Journalism matters

A good summary of events over at norightturn, along with the output and links to other coverage.

Quotes from Simon Collins speech to Journalism Matters

The Herald now has a total of 28 general reporters including branch offices and Parliament

…At the Herald, there are now no reporters covering what should be major rounds such as industrial relations, energy, foreign affairs and defence; and local body issues outside Auckland City are hardly covered at all.

Roundspeople in the rounds that are still covered, such as health and education, are regularly diverted on to stories about Dancing with the Stars, NZ Idol or Paul Holmes’s daughter.  

…When I had a story on KiwiSaver that got more hits Paris Hilton or the America’s Cup, it was so remarkable that the chief reporter made a point of congratulating me.

…What we are gradually losing is public issue journalism by journalists who are paid to go out beyond their living rooms to gather new facts and present them in a coherent form….

All a bit depressing. We must encourage media owners that understand that great profits start with great journalism – integrity, relevance and high quality writing and editing is everything.

Being inside Fairfax NZ is an eye-opening experience – and in a good way.  High quality journalism matters to everyone in the organisation, and editorial successes are celebrated, whether it is pride in The Press’s result in Newspaper of the Year, getting a story online minutes ahead of the competition or just plain great stories and writing. We are news junkies too…
The resolutions are a bit up and down:

• The EPMU will lead a review of journalism in NZ over the next 6 months, inviting public submissions on the effects of growing commercial pressures on journalism, journalists’ pay rates and the resulting loss of talent to PR, freelance pay rates, union membership, public interest broadcasting and the growing pressure on journalists to serve multiple media at once.

sounds a very negative mandate to me – I can’t begin to take this as an unbiased report.

• The EPMU will also review the Journalists’ Code of Ethics, available as Rule 42 of the EPMU rules at: http://www.epmu.org.nz/SITE_Default/about/rules/default.asp. Public submissions will be sought for this review too. The code needs to be updated to take account of new technology.

a good idea.

• We want taxpayer funding of TVNZ to be increased to a level that allows it to be a true public service broadcaster.

Me too – but what do you want the Government to stop spending money on instead?

• We urge everyone concerned about democratic media to take every opportunity to create new media outlets committed to providing people with information about public issues in a coherent form, facilitating an exchange of ideas about those issues and building a sense of social cohesion as a foundation for social action.

Fluffy – but it sounds like they like blogging

• We support the work of the Bruce Jesson Foundation and urge other funders to fund independent investigative journalism on important public issues.

Sure. Heaven forbid we head the way of the US and Faux News. Our investigative journalism is pretty good here – superb compared to the US.

• We will establish a Movement for Democratic Media, with membership open to all NZers as well as the union, to create, support and link local websites and other media outlets reporting on public issues, and to campaign for publicly funded broadcasting.

A union-led ground-swell movement? I don’t get it. Besides – don’t we all link to each other already?

Some of those look rather watered down from intentions, meaning they come across as toothless. But what an excellent forum overall. I’d like to get along to one next year, if I could.