Tapu Misa: More talk will help media close our racial divide

It can be difficult sometimes, this straddling of the media divide.

From one side - the one that produces news from a Maori perspective - my writing for a newspaper like the Herald is akin to sleeping with the enemy. The enemy, of course, being the mainstream media, which many Maori now regard with a good deal of suspicion and hostility.

I see their point, but having been given the freedom to produce this column, I cannot quite see it in the same black and white terms.

Still, it ain't easy, no matter which side of the divide I'm writing from.

I'm accused by the odd disgruntled reader of having a brown bias. Probably I do, since I'm as much a product of my upbringing and environment as the next journo. But I don't suppose it occurs to them there could be such a thing as a white bias, unconscious though it might be.

Our mainstream news media - as opposed to that growing number of niche media outlets that cater to Maori, Pacific, Asian audiences - is overwhelmingly Pakeha. So it's probably not surprising that it comes in for so much criticism from many Maori, who say that their reality has been distorted by journalists who are ill-equipped to handle Maori issues.

Blame it on an education system that's done little to overcome our historical ignorance, but it's clear from the stand-off between mainstream media and Nga Puhi last week that we haven't made enough progress in that department.

Of course, Maori unhappiness with the media goes back a long way. In What's News, the 2002 collection of essays on New Zealand journalism, retired Auckland University professor Ranginui Walker looks back on more than 140 years of media coverage of Maori and finds little to praise.

He concludes that Pakeha perceptions of Maori - mostly as dysfunctional members of society - will not change unless there's a radical shift in the culture of mainstream media.

Walker writes that, right from the start, the Pakeha press has played an active role in stirring up anti-Maori feeling. Back in March 1860, when the British Army attacked chief Wiremu Kingi's pa at Waitara - the dispute that started the Land Wars - the press had characterised Kingi and his people as rebels, and exhorted the colonial government not to make peace with "murderers and assassins".

Wrote the Taranaki Herald: "We are at liberty at any time and place to do our best to extirpate them as [we should] any other animals of wild and ferocious nature."

We've come a long way since then, but nowhere near far enough.

It's not so much the reporting of negative news that rile Maori, as the intense and prolonged level of scrutiny which their bad news seems to attract. There wasn't, for instance, the same level of castigation for a company like Air New Zealand, which lost $800 million, as there was for Tainui, which lost $40 million.

Down South, in Ngai Tahu country, it's the media's perpetuation of misconceptions about Maori that causes so much disquiet.

Mark Solomon, Ngai Tahu's chairman, recently hosted the boss of a major foundation. The man, a born and bred Kiwi, was shaking when he arrived in the iwi's offices. He was weak with relief when he found out that the meeting would be conducted in English.

Solomon gets this all the time. He's even asked to his face by directors of major companies how they should get in touch with Ngai Tahu.

"You pick up the phone," he replies. "We've stopped using smoke signals."

Solomon says Maori face a huge challenge in educating mainstream New Zealanders about Maori. "I'm absolutely amazed at the depth of ignorance about Maori. There is a huge fear out there about Maori, and I put that down to the mainstream media."

Being a tribe with resources, and a media person, Ngai Tahu have favoured a friendlier assault on the mainstream media. Talking, for instance.

After Solomon and his communications executive approached editors with examples of inaccurate and unfair media reporting, they started to notice a discernible difference in coverage, particularly where it concerned Ngai Tahu.

As Solomon points out, it wasn't a case of asking for special privileges, but, in fact, equal treatment. "All we ask is that when media report on Maori issues, they should get our side of the story and not just the Pakeha perspective."

There have been lapses, though, the most recent one being last Boxing Day when the Press ran a story in which a Canterbury University scientist claimed that Ngai Tahu had blocked his applications to clone paua and lobster genes.

The story was denied by Ngai Tahu and another Canterbury University professor, who stated that none of the university's research proposals had ever been turned down because of tikanga Maori issues - but it still generates resentful letters to the editor and the ire of talkback callers.

So what's the answer? I'm fairly sure it isn't slamming the door in the face of mainstream reporters. More Maori journalists would help but the responsibility for reporting Maori issues shouldn't rest solely on their shoulders.

Besides, outfits like Mana Media, which produce Mana Magazine and daily news bulletins for National Radio, and have always relied heavily on the skills of experienced Pakeha journalists, have proven you don't have to be Maori to reflect a Maori viewpoint.

The trend has been for Maori to retreat to media that more closely reflect their own perspectives. But I don't think that's the answer.

Mainstream speaks to the minds and hearts of the majority. And that means we have to keep talking.

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