Critics miss the point about dailies. There's plenty of good reading if only they would look
Do the media simply follow and reflect the changing nature of society, or do they in fact exert an undue influence over the ideas and information which mould us as a society?
Granted, that is a "which came first, the chicken or the egg?" question but it is one that
has exercised my mind periodically for some time.
It came back in the past week because of criticisms levelled at their fellow journalists by a couple of my contemporary newspaper columnists.
My interest is particularly in the print media - newspapers and magazines - for that is where my experience and institutional knowledge lie.
Tracey Barnett in this newspaper suggested the media were slaves to the daily news cycle (when have they not been?) and that they are full of commentary but no analysis.
That is patently ridiculous and an insult to such Herald writers as John Armstrong, Chris Barton, Geoff Cumming, Andrew Laxon, Catherine Masters, Fran O'Sullivan, John Roughan, Claire Trevett and Audrey Young among others, plus the specialist writers in business, sport, lifestyle and entertainment and analytical correspondents from all over the world.
Even Brian Rudman - and God knows I wish sometimes that one of his beloved volcanic cones would erupt right under his bum - is regularly not just commenting upon, but analysing, local and national affairs.
Rosemary McLeod, in the Sunday Star-Times, expressed dislike for the way the public seems to live vicariously through reading the intimate details of other people's lives and detests what that means about the evolving practice of journalism.
I share that dislike and concern, but McLeod goes on to say that it wouldn't be so bad if some serious investigative journalism was going on, "about stuff that really matters".
Which is rather a poke in the eye for a number of Sunday Star-Times and other newspaper and magazine writers who do just that.
What these two columnists seem not to understand is that in this electronic age newspapers and magazines are in a constant battle for survival.
I well remember the days when every major city, and many minor ones such as Invercargill, Wanganui, New Plymouth and even Greymouth, had two daily newspapers, morning and evening.
The advent of television, and later the internet with its online publications, social networks and blogs, put paid to the evening newspapers one by one.
I well remember, too, the days when the local newspaper, be it the New Zealand Herald in Auckland or the Mataura Ensign in Gore, were seen as institutions in their local communities, much like churches and libraries, and their editors were among their leading citizens.
Journalism was seen as more of a vocation than a job, the pay was poor, the hours were long and the responsibilities for accuracy and objectivity strictly enforced.
The employers, all family-owned companies, were among the best in the country for their paternal care for the welfare of their staffs, among whom the generally anonymous, at least in print, journalists were the princes.
How things have changed. Journalism has long been simply a career, the pay has improved, the hours are regulated and while accuracy remains important, objectivity went out the window years ago when personality journalism took over and bylines became de rigueur.
Nowadays our newspapers, with the odd exception, are owned by offshore conglomerates whose titles are seen as a brand and whose bottom line is nothing but profit.
Journalists, whose contribution to a newspaper costs a fortune, have long been demoted from the top of the heap in favour of marketing experts, advertising salespeople and circulation builders.
Yet, while it's easy for a journalist of my generation to feel hard done by, the fact is that without those changes in the way newspapers operate we probably wouldn't have any. And that would be intolerable.
Meanwhile, television's once-over-lightly reportage and the instantaneous internet have contrived to reduce the attention span of the average New Zealander to that of a gnat.
The demented pursuit of money, property and prestige, leaving little time for anything else, has encouraged people living otherwise empty lives to inhabit a world of triviality and constant emotional turmoil and to live vicariously through the lives of others.
Thus, newspaper editors have learned that if you can't grab a reader's attention with a blurb, a striking picture, an enticing headline or an intriguing first paragraph, then people aren't going to buy your product.
They have learned, too, that great screeds of intimate, emotional and nauseatingly detailed information about celebrities, sexual shenanigans, tragedies, sex, untimely deaths, sex, murders, sex, and other tales to engender fear, anger, revulsion, recrimination, lust, jealousy, sympathy or any other emotion are what people will buy.
So, do newspapers reflect society or the other way round? Frankly, I don't give a damn as long as my newspapers keep arriving every day and continue to contain serious, intelligent news, information and analysis that you can't get anywhere else.
