Where Is New Zealand’s Quality Journalism?

Recent comments by Helen Clark and Peter Davis regarding The Herald have served to highlight some interesting and pressing issues concerning the role of the media and the quality of journalism in New Zealand. The comments have probably done Labour more harm than good, but I think they are both valid and timely. For a number of years now the quality of reporting in New Zealand has been on a downward slope. Not only is it now rare to come across a good piece of well researched investigative journalism about hard issues,  the journalistic qualities of balance and fairness also seem to have disappeared. The Herald’s coverage of the Electoral Finance Bill, regardless of one’s political persuasion, was a prime example of all that is wrong with New Zealand’s media.  

No one could deny the media has an absolutely essential role to play in society. Perhaps this is made no more clearer than in the American Constitution which protects freedom of the Press in the First Amendment. In a democratic society the media is the citizens’ watchdog, charged with placing checks and balances on government and those with power. A secondary role of the media is to provide information to the public to help create an informed citizenry. In this regard, The Herald is right to scrutinize the Prime Minister and members of Cabinet, the actions of government departments and alike. If The Herald did not do this then it would not be fulfilling its role as the Fourth Estate. However, in an election year the political landscape is markedly different, and accordingly the focus of any media outlet, particularly those reporting the news, should be widened. Not only should the government be under intense scrutiny, but every party contesting the election, and especially the opposition, should receive equal attention, and this is where The Herald’s reporting has been particularly unbalanced. Instead of pressing National for policy details and what it intends to do should it be in government post-election, the public has been fed a diet of “fluffy” articles about John Key and his “meteoric” rise in opinion polls. The public deserves better than this. 

 From the very outset The Herald took an alarmist approach to the Electoral Finance Act, labeling it an attack on democracy. While significant editorial coverage was devoted to exploring the possible implications of the Bill, the same was not given to the underlying reasons for the introduction of the Bill in the first place, namely the antics of the National Party during the 2005 general election. Instead, The Herald chose to run with a completely unsubstantiated line that the Bill was simply an attempt by Labour to entrench its position in government. What was called for was an assessment of National’s use of secret trusts to fund its election campaigns and media pressure for the party to come clean on who it was that was contributing to these trusts. If free speech is the first hallmark of democracy, then transparency must run a close second.

The Herald’s reporting of any event surrounding the government has since tended to involve intense analysis, whilst the opposition has been largely left to its own devices. Particularly alarming has been the suggestion, often explicit, in a number of articles and editorials that the Labour government will not and should not be the government following the 2008 election. One has to ask whether The Herald has broken down the boundary between informing the citizenry and telling the citizenry what to think. Of course, journalists are human and as such any reporting carries an element of opinion, however that opinion must be restrained if balance and fairness are to be upheld. Recent coverage of political issues indicate that The Herald has no intention of improving its journalism practices. Of particular note was Audrey Young’s coverage of the Owen Glen affair, which, in some cases, was almost entirely speculation awaiting confirmation by facts. Such reporting should worry every New Zealander.

The Herald appears to have positioned itself as the self-proclaimed saviour of democracy, but it is debatable whether The Herald even has the integrity to advance such a position given previous events in New Zealand politics which have failed to attract its attention, a prime example being the enactment of the Foreshore and Seabed Act. Where was the saviour of democracy here? Where was The Herald when Maori rights to due process were completely railroaded? Where were the daily front page articles decrying this attack on democracy? Where were the alarmist headlines and monthly photo montages of all those MPs supporting the legislation? Where were the attempts to hold the government to account over this? If simply limiting, as has been claimed, the free speech of citizens is an attack that goes right to the heart of our democracy, then surely completely removing one’s right to access the courts is a death blow. The Herald obviously didn’t see things this way, and their campaign against the Electoral Finance Bill must thus be hollow, or perhaps The Herald just has a very selective view about what democracy actually is. 

 

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