Mediawatch's weekly catch-up with Lately. Colin Peacock talks to Karyn Hay about Stuff's environmental coverage (inbetween the travel ads), a clarification on comms claims, lifting the lid on a long medical fraud, Private Eye 1500 not out - and political party conference coverage fixated on the leaders.
Stuffing the environment
Stuff's Andrea Vance and Iain McGregor stuck on a desert island dump. Photo: screenshot / Stuff
In Mediawatch last weekend we looked at talk radio broadcasters are still fuelling climate change scepticism - while at the same time media outlets around the world - including Stuff - have hooked up to boost coverage of the issue globally.
Last weekend, Stuff business writers Joel MacManus and Anuja Nadkarni did a really impressive backgrounder on NZ's biggest greenhouse gas emitters and their struggle to pollute less.
I had never heard of Bluescope Steel. I have now.
I had never heard of Henderson Island til last Tuesday, when Stuff and The Guardian published Desert Island Dump, a multimedia account of “a monument to humanity’s destructive, disposable culture” by Stuff's Andrea Vance and Iain McGregor.
An estimated 18 tonnes of plastic has accumulated there at a rate of several thousand pieces of plastic every day.
It’s a very intrepid journey and risky journey by Andrea, Iain and the rest of the crew, but there’s an irony in how it was presented in the DomPost on Monday - wedged in between no seven pages of advertising for cruises and Pacific Island holidays.
Clarification on crunching comms numbers
Photo: 123RF
Last weekend on Mediawatch, I interviewed RNZ’s investigative reporter Phil Pennington about his research into rising number of communications and PR people employed by government departments and public service agencies - and how that can make it difficult for journalists to get information for stories.
Some comms people didn't like it.
Requests for interviews and information fielded by the swelling ranks of comms staff and one he singled out was the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) whose comms team doubled from 30 to 60 in 2018.
Phil Pennington said (NZTA) staff had never agreed to numerous requests for interviews in the course of his investigations into sub-standard steel over two years. He added that “the pattern had been repeated” when reporting on NZTA’s compliance problems more recently.
Phil was a little too definitive.
NZTA have pointed out three separate interviews with the NZTA chief executive, the board chair and the head of regulatory compliance on the regulatory compliance issues. These took place in October 2018 (when the regulatory compliance review was announced) and in February 2019. NZTA’s regional state highway manager was interviewed in June 2016 about the quality of imported steel for bridges.
Fake doctor scoop shows importance of openness
Interestingly, New Zealand’s level of openness vs spin was mentioned recently by the British reporter who broke the story of fake doctor Zholia Alemi last year. She worked as a psychiatrist for the organisation for 22 years in the UK after reportedly providing bosses with a fake medical certificates from the University of Auckland.
Just this week the BBC revealed she had prescribed medicine to more than 160 psychiatric patients.
#Cumbria #News Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Trust: Fake doctor medicated 164 patients - Zholia Alemi, jailed in 2018 for fraud, treated mental health patients in Norfolk and Suffolk. https://t.co/uQQsYmyK5L
— [ Cumbria Photo ] (@Cumbria_Photo) July 24, 2019
After she was convicted for fraud last year, local British reporter Phil Coleman dug deeper and found out more about how she kickstarted her fraudulent career here in New Zealand and it opened up a whole can of worms about overseas doctors in the UK.
He won a prize in the Private Eye magazine’s Paul Foot Awards for journalism. They described it as a “classic”, adding: “A local reporter has a hunch, follows it up and scoops the world”.
In a recent Private Eye podcast, Phil Coleman described how he was able to establish with a few phone calls to New Zealand that her credentials were entirely bogus.
He didn't think it would have been so straightforward in the UK.
Private Eye hits 1500 not out in print
Photo: screenshot
The most recent podcast from Private Eye is also fascinating. It’s a celebration to mark 1500 issues since it helped ignite the UK’s ‘satire boom’ in 1961.
In the podcast, longtime editor Ian Hislop says back then UK’s Tory party was in turmoil over who was going to lead it. Now similar strife is giving the fortnightly magazine rich pickings.
Private Eye's Theresa May farewell edition sold 240,000 copies in the UK alone. Sales figures for the Boris Johnson souvenir edition are yet to come in.
Stylewise, the mag has hardly changed since the sixties - a real old-fashioned print job that's proved remarkably successful. It's still a bit 'Oxbdridge' but journalistically and satirically sound for nearly 60 years into the digital era.
Party conference coverage follows the leaders
Photo: RNZ / Craig McCulloch
National leader Simon Bridges and the party’s cancer funding policy dominated reports of the its annual conference in Christchurch last weekend.
There was some poor and incomplete reporting and analysis of it the weekend proclaiming it a 'win' for the leader - but the policy looked decidedly flaky once it was interrogated later on Morning Report, TVNZ's Q+A and elsewhere.
Part of the problem is how party political conferences are covered - or rather - not covered by our media
Bridges told the party members “You are the bottom line” but as far as the most if the media are concerned the members are just wallpaper.
Much of the coverage of the National Party conference was almost entirely focused on the set-piece speeches on stage from the party’s big names who we see all the time in the media.
Two exceptions: Stuff's Henry Cooke and Thomas Coughlan:
"Away from the bright lights, big speeches, and expensive policy announcements National's members are working out what kind of party they want to be a part of - and whether that party can win an election."
He went to breakout sessions on the environment and primary production, and saw climate change spokesperson (at the time) Todd Muller answer questions from concerned farmers in the primary production group.
"The Environment committee pondered market-based solutions to emissions reductions. One member complained the blue-green wing of the party would work hard to bring the party round on climate change, but for little electoral gain.
One said National's brand on the environment will be "very difficult to change".
"Labour and the Greens think we're capitalists raping the environment for economic gain - we are a conservative party and we believe in conservation," the person said.
It was timely. Todd Muller lost the climate change portfolio soon after
Thomas Coughlan also wrote about voting on board appointments, which will decide how the party is run. It’s important stuff - the machine that runs the party that’s been in government - but ignored in most media reports. Richard Harman on his own site Politik.co.nz - for subscribers - also wrote about behind-the-scenes issues and tensions in the party - much more significant than Bridges polling and Christopher Luxon and Judith Collins being picked as 'Preferred PM' by a few dozen people in a phone sample of 1000.
Finally - a brutal sports portrait
Writing POV stuff from the press box and beyond of a single sports event runs the risk of self- indulgence, but this from Jamie Wall is a great dismal and funny portrait of last week’s All Blacks test and the ennui it generated.
