KEY POINTS:
Radio New Zealand's Media Watch programme pinged me fairly and squarely this morning for making so much of John Key reference to "a Labour Government I lead" when on the same page in the Herald two errors slipped through, in a heading and in a photo caption.
The vigilant
Colin Peacock also exposed the Herald for addressing only one in its corrections column. So I'll put that right here: the sub-heading on page 2 last Monday that read 'Labour marches into Labour territory' was incorrect.
Peacock's saddle on his own high horse slipped however when in the same item on the accuracy of others he incorrectly said the National Party conference was in Hamilton, not Auckland. Wonder whether he will correct that.
And while he is at it, perhaps he can explain why he rarely extends his scrutiny to Radio New Zealand.
Peacock and I have been among a group of about 100 that attended the Journalism Matters conference held at Parliament over the weekend, organised by the Engineering Printing and Manufacturing Union.
With the news industry confronting revolutionary changes in the way news is presented, the union decided it was time to hold an industry-wide conference to talk about how those changes and others such as ownership have impacted on the journalism produced.
There was a lot of talk about blogs and this blog in particular, given the run-in I had last week with John Key when we each accused the other, through press statement and blog, of misrepresenting the other in an interview.
It would be easier to understand others' concerns about my blog if it were replacing in-depth journalism but I don't believe it is in my case. The Weekend Herald ran a 2000 word piece of mine on one of the most dangerous pieces of legislation to come before Parliament, the Electoral Finance Bill, which we will follow closely through the House.
My colleague John Armstrong also wrote about it in his political column
It's odd how so many people have issues about me writing a blog but few acknowledge the hard work that still goes into the newspaper.
I firmly believe they can complement each other.
Anyway, there was an impressive line-up of contributors at the conference, including Christopher Warren, president of the Australian Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance, Radio New Zealand's Nine to Noon host Kathryn Ryan - who dared to say that she thinks there is a place for commercial radio - and even some cold reality thrown in by APN's deputy chief executive Rick Neville who talked about the commercial imperatives of the industry.
The ODT's new editor, Murray Kirkness (an Aussie), spun delightful tales of how he turned around Allied Press' community newspapers with good old-fashioned journalism.
The redoubtable Judy McGregor, a former Sunday News editor, former professor of journalism and now a Human Rights Commissioner, opened the conference with a comprehensive and pretty provocative speech - including a swipe at, yes, my "bloody angry" blog against John Key.
The outcome of the conference is that EPMU is going to conduct an inquiry into the state of journalism in New Zealand. They are going to be advised by McGregor and the new head of the AUT journalism course, Associate Professor Martin Hirst, (another Aussie) who is set to become a valuable commentator on New Zealand media.
