Murray McCully: Print editors guilty of self-interest and lack of principle

COMMENT

Last week I gave an address to the National Press Club in which I criticised lapses in professional standards occasionally exhibited by the nation's print media, and the effectiveness of the body that oversees those standards, the Press Council.

I am, indeed, grateful for the chorus of shrill, self-serving responses from the commentators and editors which could hardly have illustrated my point more vividly.

In my speech I drew attention to the most unprofessional editorial decision I have seen in recent times - the Sunday Star-Times' front-page use of pictures of Don Brash and Pauline Hanson under the headline "Spot the Difference", following Dr Brash's Orewa speech.

I said that "if newspapers are going to show the type of gross lapse in professional judgment which the Sunday Star-Times showed in relation to the Hanson headline, then it is only a matter of time before the Parliament addresses whether print and electronic media should be subject to the same legislative process".

The Herald managed to report this as "National threatening to impose state controls on the self-regulating newspaper industry" under a headline "National threatens greater controls on press".

There was, of course, no such threat. Indeed, in my next sentence I went on to say that legislative vehicles, such as the Broadcasting Standards Authority, were "far from a perfect solution because they were open to political appointment".

The Dominion Post, which reported only one sentence of that part of my speech (at the end of an article about journalists' union membership), managed to find nearly a whole page for Karl du Fresne to attack the speech it had not reported.

At least the Christchurch Press had the decency to run extracts from the speech before attempting the obligatory demolition job.

The existence of statutory procedures under the Broadcasting Standards Authority for the electronic media, and the freedom from such statutory processes for the print media, are a throwback to the days in which the state owned the nation's radio and television stations.

The discrepancy is simply indefensible in today's media environment.

While the nation's print editors are perfectly entitled to jealously guard the voluntary regime they enjoy, the fact that they so obviously fail to assert the same entitlements for their electronic media colleagues exposes their argument as both self-interested and unprincipled.

Indeed, the electronic media would have an outstanding case for the abolition of their own statutory arrangements in favour of a voluntary regime were it not for the manifest self-interest with which the print media manage their own professional affairs.

In my speech I gave two simple examples of unprofessional conduct on the part of the print media in order to illustrate the reasons for my concerns.

It is noteworthy that none of the editorial responses is prepared to litigate, much less defend, those cases, or even allow for the possibility of the occasional editorial or journalistic lapse.

To a person, I suggest, the nation's editors know that the Sunday Star-Times' Hanson initiative was disgraceful in its lack of professionalism.

But the maintenance of solidarity in the editors' old boys' and girls' club - under the banner of editorial freedom - provides free licence to ignore the obvious issues of professionalism and principle at issue.

In essence, the editors appear to argue that I need to know my place. Politicians are there to be reported on, analysed and criticised as editors and journalists see fit. For politicians to critique the media's performance is an affront to the very foundations of civilisation.

As I noted in my speech: "It is an overwhelming feature of the media in this country that they who are so ready to analyse and criticise people in my profession are highly resistant to the ruler being run over their own performance. In short, they can dish it out, but they can't take it."

The conclusion that I reached - one which has been largely ignored by the selective reporting it received - was that "having explored most of the avenues for redress in relation to media misdemeanours, I must pronounce them all, to some degree, to be failures".

"So, when faced with partisanship, inaccuracy, or mischief-making, I have devised my own solution - I scream like a stuck pig."

For that reason, I am most sincerely indebted to the nation's editors for the amplification they have so generously provided.

* Murray McCully is a National MP.