I’m loath to blog about television again, because there are so many more interesting things happening in media.
However, the sight of Cameron Bennett stepping out of the Deathstar (ahead of being pushed) provides an insight as to why I feel compelled to comment on the train wreck that is TVNZ News and Current Affairs.
There’s something strange occurring in newsrooms all around the country and it’s especially noticeable in television. While drama shows like “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Law and Order” portray women as high-powered surgeons and cops or lawyers, down on the newsroom floor, where television is truly real, it’s depressingly revisionist.
And, for the sake of this blog, let’s put aside the fact that the upper echelons of newsroom management have been barely visited, let alone conquered, by women in any medium.
Around every new social development there arise the shamans. Those who seek to shroud the obvious in mystery to create the illusion that only they can interpret the “unknowable”. And thereby make a buck.
For example, look at the hype over “social media” (presumably this means traditional or mainstream sources are “anti-social media” and perhaps that’s right).
Following in the tradition of Janet’s recent “Rantings, Ravings and Musings” heres a couple of random thoughts from me on media and politics.
Random Thought #1
When will this government realise it needs far better coordination at the top in keeping its act together?
It seems to be functioning in hermetically sealed silos at ministerial level, which means ugly surprises for John Key every now and again – and surprises are the one thing you neither need nor want in politics.
The RWC 2011 broadcasting rights fiasco is, I fear, but a shadow of the kind of cock-ups that will eventually start to dent the National’s credibility unless something is done urgently.
The basic communications machinery of the press secretaries is functioning adequately, the problem lies further up the food chain.
Key lacks an enforcer, someone who is thinking strategically not just tactically, someone who can coordinate across cabinet, eliminate risk and herd the cats in one direction.
John Key is a CEO style leader (I guess that makes Bill English CFO) but he needs a Chief Operating Officer.
A Mark II Heather Simpson won’t work. A mere employee on the ninth floor won’t carry enough clout and the Beehive is such that anyone coming in to it now will be frozen out by the apparatchiks already there.
Key needs a Peter Mandelson. A Minister of Nothing Who Has A Hold On Everything.
I know Mandelson’s loathed in the UK and in the British Labour Party but I think that comes with the territory of that kind of job.
Prior to the election Key had two Mandelsons, the Dark Prince Murray McCully and Steven Joyce. However, now McCully is constantly offshore and Joyce is saddled with a ridiculously heavy burden of portfolios so that he’s unable to pay attention to overall strategy in the way he did during the campaign.
Joyce needs to become COO. He can shed Communications and Transport, let him loose on driving cabinet and its communications.
He’s as tough as old boots and as subtle as a brick through your front window when it comes to dealing with the troublesome.
Joyce is the guy for the job.
I know there’s talk in the cabinet of doing this – they better get on with it before Key gets exhausted running around putting out persistent brush fires.
Random Thought #2
Was there even a random thought at TVNZ when it came to that ludicrous Bill English promo for TVNZ 7’s economics programme?
Janet raised this point last week before the story blew, how come no one at TVNZ saw the political downside in such a silly promo?
What was TVNZ’s Government Relations advisor, Peter Parussini, doing approving and signing off on the promo?
Approving the promo is an editorial role, not a PR job, surely? Unless, of course, someone saw the Plain English advert as a good way of currying favour with the government – in which case it is a PR function, I guess.
No, sorry, it’s an editorial role. The Head of News & Current Affairs, Anthony Flannery should have been the one to approve any promo – it’s his department that was contracted to supply the programme to TVNZ 7.
What was PR man Parussini doing negotiating with Bill English’s office over the script and content of the show? Again, that’s an editorial job, not public relations.
Did no one listen to Political Editor Guyon Espiner’s warnings? I hear he loudly voiced the opinion that the promo should be pulled but no one listened.
In TV News & Current Affairs credibility is everything and TVNZ just shed a lot.
Random Thought #3
Speaking of Bill English, I don’t think he’s a very happy chappie at the moment and it is said he feels he’s getting chopped off at the knees by John Key and others in the inner cabinet.
Bill is from the old traditional base of the National Party. He is “one of them”.
However, there are some of the old guard who do not regard Key (or Joyce) in quite the same way.
There is a feeling that Key is a bit of a usurper who has somehow high-jacked the party. He may have got them into government but the old guard in the party are increasingly nervous about the “Johnny Come Lately”.
At the moment Key is insulated by record poll ratings. It’ll be interesting to see what happens with the grumbling old guard when the polls start to drop.
OMG! New Zealanders don’t think much of the media! That’s according to a UMR poll just out.
The news media have a major credibility issue if the survey is right – and in my experience there’s no reason to doubt the figures.
Only 35% of us believe the media is accurate. In fact, a quarter of the people say it’s definitely inaccurate.
Over on Kiwiblog Dave Farrar reports on an interesting idea from the redoubtable Herald columnist Fran O’Sullivan who talked at a recent Rural Women NZ conference about expanding NZ On Air funding to cover all media, not just broadcasting.
Fran has a good point. Why should what is effectively a government subsidy to ensure there will remain a New Zealand voice in the media be reserved solely for radio and television?
She argues that NZ On Air (or NZ On Media) funding should be made available to worthy local content whether it is broadcast, in print or on the internet.
Bill Ralston blogs;
Your entire faith in the veracity of the media can be destroyed any time you read a news story when you, yourself, have some inside knowledge of the true facts.
I spotted two news items this week that bore no relationship to the reality of the issue in question and they were either blatant “beat ups” after a long internal discussion between the reporter and their typewriters (ok, computers) or the reporters were dumb enough to be sucked in by the PR spin of someone with a vested interest.
Fantasy Story One: In the NZ Herald John Drinnan breathlessly reports, “Henry Poised for Bigger Role at 7pm”.
Bill Ralston blogs:
I mercifully missed the Qantas Awards but I understand TVNZ news swept almost all the telly journalism awards.
That, in itself, is a little odd because I find the standard of reporting and the stories run on 3News at least the match of TV ONE and I probably watch at least as much of 3 News as ONE’s.
Something annoys me about ONE news. It’s not the presenters, they’re fine. The set is good, the titles fine, the music OK. The reporters, by and large, are fine.
Then I began thinking about it. Actually, the content of the stories on TV ONE is not the problem. It is the packaging.
