JC: Media Have Got Their Man

The media in this country are a disgrace. There is nothing remotely professional in how they go about their business in respect of political coverage. They portray an unrelenting left-wing bias pure and simple. They might have the effrontery to tell us they are objective, but that is a falsehood and it is obvious to anyone with a masochistic streak driving them to sit through the six o’clock news hour that it is not the case. What emanates from the radio newsrooms is no better and a lot of what is written in the papers is nothing short of embarrassing.

Ani O'Brien: The media lawyers up - the chilling effect is coming from inside the house

I received a legal letter this week too

In the days since I published my piece on Maiki Sherman and the “faggot” incident, the story has moved on. The incident itself is no longer really the point and in this second part I am focused on the lengths media went to in order to prevent the incident being reported on and how legal threats appear to be creating a state of paralysis in the industry.

We now have the extraordinary situation where media outlets are reporting on each other for using legal threats to suppress stories.

JC: A Man After My Own Heart

Last week I wrote an article on the journalists at Wellington Airport accosting the prime minister following a bad TPU/Curia poll and asking about his intentions about staying in the job. In the Weekend Herald, Bruce Cotterill, a man after my own heart, has written a lengthier and broader article on the state of the six o’clock news. He is, quite rightly, fairly critical of the news provided by the state broadcaster on TV One. He is no more enamoured with the journalists than I am. ThreeNews also failed to impress. His article is well worth a read and few, if any, on this site would disagree with his comments.

JC: A PR Offensive Won’t Save Their Jobs

According to Herald Media Insider, Shayne Currie, a number of well-known TVNZ faces, including Miriama Kamo, Jack Tame, Indira Stewart and Anna Burns-Francis feature in an E tu union publicity campaign – all lending support to the importance of news and current affairs. This, to my mind, is a pretty pointless exercise. For a start, who doesn’t know the importance of the aforementioned? That is neither the point nor the problem. A good part of the problem is those talking about the problem.

Sir Bob Jones: Is Stuff stuffed?

Reading Stuff’s principal newspaper, Wellington’s The Post, I now treat as a daily entertainment for its blunders.

Worldwide, newspapers are going over like ninepins, sustained only because they’re a life-long habit by older generations. Most people under 35 have never as much held a copy, glued as they are to their brain-rotting, ironically so-called smart phones and their diverse idiotic but plainly addictive offerings.

The problem for print media relying on that aging demographic is the buggers keep dying off.

Lushington D. Brady: He Can’t Talk to Them!

Stuff Journo Astonished Hipkins Talks to Plunkett

Various studies have indicated that people on the left are far more intolerant of different opinions than the right. In fact, Pew research has shown that self-described “liberals” are twice as likely to block and unfriend someone on social media, because they expressed an opinion the “liberal” didn’t like. That behaviour carries over into real life, as well: “liberals” are vastly more likely to drop a friend because of their political views.

Guest Post: Is the Media Biased Against the Right of Politics?

A guest post from a Kiwiblog reader:

This question has been debated a lot and on the Right the answer is invariably, yes.

Having followed the media carefully since the election it is my view that it is extremely hard to deny that assertion. Let me share some insight as to how this has occurred.

Michael Bassett: TV One journalists fail to notice there's a new government

As we already know, adjusting to the arrival of new leaders in the Beehive is proving difficult for the Mainstream Media (MSM). Many journalists seem not to have noticed that the public voted for change. They need to recognise this fact. I suspect the problem might be with the journalists’ education.

Michael Bassett: Bogus election media coverage

This election campaign has degenerated into a media circus with endless trivial claims and counter claims, many of them driven by the media. As a result, we, the long-suffering voters find ourselves dependent more and more on the integrity of the journalists who are reporting the parties’ policies. Sadly, many aren’t doing the job. We know the Herald’s Simon Wilson of old.

Rodney Hide: Journalism in Aotearoa

If you want the lazy job in Aotearoa, be a journalist.

You write stories. Nothing could be easier.

You gather up some facts, get some expert comment, string it together with words to make a story -- or, in the sophisticated parlance of Aotearoa journalism, your narrative.

Graham Adams: O lucky man! Hipkins and an indulgent media

The Prime Minister must be keeping his fingers crossed that the mainstream media continues to largely ignore the fact he was an influential minister in Jacinda Ardern’s government. He’s got away with it for the four months since he took Labour’s leadership — and there is less than five months to go before the election. His luck may well hold.

By anyone’s reckoning, it is an extraordinary indulgence to overlook the five years Hipkins spent as part of Ardern’s kitchen Cabinet, especially given his mediocre record in portfolios that included education, health and police.

From the moment he stepped up to be Prime Minister in late January, most journalists have been happy to cast him as a new broom. This can only be true in the very limited sense that he has lifted a corner of the carpet and swept policies such as hate-speech laws and the social insurance scheme under it, from where they can be retrieved after the election.

Michael Bassett: Our media in election year

What is becoming clear is that this Labour government is swimming out of its depth. In their determination to empower Maori

When the media went cap in hand to Jacinda Ardern’s government with sad tales about their declining financial position, ministers responded with the Public Interest Journalism Fund (PIJF). Newspaper editors realized there was a risk that people would think that upwards of $50 million of taxpayers’ money would be used to buy pro-Labour stories, especially in election year. The editors at the New Zealand Herald gave solemn undertakings to their readers that such would never be the case. However, any objective scrutiny of the Herald’s conduct since then would conclude they long since decided to throw caution to the winds. A couple of their columnists often appear to be mouthpieces for current ministers, while the paper’s cartoonists might as well be on Labour’s payroll.

Graham Adams: Mainstream journalists smell blood in the water

2023 looks like it will be brutal for Labour

Cynics have cruelly likened journalists to mercenaries watching a battle from a safe position above the fray and only venturing down to the plains when it is clear who the victors are — and then bayoneting the wounded.

As 2022 draws to a close, it appears that the media has identified Jacinda Ardern’s government as critically injured and are sharpening their steel for slaughter in election year.

Heather du Plessis Allan has never been one to hold back but her interview last week on Newstalk ZB with Michael Wood was an extraordinary exhibition of disdain, if not contempt, towards a Cabinet minister. If it presages a growing trend of similar forthrightness by journalists in 2023, it will prove extremely difficult for the Labour Party in its election campaign.

Jonathan Ayling: Worlds of Journalism Study shows concerning trend, but without free speech there is no free press

The third survey of journalists undertaken by the Worlds of Journalism Study was recently released, providing valuable insights into journalists’ perspectives in our country. Free speech is the foundation of freedom of the press. Along with the right to information, it is crucial in ensuring a transparent democratic society.

The data tells an interesting story regarding journalists' motivation in New Zealand. When asked how important different roles of journalists are in their work, after listing educate the audience at 3.99 (on a scale of 1, unimportant, to 5, extremely important), the second highest rated role of journalists was to counteract disinformation at 3.95. This role, which did not feature at all in the 2015 survey, has quickly become a central part of the perceived purpose of journalism to Kiwi journalists.

Stuart Smith: Students Must Be Fully Informed

Last Friday saw Parliament’s grounds filled with Global Climate Strike protesters led by Izzy Cook, a year 12 student. The protesters came armed with six “demands”:

* Ban synthetic fertilisers
* Halve the number of cows
* Free public transport
* Safe cycle and walkways
* End all coal, oil and gas exploration
* Just transition.

Fair enough. And putting aside that the students took time off school to attend and didn’t sacrifice their free time for the cause, we still should give them credit for fighting for a cause they believe in.

Graham Adams: The no-go areas that are killing mainstream media

The failure of mass news outlets to cover debates raging on social media — including transgender and Treaty issues — threatens their survival. As does avoiding contentious court cases.

In mid-March, a veteran political journalist commented on the Kiwi Journalists Association Facebook page about the problems the industry faced. He was responding to a discussion over a generational divide between older and younger journalists, in which it was alleged that reporting and analysing the news these days is much harder than it was decades ago.

However, he sidestepped the generational friction to look at the bigger picture — the existential crisis the mainstream media is facing:

Rodney Hide: Journalism in Aotearoa

If you want the lazy job in Aotearoa, be a journalist.

You write stories. Nothing could be easier.

You gather up some facts, get some expert comment, string it together with words to make a story -- or, in the sophisticated parlance of Aotearoa journalism, your narrative.

There is an infinite number of facts to choose amongst but your selection is made easy: you choose the facts that are easy to get and that are agreeable to you. After all, it’s your narrative.

The same for experts. There’s countless experts, often saying different things. It could get confusing. But it’s not. You quote the expert that says things agreeable to you. Also, the easy ones ready with a quote and keen to be the news. That’s why we hear from the same experts over and over.