Judy McGregor, Margie Comrie eds: What's news? Reclaiming journalism in NZ

By SHONAGH LINDSAY

As an example of a particularly telling media gaffe, an expat British news editor told me how he had watched one of our television channels broadcast a brief few news seconds on the hundreds killed in Bali to follow it immediately with an advert for the Mad Butcher.

What he'd found most disturbing wasn't just the sheer insensitivity of the side-by-side broadcasting, but the very idea that a news bulletin is interspersed with advertisements.

News broadcasting in the UK, apparently, is sacrosanct from such interruptions and as an old newsman he saw their inclusion as a dangerously crass trend, both because news values should be kept as free of any commercial influences as possible, and because it belied the seriousness with which we should be treating news in our community space.

Interestingly this paralleled probably the most consistent criticism of our news media in What's News?

Edited by media academics Judy McGregor and Margie Comrie, the title's core question - how one potential news item is selected over another - is analysed in chapters ranging from Ranginui Walker's Maori News is Bad News to David Venables' Public Journalism.

The general populace may no longer believe in the news process as a completely objective one, but reflecting on the impact of ratings-driven news presenters using emotive overtones in their news readings, the consequences of news ownership on the democratic process (all New Zealand's major media companies are foreign-owned, and we have no legislation limiting the extent of foreign ownership of our media), the increasing incidences of cheque-book journalism, the dominance of crime sensationalism over crime analysis in news content, and the professional co-existence of spin doctors and journalists is bound to shake comfortable perceptions.

Not a single writer here would deny that the news business is a business, but they would probably all agree that the idea of it as a special kind of business primarily for reflective, investigative journalism as against marketing and audience expectations is no longer to be taken for granted. The effect of this knowledge on the public, when it's perceived that there are already eroded values and ethics in news journalism, is also considered.

Destined largely for media students and observers, What's News deserves to be read by anyone who relies on the news media to assist them in giving informed consent.

Nor is it all grim reading. There is some good-natured scepticism along with amusing anecdotes, and the fact that our media are being observed so closely is at least an indication of health.

Dunmore Press

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* Shonagh Lindsay is an Auckland writer and researcher.