end of the article. The article was ironically called ‘In their own words‘.

The paragraph that the Herald deleted from the article without consent or consultation was:

“Help! Herald editorial misleading about Electoral Finance Bill (EFB). Won’t print Green articles. Only have 200 words here, excuse grammer. See www.greens.org.nz.”

13 comments on “Herald censors criticism ”

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  1. MikeE 1
    10 December 2007 at 4:08 pm

    again the standard demonstrates that they have no understanding of the concept of freedom of speech.

    Freedom of speech does not mean imposing an obligation on others to publish your views. The herald should be free to print whatever it wants providing it is not outright fraudulent.

  2. The Double Standard 2
    10 December 2007 at 4:10 pm

    Bad form. They would have better to leave the little snark in, and instead get some informed review of the Green’s rather inaccurate rant.

    http://blog.greens.org.nz/index.php/2007/12/09/herald-censors-criticism/#comment-34777

  3. Robinsod 3
    10 December 2007 at 4:39 pm

    Guys this has been thrashed over at blogblog – it’s worth pointing out that to remove the par without acknowledging it has been done (not even adding “abridged”) is at the very least sloppy and at the most willfully misleading.

  4. Santi 4
    10 December 2007 at 6:16 pm

    The Greens have been given a taste of its own medicine. They luddites, the ultimate hypocrites, are crying foul. The same party who are happily prepared to gag the nation by supporting Labour’s EFB.

    You cannot have you your cake and eat it. Cry like a baby Russell Norman.

  5. Phil 5
    11 December 2007 at 9:27 am

    Reading over the piece the Greens submitted, I thought it was an appaling piece of writing.

    It’s structure and style were abysmal compared to the other parties, who at least managed to make it look like they took more than five minutes.

    The message was all over the place, shotgun style, and it doesn’t come as any suprise that the Herald chose to edit it as they did.

  6. Tane 6
    11 December 2007 at 9:43 am

    Phil, agreed on the Greens’ erratic style, but the Herald didn’t edit it for style, they edited it for content they didn’t want the public to see. That’s censorship and nothing more.

  7. Phil 7
    11 December 2007 at 1:46 pm

    The removed first ‘paragraph’:

    “Help! Herald editorial misleading about Electoral Finance Bill (EFB). Won’t print Green articles. Only have 200 words here, excuse grammer. See http://www.greens.org.nz.”

    As I see it, none of this is relevant to what the Herald was actually asking political parties in the first place – that is, why are you supporting/against the EFB?

    I don’t recall seeing other parties add their website address – blatant advertising – to their submission.

    Additionally, it is well within the rights of the newspapers to edit or abridge letters and other commentary. They do it all the time – just look at any “letters to the editor” page.

    I wonder if any of the other parties had their submission edited?

  8. Robinsod 8
    11 December 2007 at 1:52 pm

    Phool – they signal a letter to the editor has been abridged by putting the word “abridged” at the bottom of it. The Herald didn’t even extend this courtesy to the greens.

  9. the sprout 9
    11 December 2007 at 2:04 pm

    and i’m sure none of the other submittors opposed to the EFB put any of their contact details on their submission – i guess that’s why those parties had their views faithfully published in full. come to think of it, they were probably quoted in the editorial and any other Herald “coverage” of the issue.

  11. Phil 11
    12 December 2007 at 1:25 pm

    Yeah sprout, I especially like the bit Doug say’s he’ll be ignoring the views of dissenters because none of them vote for him.

    Robinsodomy, I recall an editors note to more or less that effect on the Green response was actually there…

  12. Robinsod 12
    12 December 2007 at 1:29 pm

    Phil – are you hitting on me? ‘Cos I’m not sure you’re my type (too dumb).

  13. Matthew Pilott 13
    12 December 2007 at 2:09 pm

    Has everyone else missed the point about the greens’ style?

    It was like a telegram, as an overt reference to them only getting 200 words…

    And even then, they didn’t get their 200 words, they got about 260 of theirs and 40 of the Herald Editor’s.

    In the other article, I like the bit where Blue admits that the issue isn’t big enough on it’s own and she needs to whip up misguided hysteria, so she brings in ‘our soldiers didn’t die for this’. What a shrill evil small-minded person – our soldiers would probably be more offended that their sacrifice is being used to defend the right to buy democracy, but I wouldn’t go making signs and shouting it in parliament – who am I to be so presumptuous and arrogant?