media

Law Commissioner John Burrows discusses the options for the jurisdiction of the proposed new independent media regulator.

Law Commissioner John Burrows discusses the principles underpinning the Commission’s preliminary proposals for a new approach to regulating news media.

Law Commissioner John Burrows explains why independence from both Government and the industry is considered vital for any new media regulator.

From Jay Rosen’s “Why Political Coverage is Broken“. Could this be the same problem we have seen here fro the past 5 days:

 In politics, our journalists believe, it is better to be savvy than it is to be honest or correct on the facts. It’s better to be savvy than it is to be just, good, fair, decent, strictly lawful, civilized, sincere, thoughtful or humane.  Savviness is what journalists admire in others. Savvy is what they themselves dearly wish to be. (And to be unsavvy is far worse than being wrong.)

Savviness is that quality of being shrewd, practical, hyper-informed, perceptive, ironic, “with it,” and unsentimental in all things political. And what is the truest mark of savviness? Winning, of course! Or knowing who the winners are.

Sounds like a cult:

To the people inside it, savviness is not a cult. It is not a professional church or “belief system.” They would probably reject my terms. But they would say that journalists need to be savvy observers because in politics the unsavvy are hapless, clueless, deluded, clownish, or in some cases extreme. The unsavvy get run over: easily. They get disappointed: needlessly. They get angry–fruitlessly–because they don’t know how things really work.

Prohibited from joining in political struggles, dedicated to observing what is, regardless of whether it ought to be, the savvy believe that these disciplines afford them a special view of the arena, cured of excess sentiment, useless passion, ideological certitude and other defects of vision that players in the system routinely exhibit.  Therefore the savvy don’t say: I have a better argument than you. They say: I am closer to reality than you. Especially if you are active in politics yourself.

Has the penny dropped yet?

Now in order for this belief system to operate effectively, it has to continually position the journalist and his observations not as right where others are wrong, or virtuous where others are corrupt, or visionary where others are short-sighted, but as mature, practical, hardheaded, unsentimental, and shrewd where others are didactic, ideological, child-like and dreamy.  This is part of what’s so insidious about press savviness: it tries to hog political realism to itself.

But even more insidious than that is the positioning effect. Remember what I taught you: to understand the ideas in play, ask how a given form of journalism positions us, the users of it. What’s so weird about savviness is that it tries to position us as insiders, invited to speculate along with journalists and other players on how the mass public will react to the latest maneuverings. But the public is us.  We are the public. But we are also the customers for the savviness product. Don’t you see how strange that is? #

Take the most generic “savviness question” there is. One journalist asks another: how will this play with the voters? Listening to that, how will this play with the voters, haven’t you ever wanted to shout at your television set, “hey buddy, I’m a voter! Don’t talk about me like I’m not in the room when I’m sitting right here watching you.” This is what’s so odd about savviness as a political style performed for the public. It tries to split the attentive public off from the rest of the electorate, and get us to join up with the insiders. Under its gaze, other people become objects of political technique. In this sense savviness is an attack on our solidarity with strangers who share the same political space.

This is why I can’t stand people who have studied politics at university, why I loathe university politics wonks in general and some in particular. They like politics to be an intellectual exercise, one at which they can play at being the insider, the expert.

My favourite politicians are those that don’t think about what is right, they know what is right and they do what is right, even if that hurts them politically. Sadly MMP has largely destroyed these types of politicians. The media can blame only themselves for the situation that we face now. Politics is about the guts. It isn’t about thinking what is the right thing to do or say it is doing what is the right thing to do or say.

The past week has shown that the cult of savviness is rampant in New Zealand media. Just look at last night’s debate where we had the “savvy” adding comments throughout the show, from the host to the comments people to the panel. The party leaders were just the “players”.

Hard to argue with Julia Gillard on media ethics:

Isn’t it interesting that the media are more interested in an 8 minute conversation in a cafe than in a two month long orchestrated campaign of vandalism, illegal promotor statements and coordination within a major political party.

Isn’t it interesting that the media who are supposed to hold politicians to account won’t the Old Age Pensioner from St Mary’s Bay why he hasn’t paid back the $158,000 his party stole? Instead they laud and promote him.

Isn’t it interesting that media commentators who have opinions of their own on MMP get upset and launch a personal crusade when the Prime Minister expresses his own opinion?

Isn’t it interesting that the media is ignoring a referendum and instead has a minor leaders debate that asks them if they support the system that delivered them to parliament?

Lew at Kiwipolitico has a very good post about partisan beliefs about the media:

Here’s a thing I don’t get. Lefty partisans (in New Zealand and elsewhere) are overwhelmingly convinced that the Main Stream Media is:

• Run by a shadowy cabal of Dr Evil types whose main goal is to bring the political right to power and keep them there;
• Obsessed with prurience, trivia, conflict (falsified or trumped-up if necessary), outrage and scandal to the total exclusion of “serious” topics like policy;
• So credulous as to be unable (or so captured as to be unwilling) to distinguish between competing accounts of differing veracity, reporting all opinions as nominally equal;
• Selective, punishing the left more harshly than the right; and
• All of the above is strongly contributing to the decline of civilisation as we know it.

The right believes much the same, just with a different polarity.

I’m not sure the “right” doesn’t think that. As I pointed out in the comments only point three resonates for me, and even then it is not because of the lack of credulity of media rather their inherent laziness, or sufficient will or knowledge to challenge the politicians with what they say and do.

Certainly though, if you chance you arm at reading the comments at Red Alert and The Standard you will see that Lew is right on the money as far as leftwing partisan beliefs are.

For my regular readers Lew and Pablo at Kiwipolitico are what I term honourable and honest lefties. They are worth following for some actual honest leftwing perspective.

Andrew Sullivan shows the very real difference between the MSM and the blogosphere – the willingness of the bloggers to mock themselves for making mistakes.

Looneys seem to think that blogs like Whaleoil should be impartial. In a sense it is, I have a crack at anyone who does anything stupid including National MPs and office holders.

For some reason this is seen as bad, and a lot of prissy people think impartiality is the route to heaven or something equally moronic. These morons should think about the United Kingdom broadsheet market, where the Times, Telegraph, Independent, Observer and Guardian all have clear editorial perspectives and are well known for promoting causes they believe in, like getting Labour elected or thrown out depending on the paper. Similar blogs like The Daily Dish and Andrew Bolt likewise eschew impartiality and embrace partiality.

They are not beyond having a go at their nominal political allies either. The Telegraph is giving the Tories beating over their planning changes with their Hands off our Land Campaign

The media market world wide is being dominated by people who take sides. Boring impartiality is a fast path to extinction. If you don’t like the approach this blog takes, go and read something else.