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Sunday, September 10, 2017

Karl du Fresne: Why journalistic objectivity is vital in a democracy


What a civilised election campaign this has been – so far, anyway. And what a contrast with the firestorms of 2014, when Nicky Hager and Kim Dotcom did their best to skew the election result. 

To their credit, the voters paid no attention to the noisy distractions. They took the phone off the hook.

Eric Crampton, chief economist at free-market think tank the New Zealand Initiative (and a Canadian), wrote in a recent essay that New Zealand is the world’s last sane place, and he could be right. Admittedly Crampton was mainly talking about economic factors and freedom from heavy-handed state intervention in people’s lives, but his description could equally be applied to the way we generally conduct our political affairs.

I remember watching a television debate in 1973 between the Labour and National leaders, Norm Kirk and Jack Marshall. It was such a relaxed and cordial encounter that I half expected the moderator – I think it was Ian Johnstone – to produce a flagon of DB and pour them a beer.

Monday night’s debate between Bill English and Jacinda Ardern wasn’t quite that cosy, but it was a mutually respectful contest between two basically decent people who want the best for their country.

Even the studio audience seemed admirably even-handed. We should be proud to live in such a mature democracy.

Sure, the campaign has had its moments of high drama. And elections are always polarising, the more so when you factor in the angry buzzing on social media, which amplifies ideological differences.

Besides, New Zealand politics hasn’t always been so good-tempered. The 1984 campaign, when Robert Muldoon was fighting for his political life, comes to mind. With Muldoon, there was always an undercurrent of menace – a feeling that you never knew quite what he was capable of, if pushed.

But back to that 1973 television debate. I had been living in Australia at the time and was struck by the contrast between our style of politics and that of our neighbours across the Ditch.

Everything about Australian politics was, and still is, more extreme and combative. Their conservatives are more reactionary, their radical lefties more doctrinaire, their factional powerbrokers more ruthless and their mavericks more unhinged.

Even when Australia’s not in election mode, its politics are far more febrile and polarised than ours. Right now the country is on the point of combusting over same-sex marriage, with the gay rights lobby using all manner of spurious arguments to torpedo a government proposal that would – heaven forbid – give voters a say on the issue.

It doesn’t help that the Australian news media are highly politicised, with the major Fairfax papers and the state-owned Australian Broadcasting Corporation actively taking a left-leaning line while the Murdoch-owned Australian adopts a conservative position. People who complain of media bias here don’t know the half of it.

The danger to democracy of journalists taking sides is amply illustrated by a recent article in which the editor of the leftist Guardian Australia, Lenore Taylor, made it clear she wouldn’t be giving editorial space to opponents of same-sex marriage because … well, because she didn’t agree with them.

Here, laid bare, is the logical consequence of the insidious notion that the principle of “objectivity” in journalism is a myth and therefore can be disregarded.

Objectivity means, among other things, an obligation to be even-handed in the presentation of news. This concept has underpinned mainstream journalism for decades, but journalism textbooks and tutors now teach that “balance” gets in the way of truth-telling and serves the interests of the rich and powerful.

The result is that many journalists (who tend, by instinct, to have leftist sympathies) now feel they have licence to ignore anything that doesn’t align with their own views.

Objectivity serves as a vital check against abuse of media power, because the moment journalists take it on themselves to decide which opinions are fit for public consumption, democracy is in trouble.

New Zealand isn’t immune from this trend, as is obvious from the increasingly common usage by journalists of loaded words such as “sexist”, “racist” and “misogynist” to dismiss views they don’t approve of. But it’s not happening on the same scale, and certainly nowhere near as brazenly, as in Australia, where the media are up to their armpits in partisan politics.

The implications, if the principle of objectivity is abandoned, don’t need to be spelled out. Democracy depends on people casting an informed vote, and once news organisations start withholding information they don’t like, the liberal democracy model that we’re now seeing in action is at risk. 

Karl du Fresne blogs at karldufresne.blogspot.co.nz. First published in the Dominion Post.

2 comments:

Brian said...

Journalism...Objectivity certainly, but not bias
I must take umbrage with some aspects of Karl’s Blog but then” I freely admit come from age where self praise is no recommendation”, and it was advantageous then, to remember a line from Robbie Burn’s
“To see ourselves as others see us”.
Comparisons are, they tell us odious, but useful and in this respect I venture to say that Australia’s media is more vitriol, at least from its over one billion state funded ABC Government left wing controlled Television. However they have what we lack, opposition programmes nightly on Sky and “free” TV”; such as the Bolt report, and from the outspoken typical down- to- earth Australian Paul Murray. Both of whom give room regularly to opposing viewpoints covered in a civilised manner.. This is sadly lacking in our T.V. and State Radio to the same extent. It is most obvious in Climate Debates, when the audience majority as well as the speakers supporting human climate change, tend to dominate the proceedings, at the expense of any opposition.
.A very clear fact also emerges with our newspapers, particularly in the NZ Herald. (I would excluded some provincial papers) A case in point being the coverage since the election of Donald Trump as the American President; in which we see re-prints from two of the most democratically controlled newspapers namely the Washington Post and New York Times. One would have expected that the NZ Herald would have had its own reporter on the ground giving equal and fair coverage to both sides. But then it is financially cheaper to use re-prints.
Since World War 11 Editorial discretion seems to have been at the whim of the large media conglomerates’ that control the financial side of the media which no doubt spills over into Editorial decisions. In a media “free” world the ideal would be that the media would be a free agent, both from Government and Commercial interests; but idealism always come to grief in the real world.
.Our media’s support of the government commitments to the policy of Free Trade, in that it is highly critical of Trump in his America First policy. Countries as well as people should avoid the (throwing of stones in glass house scenario). Especially so in the case of allowing any overseas contracting firm to quote for a new highway through the Ruahine Ranges using its own overseas payment to its labour force. This dictatorial provision that they are forced to pay NZ rates of pay thus avoiding competition is unfair and asks the question. What would happen if that overseas contractor paid his workers in excess of NZ Union rates?”
Would this result in a Union demand for a New Zealand wage increase? We elect parties to govern and when elected, it is the Government who is empowered to make sound economic decisions for the benefit of the country not the Unions?

Would that be suitable copy for a debate from both sides of the political spectrum, especially so in an election year?
Brian

Empathic said...

When it comes to gender issues our media are heavily biased towards feminism and determined to hide male disadvantage. It's scandalous. Almost any silly feminist analysis, rubbish 'advocacy research' or exaggerated story of trivial female complaints is eagerly published without any questioning or critique, whereas media releases on important matters by men's groups are routinely ignored by mainstream editors.

Men's movement spokespeople are almost never approached for perspectives on gender issues relevant to men whereas misandrist femaleist groups almost always are.

Coverage of the suicide issue usually fails even to mention the gender ratio, instead leading people to believe that youth and Maori suicide rates are the most disproportionate and most deserving of resources. In fact, youth suicide is lower than the average of all non-youth suicide. The Maori:non-Maori ratio is about 1.3 to 1. The male:female ratio is about 3.5 to 1.

Stories on workplace deaths and serious injuries usually fail to mention that males suffer about 98% of them. Male workplace victims are usually referred to simply as 'worker' or 'employee' without reference to gender, whereas when the occasional female is injured or (very rarely) killed in her work her gender is headlined or emphasized. It is claimed that 'a dairy' or 'a service station' was held up when the worker threatened or assaulted was a male, whereas if any female was a victim her gender is usually headlined. The male gender of offenders is usually headlined and always emphasized, but when the offenders were female their gender is often withheld. Male offenders are portrayed in the worst light and usually no mention is made of (e.g.) their parental responsibilities, whereas coverage of female offenders usually describes them in terms such as "mum jailed for..." while emphasizing their excuses, self-justifications and all their wonderful qualities. Mention is hardly ever made of the almost constant lenience in female sentencing compared with males for the same crimes, or of the good research that has measured this gender bias in our Courts.

Check out media stories for a while with this in mind and you will see it's true. Men's contribution, sacrifice, disadvantage and perspectives are thereby largely kept out of public awareness. Surprisingly, many people are recognizing men's issues as is apparent from blogs and readers' comments etc where available, but this is in spite of media bias rather than because of balanced and objective reporting.