Last week, NZME, the owners of the NZ Herald, announced 38 newsroom staff would be losing their jobs.
Most of those being dismissed were “production journalists”, which includes sub-editors. The Herald has undertaken culls of such employees several times over recent decades. Inevitably, the ensuing rash of grammatical and spelling mistakes in their publications, along with plain gobbledegook, means at least some of them will soon need to be rehired.
NZME’s editor-in-chief, Murray Kirkness, was quoted as championing a surprising treatment for what ails his publication. He recommended “a stronger focus on ensuring the newsroom is focused on journalism and other content that resonates with audiences, including subscribers.”
This declaration seemed as bizarre as a struggling restaurant proclaiming its kitchen will ensure a “stronger focus on food and other content that resonates with diners, including regulars”.
Many people would have thought journalism was a news organisation’s core business, but apparently that needs restating explicitly for those Herald readers who might have been confused. And it’s very easy to be confused given the Herald is a grab-bag of clickbait and actual journalism.
Just the day before the axe swung over journalists’ heads, the Herald published an article implying Elon Musk had made a Nazi salute at Trump’s inauguration. The copy didn’t explain the circumstances — that Musk had mimed grabbing his heart and energetically throwing it out to the crowd — which cast his theatrical performance in an entirely different light.
It was a dodgy piece of clickbait, which perhaps highlights the Herald’s dilemma in the internet age: online subscribers may want thoughtful, engaging content but advertisers demand volume.
In the same article, NZME CEO Michael Boggs was quoted as saying the newsroom’s mission remained to deliver trusted, quality journalism.
It was a point he made earlier this month too: “As an industry, we need to continue to earn the trust of New Zealanders and at NZME we’re really focused on that — it would be a game-changer to be the most trusted media organisation.”
Unfortunately, a news organisation that hopes to be trusted can’t serve two masters — clickbait and quality journalism.
Furthermore, some of the Herald’s journalism doesn’t begin to fit even a loose definition of “quality”. Some of it looks like notes towards an article. Often the questions readers want answered are left hanging.
Also, when readers conclude they are being given a distorted, inadequate or improbable account of events, they will naturally be suspicious of the reliability of other stories.
A particular egregious example appeared last week, titled “Stats NZ inquiry clears Whānau Ora of 2023 Census data breach”.
On the face of it, the story looked like a scoop. The Herald’s Kaupapa Māori editor, Joseph Los’e, said he had seen a leaked 67-page report compiled by policy analysts RDC Group on the allegations made against Manurewa Marae concerning the misuse of Census data collected by its staff as part of a contract with Whānau Ora Commissioning Agency (WOCA).
Oddly, Los’e didn’t mention Doug Craig — who is one of RDC’s principals — yet he was the person specifically commissioned last June by the Government Statistician and Chief Executive of Stats NZ, Mark Sowden, to investigate allegations of the misuse of data. Was the document Los’e saw the actual report Craig was due to present to Stats NZ last week, or another version from RDC’s files?
Unfortunately the article’s heading was much more definitive than Los’e’s copy. He stated that RDC had “found no evidence of data breaches”, which is not the same as “clearing” the organisations involved. It is not at all apparent what resources or powers were available to Stats NZ to help it get to the bottom of the alleged breaches.
Los’e dedicated part of his column to relating how WOCA’s efforts significantly increased Māori participation in the Census, exceeding contract requirements. He also recounted the report’s acknowledgement that Stats NZ were obliged to give effect to the principles of Te Tiriti o Waitangi in its collection of data.
However, there were brief indications that readers might not have been given the full picture of just how comprehensively WOCA had been “cleared”. Almost as an aside, Los’e stated, “The report said allegations were made against Manurewa Marae from ‘whistleblowers’ but the report does not go into details about the claims. The report refers this matter to the Privacy Commissioner".
Perhaps we should have been told that Doug Craig’s terms of reference excluded “any finding that might interfere with or prejudice related investigations by the NZ Police, the Electoral Commission, the Ministry of Social Development, the Office of the Privacy Commissioner or any other relevant agency; noting that material identified as relevant to such related investigations will be shared with the relevant agency as appropriate.”
For that reason, perhaps it is not surprising Los’e could record the report “contains no smoking gun related to the attention Whānau Ora and Whānau Waipareira received over the initial allegations“ and that it “makes no recommendations against Whānau Ora or Whānau Waipareira with regard to possible data breaches over the use of Stats NZ information”.
The Herald article appeared on Sunday morning. Later that day, Stats NZ felt moved to put out a press release itself, no doubt in response to it. The press release didn’t make the Herald’s pages.
Stats NZ made the point plainly for anyone who might have believed that the leaked RDC report had cleared WOCA: “Determining liability was out of scope of Mr Craig’s investigation. That’s the job of the NZ Police, the Serious Fraud Office and the Privacy Commissioner. We will be sharing Mr Craig’s report and related information with those agencies.”
At the end of his article, Los’e also stated that WOCA and the Waipareira Trust “didn’t want to comment on the report”. That alone is telling about the likely significance of his “scoop”. John Tamihere, who is the CEO of both WOCA and the Waipareira Trust, is not known for his restraint. If his organisations had indeed been “cleared” of allegations of misuse of data, it’s a safe bet he would have been exultant.
Some commentators were, unsurprisingly, jubilant. Blogger Martyn Bradbury claimed Los’e’s analysis of the RDC report vindicated his own prediction of “no Māori Party corruption” and that the news represented “a bad day for the rednecks!” He thought defamation actions might be in order.
Unfortunately, the story raised as many questions as answers about the official inquiries. In that way, it ended up being a kind of clickbait itself with a heading that grabbed attention but the information offered was highly unsatisfying.
Anyone interested in the outcomes of the official investigations into Manurewa Marae will have to wait a little longer. Stats NZ said: “Mr Craig’s report and Stats NZ’s response will be publicly released on the same day as a related Public Service Commission Inquiry being led by Mike Heron, KC.
“The Doug Craig Report and the Mike Heron Inquiry are clearly linked so it is important the reports and associated information are provided at the same time to give the public the full picture. Further statements will be made on release of the reports in the coming weeks.”
If the Herald is serious about restoring trust in its journalism, it might also want to make it standard practice to provide context such as the fact Los’e was the communications director for Tamihere’s Waipareira Trust for 12 years before joining the Herald in 2022 as its Kaupapa Māori editor.
Alternatively, the Herald’s editors could have ensured the story was written by a journalist who didn’t have a long-standing connection with the organisation being covered.
That sort of transparency might be more effective in restoring trust than Michael Boggs’ prescription that includes “making opinion pieces even more clearly labelled, linking to alternate views on opinion pieces so people can easily access other viewpoints, including key facts at the top of opinion pieces so readers can form their own views, etc.”
Retired judge David Harvey, who takes a keen interest in media issues, commented on his Substack that restoring trust in MSM perhaps needs to go “a little further than clearly labelling opinion pieces or listing the ‘three main points’ at the beginning of each article — essentially telling the reader what the piece is about rather than letting the reader make up his or her own mind.
“This probably demonstrates the level of contempt that the MSM has for the intelligence of its audience.”
Graham Adams is an Auckland-based freelance editor, journalist and columnist. This article was originally published by ThePlatform.kiwi and is published here with kind permission.
This declaration seemed as bizarre as a struggling restaurant proclaiming its kitchen will ensure a “stronger focus on food and other content that resonates with diners, including regulars”.
Many people would have thought journalism was a news organisation’s core business, but apparently that needs restating explicitly for those Herald readers who might have been confused. And it’s very easy to be confused given the Herald is a grab-bag of clickbait and actual journalism.
Just the day before the axe swung over journalists’ heads, the Herald published an article implying Elon Musk had made a Nazi salute at Trump’s inauguration. The copy didn’t explain the circumstances — that Musk had mimed grabbing his heart and energetically throwing it out to the crowd — which cast his theatrical performance in an entirely different light.
It was a dodgy piece of clickbait, which perhaps highlights the Herald’s dilemma in the internet age: online subscribers may want thoughtful, engaging content but advertisers demand volume.
In the same article, NZME CEO Michael Boggs was quoted as saying the newsroom’s mission remained to deliver trusted, quality journalism.
It was a point he made earlier this month too: “As an industry, we need to continue to earn the trust of New Zealanders and at NZME we’re really focused on that — it would be a game-changer to be the most trusted media organisation.”
Unfortunately, a news organisation that hopes to be trusted can’t serve two masters — clickbait and quality journalism.
Furthermore, some of the Herald’s journalism doesn’t begin to fit even a loose definition of “quality”. Some of it looks like notes towards an article. Often the questions readers want answered are left hanging.
Also, when readers conclude they are being given a distorted, inadequate or improbable account of events, they will naturally be suspicious of the reliability of other stories.
A particular egregious example appeared last week, titled “Stats NZ inquiry clears Whānau Ora of 2023 Census data breach”.
On the face of it, the story looked like a scoop. The Herald’s Kaupapa Māori editor, Joseph Los’e, said he had seen a leaked 67-page report compiled by policy analysts RDC Group on the allegations made against Manurewa Marae concerning the misuse of Census data collected by its staff as part of a contract with Whānau Ora Commissioning Agency (WOCA).
Oddly, Los’e didn’t mention Doug Craig — who is one of RDC’s principals — yet he was the person specifically commissioned last June by the Government Statistician and Chief Executive of Stats NZ, Mark Sowden, to investigate allegations of the misuse of data. Was the document Los’e saw the actual report Craig was due to present to Stats NZ last week, or another version from RDC’s files?
Unfortunately the article’s heading was much more definitive than Los’e’s copy. He stated that RDC had “found no evidence of data breaches”, which is not the same as “clearing” the organisations involved. It is not at all apparent what resources or powers were available to Stats NZ to help it get to the bottom of the alleged breaches.
Los’e dedicated part of his column to relating how WOCA’s efforts significantly increased Māori participation in the Census, exceeding contract requirements. He also recounted the report’s acknowledgement that Stats NZ were obliged to give effect to the principles of Te Tiriti o Waitangi in its collection of data.
However, there were brief indications that readers might not have been given the full picture of just how comprehensively WOCA had been “cleared”. Almost as an aside, Los’e stated, “The report said allegations were made against Manurewa Marae from ‘whistleblowers’ but the report does not go into details about the claims. The report refers this matter to the Privacy Commissioner".
Perhaps we should have been told that Doug Craig’s terms of reference excluded “any finding that might interfere with or prejudice related investigations by the NZ Police, the Electoral Commission, the Ministry of Social Development, the Office of the Privacy Commissioner or any other relevant agency; noting that material identified as relevant to such related investigations will be shared with the relevant agency as appropriate.”
For that reason, perhaps it is not surprising Los’e could record the report “contains no smoking gun related to the attention Whānau Ora and Whānau Waipareira received over the initial allegations“ and that it “makes no recommendations against Whānau Ora or Whānau Waipareira with regard to possible data breaches over the use of Stats NZ information”.
The Herald article appeared on Sunday morning. Later that day, Stats NZ felt moved to put out a press release itself, no doubt in response to it. The press release didn’t make the Herald’s pages.
Stats NZ made the point plainly for anyone who might have believed that the leaked RDC report had cleared WOCA: “Determining liability was out of scope of Mr Craig’s investigation. That’s the job of the NZ Police, the Serious Fraud Office and the Privacy Commissioner. We will be sharing Mr Craig’s report and related information with those agencies.”
At the end of his article, Los’e also stated that WOCA and the Waipareira Trust “didn’t want to comment on the report”. That alone is telling about the likely significance of his “scoop”. John Tamihere, who is the CEO of both WOCA and the Waipareira Trust, is not known for his restraint. If his organisations had indeed been “cleared” of allegations of misuse of data, it’s a safe bet he would have been exultant.
Some commentators were, unsurprisingly, jubilant. Blogger Martyn Bradbury claimed Los’e’s analysis of the RDC report vindicated his own prediction of “no Māori Party corruption” and that the news represented “a bad day for the rednecks!” He thought defamation actions might be in order.
Unfortunately, the story raised as many questions as answers about the official inquiries. In that way, it ended up being a kind of clickbait itself with a heading that grabbed attention but the information offered was highly unsatisfying.
Anyone interested in the outcomes of the official investigations into Manurewa Marae will have to wait a little longer. Stats NZ said: “Mr Craig’s report and Stats NZ’s response will be publicly released on the same day as a related Public Service Commission Inquiry being led by Mike Heron, KC.
“The Doug Craig Report and the Mike Heron Inquiry are clearly linked so it is important the reports and associated information are provided at the same time to give the public the full picture. Further statements will be made on release of the reports in the coming weeks.”
If the Herald is serious about restoring trust in its journalism, it might also want to make it standard practice to provide context such as the fact Los’e was the communications director for Tamihere’s Waipareira Trust for 12 years before joining the Herald in 2022 as its Kaupapa Māori editor.
Alternatively, the Herald’s editors could have ensured the story was written by a journalist who didn’t have a long-standing connection with the organisation being covered.
That sort of transparency might be more effective in restoring trust than Michael Boggs’ prescription that includes “making opinion pieces even more clearly labelled, linking to alternate views on opinion pieces so people can easily access other viewpoints, including key facts at the top of opinion pieces so readers can form their own views, etc.”
Retired judge David Harvey, who takes a keen interest in media issues, commented on his Substack that restoring trust in MSM perhaps needs to go “a little further than clearly labelling opinion pieces or listing the ‘three main points’ at the beginning of each article — essentially telling the reader what the piece is about rather than letting the reader make up his or her own mind.
“This probably demonstrates the level of contempt that the MSM has for the intelligence of its audience.”
Graham Adams is an Auckland-based freelance editor, journalist and columnist. This article was originally published by ThePlatform.kiwi and is published here with kind permission.
6 comments:
I hope you've emailed this to the herald to read Graham. They need to take a break from reading, and believing, their own propaganda.
Graham, some years ago I vowed never to buy a Herald again.
I'm surprised that so many fall for the scam of buying paper newspapers at a discounted rate for a few months.
If I see a "free" Herald in a café, I can't be bothered even glancing at it, knowing that it's no better than it's late cousin the Truth.
As has been stated here before, their masthead used to say " all the news that's fit to print" ,now says "all the news you need to know".
What arrogance !
MfK
Even today 30 January the NZ Herald website has frontpage article with Keri Allen about to make a negetive submission and then they went live during said submission.......oddly nobody with a positive submission was given an article nor a live column.....bias yes, balance no. They really are in the terminal phase of their demise.
"Los’e was the communications director for Tamihere’s Waipareira Trust for 12 years before joining the Herald in 2022 as its Kaupapa Māori editor."
Doesn't that just say it all. At least Stuff makes it clear they have no intention of publishing anything that disparages Maori. Good grief, they even ban comments on the Treaty of Waitangi, but at least you know where you are. Seems the Herald has no such transparency. So what were they saying about trust?
If you’re going to pay your hard earned to be informed, why would you buy the herald?
Buy the Economist and really be informed on world affairs.
It cheaper in the long run and a much better read.
If you want light hearted reading, I’m informed The Beano is pretty good.
What the Herald prints is a censorship problem, and their next problem is that they will not print the truth.
That has become so obvious over the last few years.
Will the Herald please publish its own Death Notice ?
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