Where do most people in New Zealand get their information from? I have been trying to find figures on the internet, but I haven't found anything very reliable. But I suspect the vast majority of the population get their current affairs and news information from television.There is a wide readership of the daily newspapers - it is interesting that there is no national daily in New Zealand - and some will listen to National Radio. Some will also use the internet - I use all three latter media, but not TV. I am also reasonably certain that most commercial radio has little to recommend it in regard to disseminating reliable information about anything, though I don't listen to Newstalk 1ZB, so I can't comment on that particular programme here. 
There is great competition in New Zealand between our two main free-to-air channels - TV1 and TV3. TV1 is our nationally owned channel. It used to be run entirely by license fees, but over the years has become increasingly commercialised - it has just as many vexatious adverts as any other channel. It does also receive millions of dollars of public funding via taxation. TV1 operates under a charter which is supposed to ensure quality programming and New Zealand content. Whilst it is likely this charter does do this in part, to any outsider it would be difficult to distinguish TV1 from any purely commercial channel. TV3 is a wholly commercial channel, owned by CanWest. As part of this competitive environment, TV1 and TV3 try to get viewers switched on in the early peak viewing time. So the news, (which is widely advertised, both self-advertised, and in the press, on transport etc.) commences at 6 pm, and is the same for both channels. At 7 pm, there are magazine-style news programmes, and there may be interviews with politicians or others about major issues, but interspersed with a lot of human interest matters. Recently a presenter and reporter, John Campbell, has had the 7 pm slot on TV3, and this has raised the bar a little in regard to quality and investigative flare. However it must be said that both news programmes, despite their continuous self-promotion, and the huge salaries paid to presenters, are failures. On any night, the longest item will be about 2 to 3 minutes, and the actual total of "news" excluding introductions, human interest stories, old stories, adverts, previews and sport, is generally less than 25 minutes. In addition neither channel has any regional news programme. 
The lady in this picture is Judy Bailey. Now there is nothing particularly wrong with Judy, she is a good looking woman, posesses a nice speaking voice, and is a very professional TV presenter. But if you are reading this from outside New Zealand, you may not know she is paid $800,000 for this onerous and difficult work. How can a news presenter on a partially publicly-funded TV network be worth this much, especially when one considers the extremely poor standard of the news programme? As Judy will be on air for about ten minutes per night, this is a very nice income of about $200 per minute on air. However the last laugh is on TV 1; we have recently heard how the viewing figures for TV 1 news is falling, and TV3 are doing much better. Care to have a gamble on Judy's salary next year? John Campbell on TV3 does have some good points, but his over-the-top style does grate, and I think he is succumbing to the same tendency to self-importance that seems to afflict all these TV personalities.
Whilst I once used to watch the news regularly, I now seldom do, the content is so superficial as to be worthless. For instance,in all the news items about the recent G8 summit, there was no attempt at interpretation or context, and more time was spent watching protesters knock down fences than spent on the actual summit. This mightn't be so bad, if there was an attempt at other times during peak hours to cover the important issues of the day in more detail. As far as I am aware, no such coverage took place. However I don't watch TV much, and I have to rely on looking at TV listings and previous issues of The Listener. There is a further news programme at 10.30, reviewing earlier stories. No one is asked in New Zealand as to whether the timing of the news programmes are good. I would personally much more enjoy a news coverage (with no sport and more in-depth examination) at say 9.30 pm. to 10.30 pm. A 6 pm programme is at the busiest part of the day for most families, tea, children, meetings, rush home from work. But because the news is so important in getting people switched on to a certain channel, due to competitive pressures, I doubt we'll ever be asked about the timing of the news service.
The main topics discussed in Gleneagles were global warming and aid for Africa and other poor nations, including debt forgiveness. The African question got quite a lot of news coverage, mainly with aging pop-stars and huge numbers of sweaty people, but I failed to find any in-depth coverage of the actual achievement of the G8 summit, the strings attached, the likely benefits or the likely problems. No interviews, no debate, no documentary. Again, I have relied on The Listener but if any one can refute what I am saying, please let me know. In regard to global warming, the single biggest issue facing humanity and top of the agenda for the G8, the result of the deliberations being a complete whitewash, there have been no interviews with politicians or the minister of energy or the minister of the environment, no documentaries, no discussion, no examination, no explanation. If the public of New Zealand are relying in any way for enlightenment of the subject of global warming, then they have been failed. I have checked The Listener for the past year and in over 3,500 hours of peak hour broadcasting, have found no reference to any such programme on global warming. This profoundly important subject might as well not exist to New Zealand television. This is despite the fact that the Kyoto Protocol, which New Zealand has signed, has been a contentious issue, and is likely to end up costing this country an unnecessary and completely avoidable $1 billion due to the sheer carlessness of the government. However in The Listener magazine in 2004 there was a very poor global warming article (See this link).
I could make similar remarks about "Peak Oil", though to give John Campbell credit, he has covered this subject twice on his programme, to my knowledge. But no documentary, no interview with experts or politicians or the minister of energy, no fact finding, no examination on this urgent issue, especially here in New Zealand where we are going to be hit particularly hard. Similarly the ecological damage to the environment. One of the most important documents to have been published in the world recently has been the Millennium Ecosystems Assessment. (Link). This document, also entitled "Living Beyond our Means" is a damning indictment of humanity's unsustainable appetite for the World's resources. Read it and worry. (I have mentioned this document elsewhere on my site, but I will post a more thorough revivew). I am not sure if it has had even a minute's mention on the TV news. There certainly has been no in-depth examination of this report or the overwhelmingly important issues it raises on television, in the papers but there has been an article last year in The Listener. Population issues too are likely to be of continuing importance in our overcrowded world, I don't think this has been looked at. Elsewhere on my site, I discuss nuclear disarmament, and the recent five yearly meeting in New York of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. I am not aware of any mention of this on the news or anywhere else on the television, nor did it get any coverage on National Radio or in the papers. Yet this is a country that has made an internationally important stand in regard to nuclear issues, you would have thought that the news media would have been interested in relaying information about this meeting. It is likely the problems we are now experiencing in Iran are related to the failure of this meeting. I have previously mentioned the World Tribunal on Iraq, and its complete and utter and appalling neglect by the media. 
We had an interesting brouhaha the other day, when the TV 3 political "debate" had arranged to invite six party leaders to debate policy, with an audience, and what they call a "worm", which is a sort of superficial political popularity poll from the audience, who press a button, and one can detect some sort of immediate audience reaction to each politician. It is widely stated that Peter Dunne's surprise good showing in the last election was due to a good performance with the "worm" a few days before voting; his party, United Future, gained several seats and had a decisive part to pay in ensuring the Labour administration's minority goverment being able function so decisively. At any rate, based on a single poll conducted by TV3, the TV company invited leaders of the top 6 polling parties to their "worm" debate, excluding Jim Anderton of the Progressives, and Peter Dunne of United Future. These two were somewhat affronted and went to court to get an injunction against TV3. This was heard and Justice Young gave this ruling, as reported in the NZ Herald -
Justice Ron Young said today that in his judgement TV3 had made an "arbitrary" decision in determining who would be present in its leaders' debate. It had based its decision on a single opinion poll -- which expert testimony had said had a margin of error greater than the margins between the smaller parties. Justice Young said he was thrust into "inappropriate" territory for a judge in deciding who TV3, a private company, should include in its debate. But, he said, to refuse to act would be a further injustice to the MPs so he accepted he must decide whether TV3 should be required to invite the MPs to the debate. While it might not make for "ideal" television -- to have eight political leaders in a one-hour debate -- that was the least important consideration here. Justice Young said he was prepared to make an interim injunction that required TV3 "to invite the two plaintiffs to participate in its leaders' debate this evening".
Needless to say this judgement caused some hackles to rise, especially from TV3 director of news and current affairs, Mark Jennings. I heard Mark Jennings talking to Linda Clark on Nine-to-Noon the next day, a wounded man he was. It's not often that media people have to account for themselves to others. Mark stated how this decision was a profoundly disturbing of the right of TV3 to run its private company as it wished. He was being ingenuous in the extreme. New Zealand is having a general election soon, for TV3 to arbitrarily exclude Jim Anderton, a long serving member of Parliament and previous deputy PM, and Peter Dunne, leader of a number of MPs, was mischievously simplistic, and he was annoyed at being found out. Certainly TV1 had no difficulty in having eight leaders in a debate three years ago. Television does not just exist to benefit itself, it does have public duties, and at a time of an election, an even greater committment to fairness. Kevin List has a column about this matter here - well worth reading. He quotes this attribution to Gordon Fisher, President, News and Information, CanWest Global Communication Corp. "I do believe owners have every right to direct their operations in terms of both content and ideology. I actually think that is their obligation. I don't see how they cannot. Their commercial interests are, frankly, about only one thing. Content. We are selling content. It is a commercial reality." One had to laugh that one of the reasons there wasn't room for eight leaders because of the advertising and the commentry of John Campbell, who apparently took up quite a bit of the time! When the TV3 news director admits that advertising is more important than political neutrality or fairness or edification, then I rest my case.
Another extremely important document to be recently published and to have garnered nothing but silence is the report from the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, called "Future Currents". (You can download it from here. This is a pdf document and will take some time to download over a dial-up connection - but I recommend that you try). This document is ours, we taxpayers paid for it, I suppose our parliamentarians asked for it, and what has happened? Nothing. Despite being arguably the most single important document to be published in New Zealand in the last thirty years, it might as well have been buried as a still-birth. I have not heard mention of it on the radio, on TV, and there was a single brief mention of it in the Dominion Post. It has not featured in the election coverage. What is this document? It is the first official document that I have seen in New Zealand that shows intelligent life exists here when dealing with energy matters - that actually maps out a long term sustainable strategy for this country. Of course Greenpeace, the Green Party, Forest and Bird, and others have been doing this for years. It is a scenario, a vision if you like, that contrasts what we are doing now, and continuing this present way of doing things, with what our country could be like if we take sustainability, energy efficiency and renewable energy projects seriously. The contrasts couldn't be more stark, every one in New Zealand should be required to read this document before they vote in the upcoming election, and in every subsequent election until 1050. Failure to read or understand the issues should mean disbarment from voting! The failure of our leaders and our media to understand the importance and immediacy of energy issues to New Zealand is so frustrating. It is criminal negligence really; I would have all these folk tried for treason against the economic, social and environmental wellbeing of this country, this planet and our children's future.
Why is television so stupid? A recent scientific investigation from Otago University showed that young children who watched a lot of TV were significantly stupider than children who didn't. Duh. We know that. We know that if TV were in any way educational or informative all our teenagers would be geniuses and all us grown-ups college professors. So why do we as a community allow ourselves to consider that TV can tell us anything worthwhile? Of course the power of self advertising helps, the hubris and slimy smugness of the TV people with all their Qantas awards, their self-congratulatory and adulatory humbug. And we are persuaded by advertising, we must be, billions of dollars are not spent by businesses on a fruitless endeavour when they use television for their advertising. But it is more than that. There is a commercial imperative that means that TV has to appeal to the populist majority, and at the same time TV can't afford to upset commercial interests as their earnings depend on this incestuous commercial relationship. It is likely that much of this commercial activity remains hidden from view - the sort of relationship that relates to sponsorship and the provision of what is basically advertorial material on the news and in other programmes. 
Elsewhere on my site I mention the advert for the VW Touareg car, chewing up our beautiful South Island. Isn't it likely that we hear so little about global warming and peak oil because car advertising represents many millions of dollars of advertising revenue? That media companies so reliant, even if indirectly, on the continued profligate use of oil, are not going to produce a programme that criticises this use or alarms the populace, and this observation applies also to the printed media. 
Even the BBC can come under tremendous pressure to conform to the status quo. The battle around the BBC's reporting of the Iraq war and the claim of the government's doctoring of the intelligence around Iraq, resulted in the suicide of a government expert, and the sacking of two good reporters and the resignation of BBC board members. The government got their pound of flesh, yet we all know that the BBC were almost certainly right all along, whatever the (widely criticised) Hutton enquiry said. In the US, the Fox network is known for its distortion of the news and its connection with big business. I have mentioned this elsewhere in this web site, where I reviewed "The Corporation. Rupert Murdoch controls far too much of the global media network, and he is far too friendly with many countries' leaderships. There is an excellent independent news and comment site in the UK, Media Lens, where you will find a good exposition in regard to the problems of news reporting and comment, even in the supposedly liberal media such as the BBC, the Guardian and others. Well worth reading. I like the quote on Media Lens's home page - "There is an odour to any Press Headquarters that is unmistakeable... The unavoidable smell of flesh burning quietly and slowly in the service of a machine." (Norman Mailer, The Time Of Our Time, Little Brown, 1998, p.457)New Zealand free-to-air television is a broadcasting equivalent of a third-rate tabloid paper. Where are these programmes?
(If anyone reading this does know that there has been regular programming in any of these catagories, please e-mail me, and I will correct the information. The once per year programme does not count. There are 3,650 peak hours each year on TV1 and TV3, and one hour out of that number is not significant)
Update 24/9/05 A fine new series screens on TV tonight and for the next few weeks is Fontier of Dreams, a story of New Zealand. Tonight's episode is entitled The Last Place on Earth. This describes the first Polynesian settlers to New Zealand. I shall enjoy watching some quality television. Well done TV 1.
The basic premise of New Zealand television (and most of the rest of the world's television, I imagine, though I don't live in the rest of the world) is that anything in life that is worthwhile, difficult, stimulating, interesting, educative, honourable or informative is automatically excluded from any programming consideration, whereas anything shallow, silly, demeaning, vapid, erotic, childish, disgusting, voyeuristic or blatantly commercial will have no difficulty being broadcast, many times. There is a place for the fun and the ordinary, certainly, but I believe television, as the most powerful medium in our society, has a duty to reflect other and more important aspects of our society. Television manifestly fails to do this. The lack of balance in television broadcasting is in fact anti-democratic, no society can function without good, reliable information. Television treats its audience like children, not like sentient adults, and this being so, we shouldn't be surprised if our society reacts like a spoilt or petulant child when things in our society get more difficult, which they well may. Ultimately the trouble with television arises from a deep and abiding institutional contempt for the audience
Richard Dimbleby, presenting the first Panorama programme on the BBC 11th November 1953. This current affairs programme is still going strong. There is nothing like this programme on television in New Zealand, perhaps instituting such a programme, even fifty-two years late, might still be worth considering?