Dialogue: Independent watchdog needed for our media

By GORDON McLAUCHLAN

Two weeks ago on radio I advocated the setting up of a New Zealand Media Trust, an independent organisation that could scrutinise the professional standards of journalists and media organisations. I've been surprised by the informal support I've received from journalists and members of the public.

The point is that no independent organisation monitors the performance of our newspapers and magazines, and radio and television stations. The Press Council, made up of senior journalists with an independent chairman, basically responds to complaints. Same with the Broadcasting Standards Authority.

These organisations - dominated as they are by the industry itself - were set up to forestall the imposition of any government regulatory authority. And a good thing, too. They handle their task soberly and well.

But no independent, expert, professional scrutiny of the media and its behaviour exists in this country.

Interestingly enough, artists and writers do not have the luxury of unscathed expression. Those who write books, paint pictures or perform on stage get their work picked over, teased out, sometimes dissected. You can run a stupid radio or television programme or a dumb or corrupt series of articles in newspapers and magazines with relative impunity. But be careful about writing a stupid book.

No one, least of all the media itself, would deny that television, radio, newspapers and magazines have a huge impact on the way we think and behave so why isn't there rigorous examination of not just their ethics but more importantly their professionalism. Journalists see their job as the watchers on behalf of the public, but who watches these watchers?

An Australian Broadcasting Corporation media watchdog programme broke the Australian radio scandal involving John Laws and Alan Jones, who were taking money from organisations and then presenting their arguments on critical issues as though they had come to their own conclusions after much thought and inquiry.

In the United States, a number of publications monitor media professionalism. During the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal a new magazine so trenchantly commented on the handling of the stories that the editor became a standard member of Larry King's panels that picked over the scandal - ad nauseam, I must admit.

And also in the US - where, I might add, they take media more seriously than anywhere - university journalism schools and organisations such as the Institute of Television Arts and Sciences provide commentaries on technology as well as journalistic professionalism and ethics.

What I'd like to see here is a trust set up in association with one of the universities, with experienced practitioners as well as academics regularly publishing an authoritative journal of media commentary. To be of any real use, such a publication would need to have a measured and thoughtful critical tone. The trust would be watching the watchers, and you can bet the watched, that is the media, would fight back, I hope at the same intellectual level. All very healthy.

One of its functions would be to see how the media deals with political language. I thought of this the other morning when I heard Pete Hodgson interviewed on National Radio about accusations against the Airways Corporation. The Labour Party has mostly handled language well compared with the last National Administration. Helen Clark, Michael Cullen and Margaret Wilson, in particular, have been direct in delivery and frugal with evasive words. Indeed, the Prime Minister's forthrightness has startled some people used to the circumlocutions that had become standard political patois.

I don't think National MPs understand yet how much damage their language did to their chances of re-election. In the past couple of years of their reign, they became masters and mistresses of obfuscation, at least partly because they were beset by so many administrative calamities they wanted to let as little light as possible into the gloom. Mrs Shipley's descent into "radical conservatism" and her other utterances at National Party gatherings are convincing evidence she still doesn't get it.

The big test for the present Government will come in time as it starts reaping whirlwinds from administrative bungles of its own instead of just inheriting them from the last lot.

Which brings me back to Pete Hodgson. He resolutely refused - to the interviewer's obvious chagrin - to use one word where 50 would do. It was an unfortunate performance of pompous puffery.

So a media trust could also look at the difficulties journalists have in coping with the practised prolixity of politicians.