Editorial: Slings and arrows of a single regulator

OPINION: Politicians ought never be allowed too close to the mainstream media – unless they are being held to account for decisions they have made or want to make.

That has been reinforced by news of New Zealand on Air's concern that TV3 broadcast a programme about "child poverty" just days before November's general election.

The agency, which had funded Inside Child Poverty: A Special Report, was unhappy but almost certainly only because board member Stephen McElrea had signalled his concern. Mr McElrea just happens to be the prime minister's electorate chairman and National's northern region deputy chairman.

NZOA chairman Neil Walter is a diplomat of the old school that believed government departments must never be controversial. He is plainly uncomfortable at the political arrows that have headed his way over the scheduling of the documentary.

That the programme was partisan and made from a particular standpoint was obvious. But if a doco like that is to be made, before a general election is precisely when to run it. Nonetheless, NZOA has written to TV3 to express its disappointment at the timing of the programme and is said to be in talks with the privately owned broadcaster to avoid future issues.

Good Lord. What wimps.

Labour broadcasting spokeswoman Clare Curran is questioning the agency's political neutrality given Mr McElrea's role here. The party ought not go there because Labour also appointed its share of party hacks to state-owned organisations. The Greens, too, have strong views on the media. An election policy was to make the self-regulatory body, the Press Council, answerable to the government by way of a new Broadcasting Commission, which the party envisaged regulating all forms of media, from print to broadcasting to digital.

The suggestion that there be a single regulator now has another champion. The Law Commission, however, in an issues paper, The News Media meets "New Media", is also floating the idea of an independent regulator, but one that sits outside the government as well as the industry. Submissions close in March.

The Dominion Post has referred before to the commission's endearing political naivety. In this paper, it is apparent again. Commissioners are pondering whether the Government might invest tax dollars into creating such a regulator, while trustingly insisting that that would be the end of ministers' involvement.

As the Tui billboards say, Yeah, right. The NZOA kerfuffle underlines the weakness in the commission's argument. Ministers always believe that he who pays the piper calls the tune. Take, for example, the Radio NZ board. Former broadcasting minister Jonathan Coleman wanted change; the Government appointed former prime ministerial spokesman Dick Griffin as the board's chairman to get it.

The commission's preference for a single regulator is worth debating. But commissioners cannot pretend that any government funding would not come without strings.

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rowdy   #3   04:37 pm Jan 19 2012

Id#1 you are so right. Maybe the first line should be reversed and the mainstream media ought never be allowed too close to Politicians. In that case the media may be more analytical (and hopefully less biased) of the policies of government rather than reproducing the spin of politicians.

Peter_T   #2   04:04 pm Jan 19 2012

There is course no way for NZOA to be sure of the exact content of a documentary before it is funded, and it has no statutory control over when programmes are scheduled. If a documentary was explicitly polemical, or taken from a partisan perspective, consideration of the period of screening might not be unreasonable. In effect NZOA already has to make decisions about the forms of local content it wants to prioritise- so in one sense it already intervenes in content, but usually in the form of increasing programme availability. However, given a decision to fund a documentary that is ostensibly factual and balanced, then attempts to restrict when it can go to air puts the the board on very uncertain ground regarding the legitimate role of the funding body. Indeed, the NZOA board then risks designating certain ISSUES as outside the scope of legitimate debate- and that sails uncomfortably close to censorship. The more complex issue here is that there is no regulatory framework to deal with this- except for BSA, which is only empowered to act after a programme has screened and complaints are made. The underlying debate that needs to occur concerns the regulatory mechanisms appropriate to serve the public interest in the digital media environment. Unfortunately the government canned the Review of Regulation started by the Ministry for Culture and Heritage and Ministry of Economic development...

ld   #1   01:50 pm Jan 19 2012

"he who pays the piper calls the tune" indeed: perhaps the DomPost editorial team can also remind readers that as part of a corporate media empire the paper is also subject to tacit as well as explicit influence from the corporate hierarchy that runs it and the advertisers who fund it. It's well understood that the mainstream media will only "hold to account" politicians if it suits the corporate elite, and only within allowable parameters of discussion that are framed by these corporate business influences.

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