MediaBotch
Sunday, September 26th, 2010This week’s MediaWatch show on Radio NZ is billed like this: Mediawatch looks at the impact of the ‘new media’ on the old. Can online amateurs really replace the professional journalism of today? Is it already happening? And if so – what effect is it having on standards? This promised to be interesting – particularly […]
An unprivileged position II
Thursday, September 16th, 2010Tom Frewen [and Graeme Edgeler] noted that last year the Privileges Committee looked at the issue of the scope of the media’s privilege to report on proceedings in the House, and also concluded that it was much less than the media tend to think it is: The media play an important role in providing the public with information about thebusiness […]
Oh my God
Wednesday, September 15th, 2010Let me add my voice to the flabbergasted reactions of some constitutional experts to the Earthquake Response and Recovery Act. It reads like a far-fetched doom-laden Public Law exam problem. And now it’s law. We’ve just appointed three Ministers as Kings. “Trust us”, they insist. No thanks. I’d rather trust the checks and balances in […]
An unprivileged position?
Wednesday, September 15th, 2010The DomPost seems to have deliberately breached a name suppression order. And now I probably have too, having merely linked to it. What the hey. The paper is reporting that ACT MP David Garrett has admitted that he obtained a false passport in his halcyon days, using the time-honoured Day-of-the-Jackel method of finding the tombstone […]
A whale of a decision
Wednesday, September 15th, 201070 pages! It took Judge David Harvey that long to establish that Whale Oil (a) had a case to answer for breaching a range of name suppression orders and (b) was guilty. It’s probably the most comprehensive judicial ruling on of name suppression issues New Zealand has seen; and it may be the first concerning […]
Rooney tunes
Monday, September 6th, 2010The ever-excellent Inforrm blog fillets the UK tabloid media for their expose of footballer Wayne Rooney’s affair. It’s plainly private… so what was that public interest justification again?
FOIled
Tuesday, August 31st, 2010NoRightTurn has done some excellent work compiling statistics on whether government Ministers are complying with the time limits in the Official Information Act. His conclusion: too often, they’re not. Only one Minister, Chris Finlayson, met the legal standard of responding to requests “as soon as reasonably practicable, and in any case not later than 20 […]
Killing the messenger
Sunday, August 29th, 2010There’s much to ponder in James Hollings’ thoughtful opinion piece on suicide reporting in this week’s Sunday Star-Times. Why are NZ’s suicide statistics so high, though our reporting restrictions are so tight? How convincing is the social science research suggesting media reports can lead to copycat suicides? Is important reporting being headed off by the […]
Improving accuracy
Wednesday, July 21st, 2010A funny thing happened on the way to loosening the Accuracy standard in the Broadcasting Codes of Practice. It got tightened up instead. Let me explain. The old Radio code said broadcasters have to be truthful and accurate on points of fact. The TV code was the same. Broadcasters hated it. It meant that they […]
My star turn
Friday, July 16th, 2010The new TVNZ 7 show “The Court Report”, filmed at VUW law school, debuted yesterday. Criminal barrister Greg King hosts; I’m the roving reporter. Check it out here.
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