EDITORIAL: TVNZ is taking news hostage

PAUL TAGGART
The news media is like other businesses in many respects. However, it is different too, with its role of informing and even protecting the community it serves, giving it a status that cannot be achieved by retailers of shoes or purveyors of fresh fish.
That's why it is a little unnerving when a Sunday newspaper admits paying a farmer thousands of dollars for his exclusive story after his trial over the death of his daughter.
The fact that Taranaki man Gavin Vanner, whose daughter Molly died last year when a farm bike rolled on top of her, opted that the money be given to a surf lifesaving club may soften the blow for some, but it is still a step along the road to changing how our news is delivered.
If, for example, a story has cost thousands of dollars, then that money has to be earned. It is a small step to the territory already occupied by women's magazines, where articles about celebrities who have been paid to reveal their secrets are stretched to the point of being incredulous.
It is understandable that Sunday newspapers locked in a circulation battle may start down that slippery slope, but to have our State-owned television news head down that road is even sadder.
And that is where Television New Zealand is going after it was revealed the organisation may have paid up to $30,000 to freed hostage Harmeet Sooden's family for an exclusive news deal.
The family said on Friday it would deal with no news media other than TVNZ.
The television channel confirmed it had done a deal with the family after offering to pay the air fares for several members to fly to the Middle East.
The deal with TVNZ came after rivals TV3 filmed one of Mr Sooden's family members in Auckland and sent the footage to the Arab television channel al Jazeera in an effort to persuade the Swords of Righteousness Brigade to release Mr Sooden, 32, and three other hostages, American Tom Fox, 54, Briton Norman Kember, 74, and Canadian James Loney, 41. Mr Fox was murdered earlier this month.
TVNZ bought the story with three return business-class flights from New Zealand, plus a return first-class flight for Harmeet, plus they will meet all their accommodation costs in Amman, Jordan.
That's why no other journalists from private-sector media organisations, print, TV or radio had spoken to the family. TVNZ wants value for its $30,000.
But is that why the New Zealand public owns a television channel? So it can block the wide dissemination of news? Surely not.
While it is wonderful that Mr Sooden if free, he is not a New Zealand citizen, and he undertook to visit what is possibly the most volatile country on the planet, where he was taken hostage. Why on earth should taxpayers' dollars be spent to fly his family to give him a hug and have it filmed by a State television team?