Take yesterdays headlines; “What Your Home’s Worth”, “The Envelope Please….Oscars Special” and “Mayoress Speaks Out” a teaser to a page three piece of dross which had Michael Laws’s wife, Wanganui’s Mayoress Leonie Brookhammer, denying she had left the family home because of a supposed ‘violent confrontation’ that had been misleadingly reported in the Herald on Sunday.

Ms Brookhammer later published a damning response to the story on Dave Farrar’s “Kiwiblog” site.

Equally, ‘The Lockout of Auckland’ also came from the same Fear and Smear School of Journalism, generating more hysteria than light on the subject of Auckland governance.

If all of this shabby tabloid tack seems more reminiscent of the Herald’s sister paper the “Herald on Sunday” (known by the apt acronym the HoS) there’s a reason for that.

HoS Editor, Shayne Currie, has just been made Deputy Editor of the NZ Herald.

And with this appointment comes Currie’s news values.

Values that put the sex lives of so-called celebrities in the frame alongside crime and property values because that’s what gets the punters in front of their computer screens if not actually holding the hardcopy version in their hands.

Shayne Currie, on the rise at APN with Sarah Stewart, APN senior management

Currie would say that it worked for him at the HoS and to a certain degree, commercially speaking, he’s right.

The paper boasted a healthy readership of 382,000 at the end of last year, according to Nielsen Media Research figures.

There’s no doubt that he’s being elevated to the Deputy Editorship to eventually replace incumbent Tim Murphy.

Word from the floor of the Herald newsroom is that Murphy is being elevated higher and higher in the organization, his control over the daily coverage of the paper declining as Currie’s grip tightens.

Readers may remember Murphy’s predecessor as editor Gavin Ellis who was elevated to a point where he eventually evaporated.

And when Currie is in day-to-day control of the paper the question is: What happens to the Herald’s long established role as the newspaper of record?

What will happen to the Herald’s proud record of investigative reporting, detailed commentary and analysis and extensive political coverage?

Going, going, gone.

All those virtues are certainly missing from his former paper, the HoS.

In fits of black humour some Herald journalists are already “Currie-ising” their stories, writing the most tabloid version of the most mundane issues.

To their horror, some who submitted these jokes found themselves praised and the stories printed prominently.

Currie’s reputation as a news manager is Old School.

He’s said to verbally strong-arm his reporters into producing stories by announcing “There’s a hole on the front page of this paper with your name on it.”

Little wonder that under his watch and this kind of pressure the HoS produced some of the most scummiest journalism – and journalists – this country has ever seen.

Back in October, 2005 there was John Manukia who was sacked for allegedly frabricating a story about former South Auckland police officer, Anthony Solomona.

Interestingly, Manukia was named in a brief of evidence about another muckraker, Stephen Cook.  In the brief, Cook said that Manukia would be dispatched to the rival Fairfax presses in South Auckland on Saturday night to get an early copy of the Star-Times.

Manukia would take the paper back to the HoS offices and acting under the aegis of senior staff “would proceed to lift stories from the SST without any attribution for publication the following day’s HoS,” Cook said.

Currie admitted to this happening on “possibly two, possibly three occasions in 2005.”

Stephen Cook is a classic Currie appointment – before it all ended in tears.

The former Assistant Editor of the HoS was infamous for pressuring Debbie Gerbich, a colleague of bent cop Brad Shipton’s, into giving him an interview on being told he knew she was advertising for bondage partners.

Gerbich subsequently committed suicide.

The HoS under Currie is a paper of few morals and even fewer scruples.

In his farewell editorial at the HoS Currie said he didn’t mind that “Over the years we’ve become known as the property paper, the car crash paper, the Tony Veitch paper, the All Blacks paper and the Millie Elder paper”.

In other words, he takes pride in printing the crass, the banal, and the predictable.

Take note of his next words; “Selling the paper is of utmost importance, and to achieve that it’s not what be considered the best, traditional journalism that makes the front page”. Or, one suspects, any page.

These are the news values he brings the daily NZ Herald and anyone who buys the Herald because historically it has produced “the best, traditional journalism” is about to be bitterly disappointed.

God Save the Royal New Zealand Herald and all who have to read it.

Whether an act of omission or commission the newsmakers generally find themselves embroiled in a crisis, seemingly without warning.

If they are honest with themselves they will probably admit they should have seen the consequences of their action (or inaction) coming and they could have evolved a response plan, put it on the shelf, crossed their fingers they would never need it, and moved on with their activities knowing that, if worst came to worst, they could cope with the crisis.

Every good business has a business continuity plan, what to do if it has an IT failure, a power loss or natural disaster strikes.

Good businesses should also worry about and plan for what happens if the unnatural disaster of a media furore erupts around them.

Which is why I have to ask: What was Dr Patrick Strange and Transpower thinking? Transpower has had more power cuts in this city than Aucklanders have had cold dinners.

Did anyone think: What do we do and say the next time we leave the country’s biggest city and the engine room of the economy in the dark?

Transpower has had a battle over many years with the highly excitable Matangi farmer Steve Meier, it knew his trees could cause a fire and damage the lines.

Pylons like these have farmers fuming

Why, when the inevitable occurred, did Transpower have as its only response a “Neighbours From Hell” type public slagging match with the farmer?

Why, when the fire and the cuts first occurred, did spokesman Dr Patrick Strange have as his only messages that Transpower was doing all it could, it was spending big bucks on upgrading the lines through to Auckland which is why it’s pushing more lines through the Waikato against the opposition of many other farmers there and, besides, it was all Mr Meier’s fault?

In the media that I heard, saw and read, Dr Strange (and Transpower) came across as haughty, arrogant, abrasive, hostile and a typically uncaring big bureaucratic corporation.

Can I suggest the first thing Dr Strange should have done is give a fulsome apology to Auckland and the businesses that lost considerable money due to his failure to supply them with power?

Patrick Strange, Transpower's CEO

When questioned as to “How could this occur, again?” he needed to make a partial concession – that Transpower was trying but obviously not well enough and he’d do everything he could to make sure any failures on his company’s part would be remedied.

When in confrontation with farmer Meier he needed to be conciliatory, not angry and certainly not blame Meier for the fire and the power cut. Again, Strange needed a partial concession that Transpower could have handled their relationship with Meier better than it has and offer to personally remedy the situation, and then he could have returned to his key messages.

When in confrontation with a furious Mayor John Banks he again needed a more conciliatory approach, not abuse Banks for supposedly not returning phone calls.

If you strike back at your critics you look aggressive and unrepentant.

The public are quite forgiving critters, if they had got an admission of fault, failure or flaws followed by genuine repentance, sympathy would have swung Transpower’s way.

The message that it is “spending billions to fix the high risk of power cuts and the infrastructure work takes time” is not a bad one but this plea in mitigation needed to be preceded by first adopting the far more reasonable approach outlined above.

What I find inconceivable is Dr Strange and Transpower failed to recognise the second stage of the story, that anyone else with a grudge against Transpower would come forward and label it ruthless, incompetent, high handed and uncaring.

By first saying that the power cut proved the need for the billion dollar new lines through the Waikato he immediately incited those vociferous opponents to come out and take up cudgels on the question.

He also gave South Island farmers a platform for their gripes and calls for better access protocols and rental compensation for pylon sites. In a National Radio interview the next day he disparaged the South Island farmers, seemed aloof to their worries, and as a result the farmer’s spokesman unleashed a frenzy of vitriol against Transpower.

Dr Patrick Strange is obviously a very intelligent man but he has been poorly served in this debacle.

He needs to soften his hard (almost ruthless and intransigent) image and appear to be listening to his critics.

If he doesn’t he will to continue to project Transpower’s image as an uncaring, bureaucratic monster that embodies the worst faults of a giant government-owned corporation.

Dr Strange may think he can ignore public opinion because he has the power of the state behind Transpower in what it does.

His main stakeholder might not agree. Minister Gerry Brownlee, himself a past critic of Transpower when in Opposition, will not be pleased.

In the Silly Season, lists, labels and mock awards reign supreme as columnists, hacks and bloggers scramble to write something, anything, in the news vacuum.

Hey, I know this as much as any other poor sap, I’m one of ‘em.

So, to that end, let’s joyfully enter into the fresh New Year fray and examine who’s who when it comes to The Soundbite Tribes.  These are the men and women who regularly fill newspaper columns with quotes, whose soundbites grace our screens and fill the airwaves.

Like any tribe these media practitioners are defined by what they say, how they deliver it and how they look when they do so.

They’re a diverse bunch with different styles and speech patterns.  Some are good, most are not.

The “Kick ‘Em In the Guts, Trev” Tribe

This mob don’t beat around the bush.  Simple, direct and often outrageous in their comments, they know the value of short, snappy soundbites, sometimes to the point of going overboard and damaging their own reputations. The media love ‘em – they can always be guaranteed to spice up a boring story after all but they’re always walking a fine line, with a strong aptitude for self-implosion.

Members: Billionaire Owen Glenn, Westie MP Paula Bennett, Maori Party’s Hone Harawira, Sensible Sentencing’s Garth McVicar, Sir Robert Jones, Trevor Mallard.

Property tycoon Sir Robert Jones

The “Bore For New Zealand” Tribe

This tribe prefers using ten words when one is already too much.  With egos the size of the Tongariro National Park they can drone on for hours in a monotone, dispensing with the need for sleeping tablets.  Some are seasoned media performers who know that television interviews have definite, short time-spans.  Armed with this knowledge they fill the allotted time thinking they’re avoiding the so-called hard questions, instead squandering an opportunity with nothing more than white-noise on-the-line.

Members: Alliance Party leader Jim Anderton, Act’s Roger Douglas, Christchurch Broadcasting School head Paul Norris, and anyone talking about Climate Change.

Alliance Party Leader, Jim Anderton

The “Proceeding In A Northerly Direction” Tribe

The wooden policeman clan.  Along with their other mates in the fire brigade and rescue helicopter these practitioners of the utilitarian soundbite are like some armoured personnel carrier wading it’s way through the media.

Their stilted delivery sounds defensive, as though their words were being weighed up in a court of law, where some of them serve, instead of the court of public opinion.  Many see speaking to the media as a necessary but evil part of the job – and it shows.

Members: Various members of the police, fire-brigade and rescue helicopter services too numerous to mention.

The “Fall from Grace” Tribe

The media love these guys.  They enjoy social standing but lack self-perception.  What’s more, throw a dose of hypocrisy into the mix and the hacks are all through it, like woodworm. The FFG’s usually fail to become part of the debate when doo-doo hits fan, allowing enemies and lovers to have their say unimpeded.  Their silence means they then enter the eye of the perfect Media Hurricane where allegations are traded about you and your reputation is torn to shreds.

Members; Former National Party MP Richard Worth, golfer Tiger Woods and a small legion of failed finance company directors.

Golfer Tiger Woods

The “Smooth Operator” Tribe

Otherwise known as The Swan Tribe due to their seemingly effortless gliding on top of the water while avoiding us seeing the frantic paddling feet underneath.  This group has strong communications strategies backed up by equally strong messaging.

They seem to answer the hard questions while keeping Relentlessly On Message using a good mix of Head and Heart Messages.

Members: Prime Minister John Key, Air New Zealand CEO Rob Fyfe, Police Association President Greg O’Connor. Telecom’s Paul Reynold’s is getting close to joining the tribe.

Air New Zealand CEO, Rob Fyfe

One things for sure about The Soundbite Tribes – like all of us, their fortunes can change.  They can shift tribes according to how they perform.

Happy New Year.  May 2010 bring you all the good fortune you deserve.

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.

Random Thought #1

There’s a disturbing development emerging in newsrooms across the country.  It’s called the De-Balling of News.  As advertising revenues shrink, so vanishes the one quality each news head must have if they’re to be effective in the job  – courage.  The retreat is full and ongoing.  Several news outlets have instructed their journalists not to annoy powerful people in their realm.  For that read those with the ability to sue.

So by extension does that mean, don’t worry about those who can’t afford it?  What happened to that old mantra that it was the job of journalists to afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted?

As advertising revenue shrinks, so do defamation budgets

Stories considered risky or contentious are put on the backburner as defamation budgets shrink to nothing.  At least one broadcaster has been advised to settle all outstanding lawsuits.

So why am I, a so-called traitor to the journalistic cause, someone who has gone to The Dark Side, standing on this particular soap-box?  Because dammit I still believe in a rigorous free press.  Who said, “News is what they don’t want you to hear.  The rest is just advertising?” Let’s abridge that to “News is what the hack receives in a press release. As long as they don’t sue. Advertising is more truthful.”

Random Thought #2

Continuing on with how the public perceive the media as Bill blogged in his last missive.  The Pew Centre for Research for the People & the Press (it’s the kind of mouthful Americans love), has come out with its latest analysis of how the media is viewed in that country.  And the news is all bad.  Sixty-three per cent of Americans believe news stories are inaccurate – the lowest percentage ever.  We still have a way to go to reach that level of cycnism.  Recent UMR research here had 25% of Kiwis believing their news was inaccurate.

But it’s easy to understand the US figures when you look at stories like the Colorado “balloon boy” as breathlessly reported without

any caution or caveats by CNN, Fox News and MSNBC (not to mention Radio New Zealand National’s “Morning Report”).

Falcon Heene, aka Balloon Boy

Of course the kid was hiding, as per Dad’s orders, in the attic. A fact he innocently dropped into a later press conference. Speed and accuracy have always served different masters in the news business, a business that now is slave to the 24/7 news cycle.

Random Thought #3

And from The It Was Only A Matter of Time File…..Labour’s squawking in the House over Finance Minister Bill English’s free unpaid promo for TVNZ7.

They’re absolutely right, of course.  It does look like a party political broadcast and is fantastic self-promotion for English.

Finance Minister, Bill English, the beneficiary of TVNZ's largesse

But there’s no doubt they would have taken part in a similar promotion  if they still had the reins of power.

Perhaps the real culprit here is Television New Zealand who has reached unplumbed lengths of toadying.

Labour says it’s hard to believe a credible national broadcaster would come up with the concept itself.  The emphasis here is on the word  credible. As with TVNZ’s involvement with the World Cup rights, so another own goal for the State broadcaster.

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.

Worse, 30% think our radio, TV papers and magazines are biased or one-sided and only 27% of folk think the media will admit to its mistakes, while 46% are sure it would not fess up to a boo boo.

The most depressing thing in the poll is that most of the respondents held neutral opinions, they were not sure either way.

For an industry that relies on credibility to sell its product, it is shocking to find so many people think either the media consistently get it wrong or they aren’t sure whether the media is wrong or right in its reportage of the news.

Frankly those 25% who think the media is inaccurate in reporting the news are not cynics, they are realists. The majority, who are not sure whether the media is biased, wrong or stubborn in its refusal to admit mistakes, over time are more likely to join the ranks of the ‘realists’ than become believers in the Fourth Estate.

It is little wonder the Mainstream Media is collapsing into financial ruin when its principle currency, the public’s trust, is evaporating.

The MSM’s audience is drifting on-line where much of the reportage and commentary doesn’t pretend objectivity, it flaunts its bias and while it too can be inaccurate, I suspect most people believe the new media is more likely to admit its mistakes than the old media.

The poll results are proof the MSM has long neglected its audience and the price of cutting costs is becoming too expensive to bear. Newsrooms around the country are dramatically undermanned to the point where an insufficient numbers of journalists and subs are on the job.

Mistakes and inaccurate reporting are the result and the public are not fools, they can see errors when they occur.

Commercial pressure means tabloid trivialisation of news, which again undermines audience and reader respect and trust.

Despite tough times in the industry now is the time for publishers and broadcasters to reinvest in their product – if they don’t then their market will shrink even faster.

The problem the MSM faces is that the UMR poll shows around 37% of people are effectively wavering in trust and respect for their product.

Those people simply don’t know if the media is getting it right or not.

The chances are they may eventually come to the conclusion the media is not to be trusted.

Winning back people once they have become cynical is almost impossible.

Media companies here better heed the warning and improve their act before they lose that vital 37% of their customer base once and for all.

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.

There can be little doubt commercial pressure and dropping profits mean publishers have diminished resources and the shrinking newsrooms in our newspapers mean less investigative reporting.

Similarly, most bloggers and websites lack the cash to provide original reportage on most issues and events.

Let’s leave aside NZOA’s extraordinary historical reluctance to fund any form of news and current affairs (until forced by the minister Jonathan Coleman into allocating some of its new Platinum Fund to Q&A and TV3’s new show The Nation).

Currently NZOA funding is contestable, both public and private broadcasters can dip into it. What’s wrong with private sector publishers and bloggers having access to it also?

Back in the day, when Maurice Williamson was broadcasting minister, the whole idea of contestable NZOA funding was that it was needed for all broadcasters to provide NZ content because otherwise commercial pressure on the channels would mean cheaper imported foreign product would overwhelm locally produced material.

This effect is now being felt not just in broadcasting but all media. So, open up the fund!

Frankly, it will eventually have to happen because of media convergence anyway.

Once that wonderful high speed broadband to the home rolls out and the broadcasters start pumping more TV programmes and video into your computer, what’s the difference between a TV channel and, say, a newspaper site like nzherald.co.nz or stuff.co.nz that screens news videos?

What’s the difference between an IPTV programme from, say, TV ONE or TV3 and a web based provider such as throng.co.nz or interest.co.nz?

The short is: Nothing.

Internet based news and programme providers have every right to shriek at NZOA, “Show me the money!”

If anyone doubts internet sites lack journalistic nous and quality check on interest.co.nz and Bernard Hickey’s recent great yarn about how this country’s biggest privately owned dairying operation (they own 22 farms) is allowing dozens of calves to starve to death on one of it’s farms in the central North Island.

Hickey’s story comes complete with a whistleblower, graphic video footage and a MAF investigation that oddly seems to have come to nothing in terms of the animals’ welfare.

MAF investigated the claims but has not prosecuted. Fonterra continued to accept Crayfar Farms’ milk despite widespread claims of its mismanagement and animal welfare issues.

What’s unusual for web-based journalism is that, for once, the reporter and a producer got up from their computers and went into the field to investigate.  And what they found is a good investigative story of the kind once practiced by the mainstream media before staff numbers and budgets were cut to the bone.

The story gets added zest with an altercation with the farm’s manager and his (alleged) assault on the producer, the ubiquitous Bryan Spondre.

Let’s put to one side the vexed media question of the owner of New Zealand’s biggest dairy farm consortium having done a shockingly abysmal job of damage control.  (Media 101: begging someone not to do a story because of damage to the dairy trade’s international reputation but obviously doing little or nothing to put the situation right is just plain hopeless).

Hickey produced a scoop that was eagerly followed by TV ONE’s Close up and RNZ National’s Morning Report, the NZ Herald and others.

Perhaps the most interesting part is that Bernard Hickey has long been regarded with suspicion and resentment by some in the mainstream media, who curl their upper lip at what they see as his self-promotion and entrepreneurial approach to the news business.

This is the kind of investigative story that would merit NZ On Media funding.

Finally, a bit of free media advice to Crafar Farms from Janet.

• When confronted by the media do not tell them to quote “F*** off you c****” and expect them to go quietly.
• Fisticuffs is never the way to win an argument in the media.
• Don’t expect mercy simply because you say you’re a bit tired and depressed about your job.  We all are and saying so wouldn’t save us either.
• Sobbing on telly doesn’t excuse animal cruelty.

TVNZ announced today it had “offloaded” its Commonwealth Games coverage rights to Sky/Prime TV.

The only problem is – it hasn’t. Yet.

Sky are only “doing due diligence” on the proposal according to its PR maestro Tony O’Brien.

Sky has only, he says, “received a proposal from TVNZ to purchase the rights”.

Note the key words “proposal” and “due diligence”.

This means Sky regards it not as a done deal but the beginning of a negotiation process.

The first rule of business in conducting negotiations is not to give away your bargaining position right from the start, do not put yourself in the position of appearing to have a fire sale, do not use the desperate phrase “offload”, and do not inform the public until the deal is done or your competitor will have you over a barrel when it comes to price.

TVNZ has managed to do all of the above. Doh!

Sky CEO John “Tight Pockets” Fellet is not the kind of guy who automatically agrees to anyone’s terms and he has a well deserved reputation as a hard man around the bargaining table.

John Fellet, Sky TV

Whatever TVNZ were hoping to sell the rights for, I think you can now assume they will have to discount heavily because Sky/Prime is the only alternative broadcaster. Cash strapped TV3 couldn’t do it.

So, why would TVNZ want to get rid of the rights to next year’s Commonwealth Games in Delhi in the first place?

TVNZ’s Megan Richards cites the recession, claiming TVNZ was headed for a $5 million loss on the Games.

Surely the broadcaster would have done the sums prior to purchasing the rights and even the advertising downturn wouldn’t account for a $5 million shortfall?

Maybe someone at TVNZ forgot New Delhi is 7 hours behind New Zealand, meaning the main events would be off peak, late night and early morning New Zealand time.

That’s not a widely attractive option for sponsors and advertisers. Doh again!

My best guess is that TVNZ was relying on government Charter Funding to offset the loss.

But now that Charter funding is not available because its become commercially contestable.

TVNZ used more than $2 million of Charter Funding to cover the last Beijing Olympics, so this makes sense.

The second absurdity in this affair comes from Progressives Leader Jim Anderton who tries to use the situation to justify anti-siphoning legislation that would mean iconic sporting events could only be run on free-to-air TV.

The problem for Anderton is that, if Sky buy the rights, the games will be shown on free-to-air TV. Prime TV.

Prime is showing 12 hours of the Winter Olympics, with 4 other Sky pay channels screening more.

With the London Summer Olympics Prime will screen 22 hours a day of those games with at least 6 Sky pay channels also running more.

So its reasonable to assume that Prime will run many hours a day of the Delhi Games and that’s not including what the Sky Sports channels will run.

By the way, a major games puts out more hours of sport than one channel could ever run in a day so the main free-to-air channel that screens a games will cherry-pick the best events but fans of minority interest sports miss out.

A Sky/Prime deal (or a TVNZ/Freeview deal) allows the subsidiary channels to run a much broader coverage.

One last thing. Most free-to-air channels around the world treat things like the Commonwealth Games as a loss leader.

You may lose money on them but you get a huge surge in audience, your promos reach more people than usual, and you usually have a boost in ratings for several weeks after the event.

I guess that logic doesn’t apply with TVNZ but does with Sky/Prime. Go figure.

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”.

No, not Graham Henry, although a story staying the All Black coach would front Close Up makes as much sense as Drinnan’s claim that “Television sources say momentum is gathering for a change” and “the debate is whether TVNZ will wait until Mark Sainsbury’s employment contract runs out in late 2010 before making the move.”

No additional evidence or sources were given.

Paul Henry, TVNZ's Breakfast host

Tim Murphy, editor of the Herald, might like to ask his reporter where he got the information from because it is just plain wrong.

First and foremost Mark Sainsbury does not have a term contract that expires in 2010 even though Drinnan states that as fact.

He does not have a term contract that can be terminated at any time.

Sainsbury is a permanent employee of TVNZ.

As a full time permanent employee his position would have to be made redundant – whereby we have the insane situation where there is no presenter or anchor job on the programme – or he would have to significantly be shown to have failed to reach his KPI’s (Key Performance Indicators).

Mark Sainsbury, Close Up frontman

That would be a tough call for TVNZ management as Sainsbury’s programme, Close Up is performing well in the ratings and over the previous couple of years he picked up the title Best Current Affairs Presenter.

You don’t get better KPI’s than that.

Even Drinnan, last month, was conceding that Close Up “was pushing the right buttons”.

In short, thanks to New Zealand employment law, Mark would have to be caught on camera snorting Class A pharmaceuticals from the navel of an underage Asiatic boom-boom girl in the middle of Queen St before TVNZ’s HR department might be able to make a case against him for dismissal.

This scenario, I hasten to add, is extremely unlikely.

A clue to where John Drinnan could have picked up this blatantly incorrect story comes in his phrase that “Television sources” told him.

Note: He did not use his favourite phrase “TVNZ insiders” that he favours whenever someone from the state broadcaster bitches to him about something.

No, Drinnan must have got this from one of TVNZ’s competitors (hence “television” sources) and I detect the fingerprints of TV3 PR spinner Roger Beaumont. I doubt if it was TV3 News boss Mark Jennings as he’s overseas.

It’s in TV3’s interest to rattle the cage of both Close Up and Breakfast as these two shows are winning well against TV3’s  Campbell Live and Sunrise.

Destabilising TVNZ’s two top hosts by promoting a feud between them makes sense for the hard-pressed TV3.

All you have to find is a reporter silly enough to run the story.

Fantasy Story Two: In the Herald on Sunday Rebecca Lewis writes, “TV Stars face further salary cuts.”

She rang me when she was writing this story. It appears she, or someone at the HoS, had noticed some top UK and Australia TV celebrities were having pay cuts. Was it happening here?

The short answer was no. It would be hard (if not impossible) to cut news presenters salaries without their agreement (and fat chance of them giving that).

Undeterred by the facts, the intrepid Rebecca found some “industry insiders” to comment. For that, read someone who works somewhere in the TV business in any position from janitor upwards.

The nature of TVNZ’s salaried employment contracts largely prevents wage reductions and even with fixed term contracts it is almost impossible (As I and TVNZ found to our cost in the Susan Wood employment case).

TV3’s Roger Beaumont (blameless in this particularly story) said he’d heard of wage freezes there but nothing about salary reductions.

TVNZ’s Megan Richards was also unaware of any presenter pay cuts there.

Basically, there is not an iota of evidence to back up the HoS story when it claims, “The salaries of our key on-air presenters could be on the chopping block as television networks continue to cut costs.”

However, I do know of a couple of reporters who write about television who should have something put on “the chopping block” for writing this kind of garbage.

Bottom-line: I cant help but wonder if these two stories, the facts of which I happen to know something about, are so abjectly wrong what other rubbish is being pedalled by the papers? Is everything we read in the press of a similarly flimsy and false nature?

It’s taken the mainstream media long enough to wake up to the fact it has been cleverly duped by an extraordinary guerrilla PR campaign.

Well, some in the media are now waking up to what bloggers like Cactus Kate and Gotcha’s Whaleoil were warning about days ago.

Exceltium is a savvy PR company run by Matthew Hooten and it seems it has waged an extraordinarily effective campaign on behalf of their client Diagnostic Medlab Ltd (DML) against their competitor Labtests NZ Ltd.

Labtests recently took over the lucrative contract to provide services to Auckland’s District Health Board and the loser, DML, has been screaming like a stuck pig.

Disregarding the fact many of the Labtest’s opponents and critics have a vested or pecuniary interest in overturning the contract the gullible media has been suckered into hysterically hyping the teething problems of the new service thanks to some very effective seeding of “bad news about Labtest” by Hooten’s Exceltium.

Exceltium even went to the extent of filming interviews with disgruntled Labtest customers and running the videos virally. These gained traction when an unquestioning ONE News ran the highly selective DML/Exceltium propaganda video clips.

Matthew Hooten, PR maestro of the Right

The NZ Herald in its news coverage was similarly hyped, shrieking about every alleged failure of the new lab company.

This is not journalism, it is sensationalism – and it shows how easy it is to manipulate a media desperate for viewers and readers in these current tight times.

From Labtest’s corporate relations perspective, the events of the last week are the PR equivalent of a mugging, being unexpectedly hit over the head with a baseball bat.

Yet the company has responded, I think, in an extremely effective fashion. The CEO has stood aside and Labtest has flown in some international heavy hitters in a public display of putting things right.

Labtest has opted for an admission of culpability that things are not all as they should be and it has pledged to remedy any defects.

It has gone onto the front foot, effectively muting criticism.

Will we hear on ONE News in a few weeks time that all is now well on the Labtest front? I somehow doubt it.

Will we hear an admission of culpability and gullibility from those news organizations that blindly swallowed the Hooten/DML line? Fat chance.

Still, for anyone studying Communications 101 the affair provides a classic case study in how to manipulate the media and how to combat reputational damage.