Polity: When general reporters cover political stories…

Written By: - Date published: 11:19 am, August 10th, 2014 - 9 comments
Categories: david cunliffe, health, labour - Tags: , , ,

polity_square_for_lynnReposted from Polity.

Here’s Stuff’s Tony Wall and Kelly Dennett on Labour’s boost for primary healthcare:

David Cunliffe will today throw down his biggest spending promise of the election, wooing middle income voters with an attractive health package at Labour’s campaign launch in Auckland.

He is set to announce a $250m-plus primary healthcare package, including free healthcare for pregnant women.

Labour announced during the week that it would boost primary health funding by $60m, two-thirds of it to support GPs in providing free or low-cost visits to vulnerable communities, but the Sunday Star-Times has learned Cunliffe will go much further today.

In a direct play for the centre vote, Cunliffe last night announced plans to spend $10m on free GP visits, dental care and prescriptions for all pregnant women, and today will unveil another $90m to extend the Care Plus scheme if Labour wins the September election.

OK, so far so good. A couple of facts and figures, a claim of a mini-scoop, and some analysis of where the policy is pitching. Good yarn. But then comes the ending…

Outside Auckland Hospital, expectant parents James and Emma Miller were not too impressed with the policy announcement, saying it wasn’t much better than what they already received.

Miller, whose labour was induced yesterday, said the most prohibitive cost of pregnancy was maternity leave. “Most people in my antenatal class were all rushing to get back to work,” she said. “We’d rather live with less and not feel rushed to go back to work.”

Um, so Labour is doing that already. It called extended Paid Parental Leave. We have made quite a song and dance about it in the last three years. National even partially caved in to Labour’s pressure.

Seems like that fact would have been relevant here, no?

9 comments on “Polity: When general reporters cover political stories… ”

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  1. ropata 1
    10 August 2014 at 11:38 am

    Hey NZ Herald/Stuff, if you need a random person off the street to make disparaging remarks about any of your John Key puff pieces, look me up

  2. Tim 2
    10 August 2014 at 12:58 pm

    Unfortunately the standard of NZ journalism has become abysmal. It reminds me of late 60s/early 70s Victoria (AUS) curriculum English/’creative writing’. Journalists don’t even ask themselves the basics (the who what where when WHY) these days but rather engage in puff pieces they think might feed their dear wee egos more than anything else. It appears to be a global phenomenon though (note even the BBC is indulging in it), but NZ is leading the charge. There was an interesting piece on RNZ Insight this morning which people should listen to, and apply it to Media Studies and Journalism – but the decay had set in even before that unfortunately. In that Insight episode, some (obviously now out-of-touch) administrator seemed satisfied that IF there was a march to the lowest common denominator, then those in academia would provide their administrators with “the two finger salute”. Unfortunately, SOME of the academics providing Media Studies and Journalism courses have already been captured – never having experienced anything other than bizznuss-oriented aims and ambitions. It suits their comfort zones. I lost count of how many essays/assignments I’ve seen that were obviously plagiarised or factually incorrect or that I KNEW were not to have even written by the candidate and who were arbitrarily passed AFTER moderation process. And we wonder why worry about our tertiary standards are slipping?
    These days I (and others who’ve had a career in academia) advise international students to go elsewhere – but I’d put money in our being in the minority. Still ….. let her rip – just don’t squeal like pigs when it all turns to shit.

    • aerobubble 2.1
      10 August 2014 at 1:37 pm

      best quote of late…

      …interviewing their typewriters.

      Its agree a shocker what passes as debate. Productivity is low in NZ because of the economic of greed stoked by National and ACT.

  3. Weepus beard 3
    10 August 2014 at 1:18 pm

    Luckily, most semi-educated swing/undecideds will know how to read this piece. It’s been well documented that Sue Moroney’s 26 week bill was sabotaged by Bill English.

    National hates families and communities and most people know it.

    • aerobubble 3.1
      10 August 2014 at 1:41 pm

      McCully dept trips up, just when Key needed him to lose favor so Craig could get a seat.
      Seymour gets a win in Epson when someone moves school boundaries, 24 hours and it went away.
      Craig Colin left out and sues, wiping out the impression that he’s suing and losing.

      National hate letting the message getting out of their control. And are aided and abetted by the networks at the expense of democracy IMHO.

  4. philj 4
    10 August 2014 at 2:07 pm

    xox
    Business has taken control of our demockary in NZ Inc.

  5. dialey 5
    10 August 2014 at 2:30 pm

    Churnalists

  6. Bill O'Reilly 6
    11 August 2014 at 12:26 pm

    Its getting worse, I think if you listen to a certain radio program you will see the order and timing of reporting backing up the status quo. Maybe I got this wrong as I was not listening that carefully (i.e. over the xxxx news reporting)!

    Example:
    Circa 8:30am (sometime this week) in the morning on a certain public radio station:
    1. Headline: Russia bans Europe imports of dairy products, NZ will benefit…. (i.e. Europe banned Russian imports due to the air shot down)
    2. Yes cheese sales will increase
    3. Oh, but expert says overall this will be a bad thing for our total dairy exports
    4. Restate increase in sales of cheese

    (wouldn’t ya think, the information that has the greatest magnitude/effect be restated at the beginning and end (i.e. dairy sales forecast to go down?????)

    Circa 9:15 am
    1. Headline: NZ may benefit from increased dairy sales due to ban European imports buy Russia.
    (no mention of negative effect)

    Note there was no mention of NZ being a sell out (i.e. why the did not ban Russia like Europe), nor anyone asking was that a good look internationally

    Oh and remember this:

    MH17 one New Zealander dies?

    They didnt event mention that?

    Subtle and insipid?

    Cheese anyone?