"Freedom
of the Press is guaranteed only for those who own one" - A.J. Liebling
Earlier this week, my father The Rev. Rolinson (who's an avid reader of this column, and a perhaps surprising fan of the literary contributions of several other luminaries to this magazine) remarked that by this time next year, Craccum might be pretty much the last source of truly independent print-media journalism left on the Auckland isthmus.
Why?
Well, as was reported on a few days ago at time of writing, the twin press giants which stand astride our nation's infosphere like colossi, APN and Fairfax, are apparently contemplating a merger. Between them, they control a huge swathe of New Zealand's news media. Everything from radio stations like Newstalk ZB through to newspapers such as the NZ Herald, Dominion Post, Christchurch's The Press, and another thirty-plus regional newspapers on top of that. All of which could soon be under a single thumb. More worryingly for our increasingly online generation, two of the main "respectable" (to use a term exceptionally loosely) sources for news on the internet, the nzherald.co.nz and stuff.co.nz would also thus find themselves under the same management.
Although as some wags have pointed out, considering each of these outlets seem to run almost indistinguishable Bachelor-based artificial "news" stories day-in and day-out as priority headlines ... perhaps little of value will be lost in the event of an amalgamation.
In any case, there remain a number of media outlets - whether state-owned like TVNZ and RNZ, or in private hands like Mediaworks - which will still serve to provide a counterpoint to this presumptive behemoth; but it's nonetheless rather hard to remain entirely untroubled by the idea of a further tightening of links between our already far too closely interlinked newsmedia organizations.
This is, as applies my own perspective, very strongly at least partially the result of personal experience in the field.
Back in late 2013, I found myself embroiled in a fairly mid-grade scandal. The precise details of what happened, we'll save for the autobiography (handily *also* titled 'Sex, Drugs & Electoral Rolls'); but suffice to say it was hella interesting to see how modern media works in practice from the 'eye of the storm', so to speak.
First, WhaleOil picked up the story thanks to an anonymous tip. Then, a political reporter from Fairfax contacted me for a statement. What happened next was a bit of a small-scale feeding frenzy, as several other media outlets proceeded to write up stories on the event in question. Interestingly, after the first incident with the Fairfax reporter, they didn't really bother with doing proper due diligence with their 'investigative' reporting. Instead, they merely reprinted reworded content from whichever news outlet it was prior to them in the chain of 'distribution' - with a goodly portion of the wording changed and much of the 'nuance' lost in what they were reporting as a result.
A similar 'domino effect' on an unutterably larger scale also transpired during my major scandal last year, albeit in politically weaponized form. A political adversary from my own Party who was extraordinarily dissatisfied with something I'd penned about her on The Daily Blog had her Press Secretary disseminate a sensationalized account of my legal difficulties to a tame journalist at RadioLIVE (said journalist is now one of Newshub's lead political reporters). This reporter then ran the story in an inaccurate and escalating manner; which was followed up - to my mounting horror - with a number of other newsmedia outlets picking up the story either direct from his reporting, or as a result of the outlets in question being co-owned by the same people who run RadioLIVE - and who were thus transparently sharing the story internally so that it might be circulated more widely.
Now leaving aside my own bemusement at these trains of events - as the above anecdotes serve to illustrate, the way our mainstream media's set up in this country is plainly dangerous to the ordinary pursuit of truth.
There's a line from the Aeneid of Virgil which is quite relevant here: "Rumour! What evil can surpass her speed? In movement she grows mighty, and achieves strength and dominion as she flies". In modern parlance, we're rather more familiar with the maxim that "a lie can travel half-way around the world while the truth's still putting its boots on".
Either way you choose to splice it, the dense and close interlinkages between various media outlets in this country (which, in many cases, might more properly be thought of as numerous and diverse heads to a number of cosmetically competing Hydras) only exacerbates rather than extinguishes the truth of these ancient mottos.
It may seem like a small thing, and a scant protection from salaciousness or slander, but simply by having more journalistic outlets doing more actual and frank journalism (rather than taking the lazier approach of merely reading, re-porting and resyndicating the research of others), we tangibly reduce the risk of misinformation making its miscreant way out across the headlines and into our homes and headspace.
Further, in these increasingly complex times, a multiplicity of perspectives is far better equipped to analyze and dissect the issues of the day. What one reporter - and ten resyndicaters - might miss, five investigative journalists may better pick up between them and shed new light upon.
Greater competition for stories and to present the best and most compelling journalism is also, unquestionably a good thing for the broader dissemination of truth into the infosphere and the public consciousness. Although if that sounds like 'free marketeerism', it's not - to my mind, the inevitable result of lax regulation and the state truly getting out of the marketplace in small countries and polises like New Zealand is *less* competition and tendencies towards monopoly, rather than - as is often assumed - the converse.
This is why I'm a quiet fan and advocate for the state-owned (albeit not exactly state-run) broadcasters and their role in reporting and disseminating news. TVNZ and RNZ, by their very and mere existence help to breakup the monotony of the privately-owned media hubs reporting endless rounds of Bachelorism.
Meanwhile, 'new media' outlets such as The Spinoff and The Daily Blog play a key role in keeping our public sphere fresh and vibrant; reporting on and often breaking stories which for various reasons (at least initially) fall somewhere beneath the larger publishing houses' radar (and yet curiously above their ever-lowering brows). Let's remember that the Ponytail-Gate scandal involving John Key from this time last year was broken by The Daily Blog; and that while Andrew Tidball's seedy behavior might have been vaguely referenced in a Stuff piece some months ago, it took The Spinoff to cover the story in such a way and with such (human) depth that people actually began to sit up and take notice.
I've also been greatly and thoroughly enjoying the unique 'insider perspectives' which a series of disgruntled ex-TV3 and Mediaworks staff have been airing on the same outlet. It's not the sort of thing which would easily have seen the light of day in the absence of these smaller and less *ahem* monolithically engaged media outlets.
This, principally, is why I am such a strong proponent and supporter of semi-professional blogs and other exercises in quasi-citizen journalism. Because, as the Rev. Rolinson pointed out, it's called "The Fourth Estate" for a reason. As it's supposed to be independent from nobility, clericy, government (with some caveats), and most especially from the arms and aims of profiteering Big Business.
I take it a bit further, however, and insist that the Fourth Estate possesses essentialized elements from the other three Indo-European Trifunctionalisms which preceded it. The crusading vigour of the warrior-caste; the knowledge and skill with letters of the priests; and above all the people-centrism and professional guilder ethos of the Third.
The present emphasis upon 'reporting' as being something which big (and, lately, *bigger*) companies do, rather than the individual or small groups of likeminded confederates, is anathema to the true spirit of Journalism.
Developments such as APN's proposed merger with Fairfax ought thus be opposed. And parallel vehicles of more genuinely independent journalism ought to be supported and read in earnest - whether semi-professionalized such as The Spinoff, volunteer-run like The Daily Blog, or even salient bastions of the up-and-coming wordsmith media like Craccum.
Earlier this week, my father The Rev. Rolinson (who's an avid reader of this column, and a perhaps surprising fan of the literary contributions of several other luminaries to this magazine) remarked that by this time next year, Craccum might be pretty much the last source of truly independent print-media journalism left on the Auckland isthmus.
Why?
Well, as was reported on a few days ago at time of writing, the twin press giants which stand astride our nation's infosphere like colossi, APN and Fairfax, are apparently contemplating a merger. Between them, they control a huge swathe of New Zealand's news media. Everything from radio stations like Newstalk ZB through to newspapers such as the NZ Herald, Dominion Post, Christchurch's The Press, and another thirty-plus regional newspapers on top of that. All of which could soon be under a single thumb. More worryingly for our increasingly online generation, two of the main "respectable" (to use a term exceptionally loosely) sources for news on the internet, the nzherald.co.nz and stuff.co.nz would also thus find themselves under the same management.
Although as some wags have pointed out, considering each of these outlets seem to run almost indistinguishable Bachelor-based artificial "news" stories day-in and day-out as priority headlines ... perhaps little of value will be lost in the event of an amalgamation.
In any case, there remain a number of media outlets - whether state-owned like TVNZ and RNZ, or in private hands like Mediaworks - which will still serve to provide a counterpoint to this presumptive behemoth; but it's nonetheless rather hard to remain entirely untroubled by the idea of a further tightening of links between our already far too closely interlinked newsmedia organizations.
This is, as applies my own perspective, very strongly at least partially the result of personal experience in the field.
Back in late 2013, I found myself embroiled in a fairly mid-grade scandal. The precise details of what happened, we'll save for the autobiography (handily *also* titled 'Sex, Drugs & Electoral Rolls'); but suffice to say it was hella interesting to see how modern media works in practice from the 'eye of the storm', so to speak.
First, WhaleOil picked up the story thanks to an anonymous tip. Then, a political reporter from Fairfax contacted me for a statement. What happened next was a bit of a small-scale feeding frenzy, as several other media outlets proceeded to write up stories on the event in question. Interestingly, after the first incident with the Fairfax reporter, they didn't really bother with doing proper due diligence with their 'investigative' reporting. Instead, they merely reprinted reworded content from whichever news outlet it was prior to them in the chain of 'distribution' - with a goodly portion of the wording changed and much of the 'nuance' lost in what they were reporting as a result.
A similar 'domino effect' on an unutterably larger scale also transpired during my major scandal last year, albeit in politically weaponized form. A political adversary from my own Party who was extraordinarily dissatisfied with something I'd penned about her on The Daily Blog had her Press Secretary disseminate a sensationalized account of my legal difficulties to a tame journalist at RadioLIVE (said journalist is now one of Newshub's lead political reporters). This reporter then ran the story in an inaccurate and escalating manner; which was followed up - to my mounting horror - with a number of other newsmedia outlets picking up the story either direct from his reporting, or as a result of the outlets in question being co-owned by the same people who run RadioLIVE - and who were thus transparently sharing the story internally so that it might be circulated more widely.
Now leaving aside my own bemusement at these trains of events - as the above anecdotes serve to illustrate, the way our mainstream media's set up in this country is plainly dangerous to the ordinary pursuit of truth.
There's a line from the Aeneid of Virgil which is quite relevant here: "Rumour! What evil can surpass her speed? In movement she grows mighty, and achieves strength and dominion as she flies". In modern parlance, we're rather more familiar with the maxim that "a lie can travel half-way around the world while the truth's still putting its boots on".
Either way you choose to splice it, the dense and close interlinkages between various media outlets in this country (which, in many cases, might more properly be thought of as numerous and diverse heads to a number of cosmetically competing Hydras) only exacerbates rather than extinguishes the truth of these ancient mottos.
It may seem like a small thing, and a scant protection from salaciousness or slander, but simply by having more journalistic outlets doing more actual and frank journalism (rather than taking the lazier approach of merely reading, re-porting and resyndicating the research of others), we tangibly reduce the risk of misinformation making its miscreant way out across the headlines and into our homes and headspace.
Further, in these increasingly complex times, a multiplicity of perspectives is far better equipped to analyze and dissect the issues of the day. What one reporter - and ten resyndicaters - might miss, five investigative journalists may better pick up between them and shed new light upon.
Greater competition for stories and to present the best and most compelling journalism is also, unquestionably a good thing for the broader dissemination of truth into the infosphere and the public consciousness. Although if that sounds like 'free marketeerism', it's not - to my mind, the inevitable result of lax regulation and the state truly getting out of the marketplace in small countries and polises like New Zealand is *less* competition and tendencies towards monopoly, rather than - as is often assumed - the converse.
This is why I'm a quiet fan and advocate for the state-owned (albeit not exactly state-run) broadcasters and their role in reporting and disseminating news. TVNZ and RNZ, by their very and mere existence help to breakup the monotony of the privately-owned media hubs reporting endless rounds of Bachelorism.
Meanwhile, 'new media' outlets such as The Spinoff and The Daily Blog play a key role in keeping our public sphere fresh and vibrant; reporting on and often breaking stories which for various reasons (at least initially) fall somewhere beneath the larger publishing houses' radar (and yet curiously above their ever-lowering brows). Let's remember that the Ponytail-Gate scandal involving John Key from this time last year was broken by The Daily Blog; and that while Andrew Tidball's seedy behavior might have been vaguely referenced in a Stuff piece some months ago, it took The Spinoff to cover the story in such a way and with such (human) depth that people actually began to sit up and take notice.
I've also been greatly and thoroughly enjoying the unique 'insider perspectives' which a series of disgruntled ex-TV3 and Mediaworks staff have been airing on the same outlet. It's not the sort of thing which would easily have seen the light of day in the absence of these smaller and less *ahem* monolithically engaged media outlets.
This, principally, is why I am such a strong proponent and supporter of semi-professional blogs and other exercises in quasi-citizen journalism. Because, as the Rev. Rolinson pointed out, it's called "The Fourth Estate" for a reason. As it's supposed to be independent from nobility, clericy, government (with some caveats), and most especially from the arms and aims of profiteering Big Business.
I take it a bit further, however, and insist that the Fourth Estate possesses essentialized elements from the other three Indo-European Trifunctionalisms which preceded it. The crusading vigour of the warrior-caste; the knowledge and skill with letters of the priests; and above all the people-centrism and professional guilder ethos of the Third.
The present emphasis upon 'reporting' as being something which big (and, lately, *bigger*) companies do, rather than the individual or small groups of likeminded confederates, is anathema to the true spirit of Journalism.
Developments such as APN's proposed merger with Fairfax ought thus be opposed. And parallel vehicles of more genuinely independent journalism ought to be supported and read in earnest - whether semi-professionalized such as The Spinoff, volunteer-run like The Daily Blog, or even salient bastions of the up-and-coming wordsmith media like Craccum.
No comments:
Post a Comment