MEDIA COVERAGE OF THE WORLD ECONOMIC CRISIS

There is a saying that goes "if you put all the economists in the world end to end, they'd never reach a conclusion." Economics is by no means an exact science and I don't envy journalists having to cover the global economic crisis and its affect on New Zealand. For every respected economist convincingly giving one theory, there is another equally convincingly telling us the opposite. The truth is no-one really knows exactly what will happen in the next year or so.

So who should you listen to and what should you read in order to find out what's happening to the economy and how it will impact on you? It's a tough question and one I can't answer definitively.

In terms of TV news, I think TV ONE's business correspondents Owen Poland and David Young generally have a better handle on things than their TV 3 counterparts. Also, on Sunday October 12's Agenda programme on TV ONE there was an interesting debate on tax policy and the financial crisis with Bill English and featuring panelists Vernon Small and John Roughan. There was a similar programme on Sunday October 19 featuring Michael Cullen. These are worth a look.

On the radio, Radio New Zealand's Morning Report Business Editor Patrick O'Mara has a good reputation for being well-informed and clear in his explanations. Radio Live use guest business journalist Bernard Hickey a lot, and I find him good at putting things into lay terms that I can understand. Hickey is the Managing Editor of http://www.interest.co.nz/, which is worth checking out.

In the print world, I find the coverage to be a bit more patchy. But the Sunday Star Times of October 12 had a very good piece by reporter Emma Page called "Meltdown or motivation: how will you cope?" The sub-heading was "how will ordinary New Zealanders be affected by a global recession?" and the feature answered that well. I thought it was a good example of the simple nuts and bolts end of journalism on this complex and challenging topic. Money expert Mary Holm - a regular contributor to the New Zealand Herald - also gives good clear advice at the everyday consumer end of things.

At the more in-depth end of the spectrum, last week's Listener features a well-rounded piece by Gareth Morgan that is a more detailed analysis of the international and local situation. It's a good read for people wanting a bit more grunt on the subject. Not everyone will agree with all that Morgan says, but at least he and the Listener have stuck their necks out and said it.

So there are a few thoughts for you if you're wondering where to start to make sense of it all. Of course there is the other option, of reading and listening to nothing. Then you won't know we're having an economic crisis, and you'll just keep spending, keep employing people and doing business, keep on banking as normal, and maybe we'll all be okay!

NOSTALGIC LOCAL TV

It's interesting to see that TV 3 is planning to do a Telethon next year, and now it has been announced that TVNZ will be bringing back the old Top Town series. Seems like our networks are getting a little nostalgic. Or at least they are realising that the audience maybe has a bit of an appetite for nostalgia these days. And I think they're right. If the shows are produced well with a good modern update on the old style, I think they'll do well. It feels like the timing is about right for a new Telethon and a new Top Town, and nostalgia is all about timing. I think there's a reason why all those great old 80s bands have dragged themselves out in front of us this decade not back in the 1990s! The other part of this equation is that in these days of a highly fragmented television market and new technologies, the free-to-air networks are desperate for event-type TV that gets everybody watching the same show again and talking about it the next day. Good luck to TV 3 for Telethon and TVNZ with Top Town - I hope both shows do well for them.

GOTCHA JOURNALISM

When Sarah Palin used the expression "gotcha journalism," I had not heard the term before, and wondered if she herself had coined it. It's an apt description of the type of questioning from a journalist where they seem to be trying to trap the interviewee, either with something the interviewee should know and probably doesn't, or to get them to deny something that the reporter knows can be proved, or to get them to contradict an earlier statement that the reporter has on tape.

I've been doing some digging, and it seems that Palin didn't in fact coin the phrase. There are a few different theories on exactly what it dates back to. An edition of Britain's The Sun back in 1982 used the word "gotcha" as a massive headline in relation to an incident in the Falklands War. That's where the colloquialism seems to have come from, if not the current meaning and usage.

Dan Quayle - with whom some are making Palin comparisons - apparently used the expression "gotcha journalism" in an interview with David Letterman in 1999. And during the 2004 American presidential election the term was apparently heavily used by Republican campaign managers to try to diminish the credibility of journalists asking hard questions about Iraq.So Palin hasn't coined a new phrase, but it is a very descriptive one.

I guess we've had our own examples of "gotcha journalism" here in New Zealand politics. Mike Williams denying he had said something at the Labour Party conference before he realised that TV ONE's Guyon Espiner had it on tape. John Key fudging on Lord Ashcroft's visit to New Zealand to TV 3's Duncan Garner before he realised how much Garner already knew. And then John Key again fudging - this time to TV ONE's Fran Mold - about his rail shares ownership when the Labour Party had obviously made sure that TV ONE had all the facts on that one!

There's something kind of sneaky and obvious and easy target-ish about "gotcha journalism" that makes it not sit that well with me - and I think it affects a lot of members of the public the same way. In fact it's probably one of the things that creates public negativity about the media.

But I guess it has its place. After all, politicians know the stakes are high and that they always need to be well prepared. They also know that they are supposed to tell the truth. And it is part of a journalist's job to keep them on their toes and keep them honest.

As for Palin, if certain sectors of the American media keep on asking her general knowledge and foreign policy questions they know she's going to get wrong, it will be interesting to see if that damages her or actually makes a lot of people think she is being picked on by smart-arse journalists thereby creating a sympathetic backlash.

TO WHAT EXTENT DO OUR MAINSTREAM MEDIA OUTLETS SHOW THEIR POLITICAL COLOURS?

The New Zealand Herald copped a bit of flack for its issue with the latest on the Winston Peters political donations saga hugely prominent on the front page, but the John Key fudging the truth on his rail shares story buried on an inside page. Was the Herald blatantly showing its political colours, or was this a slightly strange but genuine editorial decision?

The Dominion Post in Wellington had covered both stories on its front page, and TV news programmes had also featured the Key story prominently.

I suppose only the Herald editorial team really knows exactly what went on in the paper's decision making that day, but it was interesting to see them give more prominence to the story the following day, and then the next day it was the subject of an editorial that was strongly critical of John Key. So maybe it was just an odd editorial judgement, rather than a wilful nailing of the colours to the past.

The political leanings of media outlets tend to be judged by the stance of their editorials, rather than the general content of the paper. All of our big daily papers - the Herald, the Dom Post, the Christchurch Press and the Otago Daily Times - have traditionally been judged as right leaning, or at least centre right.

Regarding the Sunday papers, I would say the Sunday Star-Times is left leaning, and the Herald on Sunday is centre right.Current affairs magazine the Listener has historically been leftie, but lately seems to have moved a little to the right. North and South is still pretty much on the left. And the National Business Review (NBR) is definitely right wing.

Radio stations Newstalk ZB and Radio Live are all over the place politically, depending on which host and which show - and I think that's a good thing. National Radio tends to be left leaning in general, though Morning Report host Sean Plunket seems to be equally tough on everyone these days. TV ONE, despite being state owned and all the suspicions and allegations that come with that, seems to run its news fairly straight down the middle. If anything, they maybe lean a little to the right. TV 3 News and Current Affairs, on the other hand, seems to be a bit left, particularly the Campbell Live programme.

As I said earlier, the political stance of a media outlet's management and editorials isn't necessarily reflected in the total content of the publication itself. Press Council and Broadcasting Standards Authority rules regarding fairness and balance would prevent that to a large degree, as would the differing views of the teams of journalists working at the publications and broadcast outlets.

Nowadays the blogosphere tends to be more the home of obvious political leanings and unashamedly politically subjective writing rather than mainstream media outlets, with right wingers like David Farrar and lefties like Chris Trotter and Russell Brown all doing some great writing.

While individual media outlets may get fairness and balance wrong sometimes, I think there are enough different political views being represented in the New Zealand media to ensure that a general fairness and balance does actually happen here overall.

A slightly odd aspect of this debate is that sometimes broadcasters and journalists who have made no secret of their political allegiance are actually harder on the party they support when it stuffs up than the other way around (perhaps because they expect more of them?). There was an interesting example of this this past week when TV ONE Breakfast host Paul Henry, who is completely upfront about his conservative political views, got absolutely stuck into John Key over the shares issue. He gave him a real grilling and I think a few people were surprised to see it. But Key had stuffed up and Henry wouldn't have been doing his job properly if he had let him off the hook.

And that brings me to another thing to remember when you are talking about political bias and the media. You do have to take into account where political parties are at in their history. The Labour Government definitely got a long honeymoon period with almost all media during its first term, and that was fair enough. The Government was new and people were giving it the benefit of the doubt. It doesn't get that now. It gets full-on scrutiny of the job it has done for the past nine years, and so it should. Likewise, National leader John Key had something of a honeymoon with the media when he was first in the job, but now he gets full-on scrutiny. And as someone who is trying to become our Prime Minister, that is also entirely appropriate.