The hope only Of empty men

Far be it for me to criticise laziness (my prolonged absence from the blogosphere can attest to that), but - there's always a but - I'm a little disappointed with John Roughan's profile of Steven Joyce in the Herald yesterday. It looks remarkably like Dwayne Alexander's blog post at the start of September.




I'm being unfair. Mr Roughan did actually address a couple of timely issues in his interview with Mr Joyce, such as the Labour Party's response to the economic crisis and the unveiling of the universal student allowance policy. And Mr Joyce, to his credit, addressed them - even if it was merely to bat them away.

However, after his auspicious start, a fairly lame profile piece followed - something that is happening in far too many papers at the moment. I don't think I'm alone in considering a straight profile of a political candidate to be boring and unambitious.

Sure, give us a general outline of who the candidates are and what they have done in their previous lives, but stick with a line of questioning where the reader might actually get some handle on what the candidate stands for, what their motivations for entering public office are, and what they plan to do, given the opportunity, when they take the reins of power.

Y'know, act like a representative of the Fourth Estate and all that jazz.

OR, if you must do a profile (and I'm feeling charitable here)...

Don't make it a promo listing all of the candidates' achievements... we know these people are talented - it's generally why they manage to get into the party hierarchy. What's more interesting is how they've acted in their previous incarnations, and how this may relate to how they'll represent us in the future.

Using Mr Joyce as an example, what Mr Roughan could have done was delve into the crossover of Mr Joyce's radio career and his position as campaign manager of the Nats. In the lead-up to, and fall-out from, the 2005 general election, he was the drive show host on RadioLive. I remember listening to Mr Joyce every afternoon (as was the wont of my employer at the time), completely oblivious to his position with the Nats (which was never disclosed). I merely thought he was another of those crazy talkback hosts that loved the phrase "nanny state" (he replaced Paul Henry who was forced to resign by TVNZ, and was up against Larry Williams on ZB, who models his show on Bill O'Reilly's). We should also note that, by this stage, Mr Joyce had sold his holding in RadioWorks to the Canadians (better known as CanWest) - not that Mr Joyce let his listeners' knew of his former association with the station.

Curiously, a quick google search finds few acknowledgements of Mr Joyce's tenure ever occurring: there's a post by DPF at the end of November 2005 and another, which no longer exists, but has an extract available on Lawswatch.

I find nothing untoward about commericial radio holding a conservative bias - it's a natural fit, much like the perceived liberal bias associated with public radio - it's just that, y'know, I would have liked to have been made aware of the fact that there was some active political campaigning going on in the lead-up to a tight election that some 30-odd thousand people were listening to every day.

I can see the argument that would likely be put up - my opinions are obvious to anyone who listens to me, and my audience, in the main, agrees with my point of view, but that's a little different form being active in a party political campaign while putting out your views as an independent voice (albeit, a conservative one).

I know all of this screams conspiracy, and I don't actually have a problem with figures in the media holding a political bias. I think it's good for views contrary to my own being pushed and discussed in an open forum. But an open forum requires a certain level of disclosure, and Mr Joyce's inability to let his listeners know that he was actively campaigning for the Nats in '05 leads me to conclude there's only one position he wants after November 8...

... and that's the role of Machiavelli's Prince, Murray McCully.

Thus ends my case study and wildly inaccurate conclusion.

I'm sure the nation's fearless army of journalists would be happy to dig a little deeper when approaching their candidates for a simple profile piece - it's certainly a lot more fun to do (and read). And maybe, just maybe, it might inform the public of whom, and what, they're actually voting for.

Dreaming of better journalism,

PB.

My rant over "self-inflicted death"

This morning saw me and my fellow baby journalists attend the SPINZ seminar on the media's role in suicide prevention. Tuckr has a fine post on suicide reporting (he should, it's the speech he gave at the Auckland conference), so I'm going to take it as a given that you know we can't really report suicides very well - no details, be sensitive, don't glamourise it, don't rationalise it, oh heck, my guidelines are on the other side of the bed, so I guess I'll have to wing it.

The forum was useful - some interesting research was raised and I made sure to grab a copy of what the Ministry of Health's trying to do to stop suicide. Unfortunately, in a free and frank forum about a subject that's taboo, everything was sanitised. Prime example: self-inflicted death. Not suicide. Not killing yourself. Not topping yourself. But self-inflicted death. No details. A violent death rather than slashed wrists. A body found in an area; not jumped to his/her death. I don't know how this encourages open discussion about a difficult topic, especially a topic that people are so scared to talk about, let alone report on.

The one word that kept coming to mind as I scribbled down my notes was propaganda. We were constantly told that the MoH didn't want to censor journos; merely ensure they reported correctly and safely. I actually agree with the concept that suicide is nobody else's business, and I'm not overly fussed about the restrictions on reporting, but I do object to the national strategy for suicide prevention having a specific goal dedicated to sanitising media coverage. I don't think it's good for strong reporting of the issues, and I don't think it will lead to anything other than wider censorship.

This wasn't helped by the fact that although the research dismissed a causal link between fictional suicide representations and actual suicide, it was implied that this was an element (I mean the whole basis of the research came from the impact a novel had in encouraging suicide). What's the next activity that requires guidelines?

The way people were speaking, it seemed as though every time suicide was metioned, there was a spate of copycat episodes. I don't mean to make light of the situation, but I couldn't get the final scene of Hedda Gabbler out of my head, and I envisioned an audience getting up after her death, walking out of the theatre and shooting themselves.

I did have a fair amount of time for Paul Thompson (Fairfax's Group Editor) when he wasn't plugging the typical media line "we do our job and we do it well". And he made a fine point in asking for more openness in reporting on suspected suicides. I can't fault his logic; if it's suspected, the hidden code "There were no suspicious circumstances" doesn't quite explain that (and while it pains me to admit my own naivety, I didn't pick up on the code until Jim pointed it out to us earlier this year -sheesh).

I think he was wrong when he claimed we can only write features on suicide every couple of months as there's no appetite for them. I think there's enormous public appetite for stories about suicide and I think people want to be able to speak about it openly. By leaving suicide stories under-reported or left as a token feature every few months, we continue to marginalise it, making it difficult to cover stories about suicide that may actually help reduce suicide rates (causes of suicide, general trends, ways to approach suicidal people). The more education people have about a topic, the greater their capacity for discussing and debating it intelligently. (I'm just trying to balance out my cycnicism with some idealism here.)

Having read back through this post, I can't find any real unifying theme, and I suppose that's because I just needed to vent after the seminar (which seems normal considering the content of the day). I guess I'm just disappointed: I expected some real discussion on what the media can do to make things better, not listen to what the media needs to do to minimise harm.

Whew. Now I've got that out of the system, the critical thought can begin...

It pains me to say this...

I don't think I'll ever forgive her for naming Constable A all those years ago, but Deb Hill Cone was spot on in her column about the evils of TradeMe in today's Herald.

I used to be an avid user (when I had some money to waste on second hand books), but, like Deb, I struggled to buy in to the whole feedback thing. Like Facebook's friend tally, your feedback stars turn into a bragging competition about your online popularity (probably because your real life is slightly less flattering).

The constant pestering for positive feedback - even when neither party is satisfied with the outcome seems somewhat absurd - and I really feel for the old hack:

The whole experience made me feel cross. Is it really so unreasonable to simply
want to buy something without all this other bossy palaver? I am fed up with
companies wanting to have a "relationship" with me. From now on I say no to
loyalty cards, corporate Facebook groups and folksy company newsletters. I have
taken a vow of commercial celibacy.

I applaud the stand Deb's taking, but somehow, I don't think I can cut myself off from the TradeMe juggernaut. It ain't easy finding cheap digs or work, and this baby journo ain't nearly good enough at networking to join Ms Hill Cone in her valiant stand.

(She also gives a good serve to Vodafone.)

Let us be diverse and without prejudice

There has been a bit of commentary about the Diversity Forum held by MSD last week. I've obviously heard a fair amount about it as one of the NewsWire babies who listened to Arlene Morgan speak about diversity in the newsroom, and I have to admit to being somewhat pleased by Deb Coddington's column in the HoS today. Her back-handed contrition, however (some objectors are better than others), continues to play into the same old divisive stereotypes that compel the need for forums like the diversity one and for offices like the Race Relations Conciliator.

Karl du Fresne admirably defends his distaste for meddling in the affairs of "free speech" - yet the crux of his argument is market driven and summed up nicely with:

The main thing about the controversy over the Clydesdale paper, however, was
that it demonstrated that a free and open society, if left to function properly,
tends to be self-correcting.

Self-correcting implies that every citizen, nay, every reader, is equal in intelligence and experience and able to disseminate a piece of information with the same veracity as the next one. That's the kind of idealistic twaddle you'd expect from a socialist like meself, not a curmudgeon like Mr du Fresne.

Which leads me on to prejudice (I know - this is a long one). The inimitable Jim Tucker plugged our push for diversity here, here, and here, but it was his latest post on his reading prejudices that ties in nicely with my fear for the fragmentation of voices in the media. One of the winners of the Excellence in Reporting Diversity Awards was Justin Latif, a chap who doesn't think his stories are diverse - they just are. This is all well and good, but as Jim points out:

We all, I suspect, choose our information sources according to deep-seated
biases created over lifetimes.

Which leads me to believe that as our media sources converge under the umbrellas of the major players, minority voices will be ignored in favour of the mainstream market (a continuation of a current theme), and our minorities will create their own media (much like we're already seeing in our local Asian communities).

While this isn't new, the growth of Asian media is a worrying trend - if we (read white, middle-class males) can't reach out and gather news like Justin, we're going to be holding the shortest straw when the interweb finally destroys flagship news outlets and the fragmentation of news sources is so diverse as to make it impossible to have any kind of "authoritative news".

This might not necessarily be a bad thing, but it does play to Jim's prejudices - we'll only read news and commentary that re-affirms our own experiences and ideologies. I don't see me being the token whitey in a newsroom as a bad thing, but I do see the creation of niche media that doesn't challenge its own assertions as one step closer to endgame. Here's hoping someone can allay my fears - as yet, no-one's managed the task.

Gratuitious plug number three

And three is for me. Check it out - my first lead.

Feedback is always helpful team...

Nats likely to be furious over having to pay for Crosby Textor

The boys at The Standard will be well-chuffed with Yoda's column in the Herald on Saturday - after a sharp campaign of explaining away the evils of Crosby/Textor, John Armstrong became the first to indulge them when he wrote:

However, selling "Brand Key" as a breath of fresh air in an otherwise fetid political atmosphere was hardly credible if National was going to team up with Peters once the election was over.

July was definitely the cruellest month to Jonkey, with 15 posts tagged to the brandkey moniker (13 in the first fortnight). A good place to start for research's sake is here.

With a solid strike-rate like that, I'm certain C/T will be keeping an eye our liberal lads, and who knows where that could lead?

Is that DPF I hear, reminiscing over yesteryear?

Sanity has returned

EXCLUSIVE: I popped into my local New World last week and was relieved to see Investigate Magazine back at the back of the magazine stand and the NBR down to the midrange level. That was a close call (although Pulp is now on the front row next to Time, but, y'know, beggars can't be choosers).

UPDATE: I spoke too soon - after popping down to NW this evening, it appears as though the NBR has sold out and Ian's rag has moved up to mid-rack status. Oh how I wish I could find a conspiracy theory that fits.