Last night (31 January 2024) TVNZ 6 pm news (https://www.tvnz.co.nz/shows/one-news-at-6pm/episodes/s2024-e31) led with the story of the correction that the Minister of Police Mark Mitchell had to make regarding the number of timing of Police recruitment.
The story ran for 4 minutes and 13 seconds and included, towards the end, the inevitable commentary by Benedict Collins, accompanied by the smirks that he has whenever the present Government is in trouble. He commented that Mr Mitchell did not seem to be familiar with his facts and concluded
“When I listen to this Government talk, I’m not sure that they really believe they’re going to be able to hit this target of 500 more police officers in the next two years.”
As a journalist Mr. Collins should do two things.
First, he should report the facts. If he is going to give us his opinion – his belief as he puts it, remembering that belief or lack of certainty is a matter of faith rather than reason – he, like John Campbell should head his piece as opinion.
Secondly he should cultivate a poker face. The unvarnished glee that his facial expression project when he has his subject-matter by the hip betrays his position on the story.
Claire Trevett wrote a piece about the incident for the NZ Herald which appears here and which was in print on 1 February. Her reporting of the incident is lacking in that it focusses on Mr Mitchell’s mistake and the embarrassment that it has caused without providing a balanced approach to Ministerial mistakes that are gazzumphed by New Zealand First.
Quite correctly, the Fourth Estate should hold Government to account and speak truth to power. But it should do so in a balanced way.
The Police Minister’s mistake was pointed out by coalition partner New Zealand First. The Coalition agreement was clear on the position of Police recruitment.
But this is not the first time that NZ First has caused embarrassment for a Government Minister. In 2018 the then Minister for Justice Andrew Little announced that the Three Strikes sentencing regime in the Sentencing Act was going to be repealed. New Zealand First made it clear they would not support the repeal. Mr. Little had to make a humiliating backdown. That is reported here.
A balanced commentary on Mr Mitchell’s problem and the cause of it would have benefitted from the observation that this is not the first time that NZ First has embarrassed a Government Minister.
But rather the media seemed to embark upon an exercise in schadenfreude. In addition it seems that the 2018 incident has been conveniently forgotten – whether by accident or design. Who knows.
But without the balanced approach that the public should expect from the media, no wonder public confidence in mainstream media is at an all time low.
Please don’t get me started! Suffice to say that a reasonably rational, perceptive, open mind with access to the internet and some web search skills will quickly form a very different view of the world to that presented on Mew Zealand’s daily news hour. I don’t know which has me reaching for the whiskey fastest when their smug mug appears on the big screen: John “EQ Overload” Campbell, Jenna “Lynch by name, Lynch by nature”, or Dominic “the Smug” C. what a rotten, deplorable state our state funded media outlets are currently in!
We stopped watching TVNZ news many years ago and now we record the 5.30 news on Sky Open. While they get their clips etc from the same sources they have little opinion and we can whizz through it later at a great rate. Their presenters are also not as "manicured" (aka less plastic) as those on TVNZ. I complained to Shane Currie a while back and not surprisingly, did not hear back.
I think they're so frightened of the inroads that alternative, on-line news sources are making on their traditional readership that they prefer to be ostriches and hope it will all go away. They still think that labelling anything from such sources as misinformation etc will turn people away. The general Joe public, in which group I include myself, are not so guilible.