People’s Commission on Public Broadcasting and Media

Written By: - Date published: 3:00 pm, March 21st, 2017 - 5 comments
Categories: broadcasting, community democracy, journalism, Media - Tags:

From makeourmediabetter.org.nz

Is having a strong, independent media an essential part of a functioning democracy?

What is the role of the ‘Fourth Estate’ in today’s world? Are the media doing a good job of keeping citizens informed?

[…]

ActionStation and the Coalition for Better Broadcasting have joined forces with a diverse group of six industry experts to run a crowdfunded public inquiry into the current state, and future prospects, of public interest broadcasting and media in Aotearoa New Zealand.

The panelists will travel the country holding collaborative workshops with the public and other media experts before compiling a report on the state of public broadcasting and media, with a short list of recommendations for how it can be improved, to present to the Government before Budget Day on May 25th. ​

The finale is in Auckland – either tomorrow, Wednesday 22th March 12-2pm, Atrium of the Paul Reeves Centre, AUT

or Sunday 26th March 1pm – 4pm Mt Eden Normal Primary School Hall, Cnr Valley and Sherbourne Roads, Mt Eden

If you can, it’d be good to participate and show you care!

But also you can Make a Submission in a nice easy process.

The more people involved, the more pressure on the government to fund good, independent, public broadcasting that is vital to our democracy.

Get involved!

5 comments on “People’s Commission on Public Broadcasting and Media ”

  • Comments are now closed

  1. NZJester 1
    21 March 2017 at 8:44 pm

    There are few independent media outlets now in a lot of places. Apparently, a lot of the main American channels are now partly owned by a lot of the pharmaceutical companies. Stories critical of them tend to be downplayed. The majority of drug-related death in the US now tends to come from prescription medication, but most of the reporting of death from drugs is on the illegal ones. Drug companies in the US have set up doctors as pushers of addictive prescription medicine by offering gift incentives to the doctors or their families to prescribe for conditions that could be treated easily by other means but the news outlets are not willing to investigate that.
    Most of the real independent media are now online but sometimes overshadowed by the number of sites that deal in fake and unsupported news.
    There are sites out there that make money from adverts by luring in people with deliberately fake news they have made up. A lot of sites then state those sites as a source when they pick up and run with the fake news.

  2. greywarshark 2
    21 March 2017 at 9:22 pm

    While everyone is concentrating on the day to day circus, it is easy to overlook the day to day quality radio and other media that we have still or that have started up, one of course being The Standard, also scoop, also other bloggers of note.

    For goodness sake it is after 9 pm and there has only been one comment put here in six hours. Show some interest FGS.

  3. John Stowell 3
    21 March 2017 at 11:08 pm

    We need at least some news media, print, online, radio and tv, which are independent of advertising and independent of private ownership. Either we the people fund such media through our taxes as an essential part of a healthily functioning democracy, or we soon will not have a meaningful 4th estate.

    • NZJester 3.1
      22 March 2017 at 4:50 pm

      You can see what is starting to happen in the US when you have true people funded Journalists. The TYT network, for instance, have been asking for donations from viewers to hire more people for the front lines so they can get the stories fist hand. In the background they have also been very active with the wolf-pac.com movement that includes democrats and republicans in the US to try and get an amendment to the US constitution to get money out of politics there. At the moment if you register as a lobbyist there you can offer money for favors legally.

      There are meant to be measures to keep the money out of politics here in New Zealand, but the huge amount of anonymous donations the National party keeps getting is bigger than the anonymous donations of all the other political parties combined. They have ways of receiving those donations through underlings who can legally file the paperwork claiming they do not know who it came from while those higher up the chain know exactly who gave them the money normally having discussed the donations with those involved and had large amounts split into smaller donations to be able to keep them anonymous. The rules on anonymous donation need to be tightened up here.

  4. Philj 4
    22 March 2017 at 7:44 pm

    The panelists on this Commission are uninspiring and represents part of the problem we are in. The MSM,(and broadcasting) as we know it is dying. The Alt media is being born. The Internet, blogs vlogs, YouTube etc is the cuckoo in the nest. Citizens are taking over the media space. Bottom up information is providing an essential public service.

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