Merepeka Raukawa-Tait: Gutsy journos only antidote to spin

Members of the media pack the Greymouth Police Station for a press conference with Pike River Coal chief executive Peter Whittall and Superintendent Gary Knowles in November, 2010.

Remember Ean Higgins. The tosser, obnoxious twerp, boor. The disrespectful journalist and disgraceful ambassador for his country. These colourful descriptions were applied to him by Minister Gerry Brownlee and a raft of New Zealand journalists.

So what had this Australian journalist done to raise their ire? He came here for his newspaper The Australian to cover the Pike River mining disaster. And had the temerity, even insensitivity some said, to question police commander Gary Knowles as to why a "country cop" should be put in charge of the rescue operation. Gerry Brownlee, the Minister for Pike River Affairs, was outraged.

To question why a police officer, without knowing anything about mining and having no major disaster recovery experience, was in the role got Higgins offside from day one. He didn't last long. Our journalists couldn't abide him, wouldn't work or share information with him and so he was off. Recalled to Australia tout suite.

At the time many people I know thought as he did. Night after night we saw commander Knowles fronting the news on TV. He did his best to answer questions but wasn't very convincing. His delivery was wooden and he appeared aloof and distant. Higgins has recently used that short stint covering Pike River to claim this was his finest hour as a journalist. As he sees it: "New Zealand is a small, meek and mild democracy, where journalists didn't ask any uncomfortable questions, being happy to accept whatever the police, the company and the miners' rescue people told them". It was the Australian journalists, coming from a more robust tradition, who asked the tough questions, he said.

If you've seen the Australian media in action, you'll know what he means. They're tough. But is Higgins right? Are New Zealand journalists too timid? Reporting on Pike River required sensitivity but not at the expense of baulking at asking the questions the public wanted answered. Do our journalists have the balls to ask tough questions and to keep it up until they're satisfied? Are we being sold short by lack of gutsy questioning similar to that in Australia to get answers and the truth?

Old hacks, if there are any still around, will tell you that in their day they had to work hard at getting stories. They hung out with each other and over drinks traded information, developed contacts and weren't put off by any name-calling. They learned their craft from the ground up and many developed a "reporter's nose". They could smell a story a mile off and timid questioning would have been foreign to these skilled journalists. Their editors, from the same stable, would have squashed that if ever observed.

These days, seeking out and reporting the news has changed. Many organisations, particularly those that may need to sometimes communicate unpalatable news, will hire communication advisers. Spin doctors in other words. Part of their job is to sugar-coat information when necessary. They have usually come from a journalism background before crossing over to the "dark side". I understand this is journalists' expression for those who make the switch. Does that mean they're not to be trusted, do a bad job? Not at all. But relying solely on press releases should be avoided. When newspapers do this, journalistic due diligence can disappear. The spin doctors take care of everything. But we need to know journalistic due diligence is still an active function of the news room. Press releases relieve newspapers of having to do their own spadework. They can cover more stories when they have a stream of press releases arriving daily to choose from. It may be necessary to follow up on a point or two but basically the press release covers it all.

I'm not sure if there is much investment in old-fashioned investigative journalism, and not just for the big stories, any more. Where the grunt work is done, hard questions are put and repeated if something doesn't smell right. And if a reporter is accused of being insensitive that shouldn't stop him or her. I hope we are not in danger of passing some control of the newsroom to spin doctors. This would not be in the public interest.

The Australian reporting tradition may be robust, some might say ruthless, yet it spawned two giant media magnates, Packer and Murdoch. They wouldn't have settled for news via spin doctors. They wanted reporters to put their own stamp on stories. They wanted the real deal.

Merepeka lives in Rotorua. She writes, speaks and broadcasts to thwart the spread of political correctness.