Richard Inder: Role of media is often misunderstood

Business journalists are corrupt.

One day we buy shares in a company and the next day we wax lyrical about its chief executive and his remarkable achievements.

We believe business is inherently bad or amoral and run campaigns that prove our misguided conspiracy theories. We dismiss as lies or half-truths any reasonable answer implying the contrary.

We are lazy. We are presented with press releases, which we then transcribe and then add a "byline" committing a fraud by implying we actually added value.

Our stories are half-baked, largely representing the views of the special interest group that got to us first. And we while away our afternoons and evenings in pubs, bars and restaurants supping with people we despise because it is the only way we know how to make a buck. It is a grossly unfair characterisation of our profession, yet unfortunately it is one that has currency.

The most extreme version frequently appears in the less informed submissions to internet share-trading chat rooms - a forum often, and pejoratively, described as the talkback radio of the sharemarket.

One investor - belgarion - this week noted a report documenting an academic's low opinion of Feltex's book-keeping practices.

Dismissing another's view, belgarion said: "You mean that reporters (generally with undisclosed interests) are seeking out comment from anyone to trash the [Feltex] share (sic) as hard as they can?"

If these views were expressed only in forums such as this they could be dismissed. But, sadly, this is not the case, they go right up the line.

NZX chief Mark Weldon, for instance, has frequently berated the New Zealand Herald and other media organisations for harbouring conspiracy theories. Meanwhile, the embattled Telecom chief executive Theresa Gattung has employed a similar term as she criticised coverage of her company's reluctance to open up its network to rivals.

Other executives attack us for "seeing the glass half-empty rather than half-full" because we ask about how the building products company will handle the economic slow-down rather than how it achieved a strong result. These attitudes are founded on a misunderstanding of the role of the media and how it operates. Worse still, they evidence a degree of discomfort with the media properly exercising its duties.

Did the NZX breach - at least the spirit of - its continuous disclosure regime when it decided in June not to notify its shareholders of its u-turn on planned fee increases?

Was Telecom playing its same old game this week as it told rivals that it had no room in its telephone exchanges for equipment that would allow them to offer high-speed internet access at nearly the same cost?

Such questions obviously betray a line of thought. But a line of thought is often a long way away from a headline or a newspaper article. And far from feeling inconvenienced by such questions, executives should be relieved they are posed because, at the very least, it gives them an opportunity to correct misinformation or put their perspective.

Journalists deal daily in information almost without exception tainted by the spin of special interest. And although the information suffers, its sources often demand protection - which we must deliver if only to ensure the information flow.

On top of this, we daily face a barrage of half-truths and lies. In the face of such onslaught, it is perhaps no wonder that we become cynical of even the most selfless gestures.

Despite these handicaps - as well as tight deadlines and specialist knowledge rarely approaching that of our subjects - laws governing defamation, copyright and privacy charge us with the powers of a watchdog and they demand we exercise this role fairly and accurately.

And yet, commercial imperatives prevent us from hiding behind the considered language of government or the law. We must also be fresh, innovative and entertaining.

We must ask direct questions and must often ask them even though they cast aspersions upon those whom we question. We are often blunt or flustered because of the pressures.

This is not to say journalists are free from blame. We get it wrong, we often fail to ask the pertinent questions or do not report the complete picture.

But over my career, I have worked with only a few journalists who display the qualities our naysayers attribute to the whole profession. Most I know are committed to the profession and come to it because they rightly believe the media exercises a public good and necessary role.