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I don’t always get an opportunity to write about something positive. Whether political or in the media, there are so many dodgy, unpleasant, or downright despicable things happening that our attention is usually taken up by matters that are, in the main, negative.
Case in point, regarding the media, was Paul Henry’s outrageous and offensive remark to a female guest on his programme, when he enquired if she had had sex with Virgin Airlines owner, Richard Branson. The fact that the woman in question was internationally respected and renowned scientist, Dr Michelle Dickinson, who had been one of a number of people invited by Branson to attend his event, made Henry’s remarks even more repugnant.
But as some TV3 producers of Henry’s show indicated rather hysterically and defensively, it seems that Henry’s obnoxious behaviour was perfectly acceptable to them (see: Addendum 1).
Thankfully, good taste prevailed and Henry’s late night programme was dumped only after one year. Perhaps viewers were simply too tired at the end of a long working day to put up with an over-grown schoolboy revelling in his crude, moronic, “sense of humour”.
On the other end of the media spectrum, we have current affairs shows like ‘Campbell Live’. In a vast ocean of dross, John Campbell’s prime time programme of social and political stories stands out like a beacon.
Campbell and his team of professionals hold politicians to account; bring us stories of events happening in our communities; focus on the worst of human behaviour – but also highlight the very best that people are capable off. There is simply none of the jaded cynicism or political sycophancy of Mike Hosking, Campbell’s so-called “competition” on TV1. There is certainly none of the juvenile, smutty, sexist “humour” that the cretinous Paul Henry indulges in.
Campbell reflected what was happening in our own country, good and bad; noble and anti-social; and asked awkward questions of those in authority.
Hardly surprising that “Campbell Live” has won a whole slew of awards, according to this Wikipedia article;
- Campbell Live won two awards at the 2006 Qantas Television Awards including Best Current Affairs Series. The second award was for the Best News or Current Affairs Presenter for John Campbell.
- At the 2010 Qantas Television Awards, Campbell Live received three awards, one for Best Current Affairs Editing, one for Best Current Affairs Reporting and John Campbell again won for Best News or Current Affairs Presenter.
- At the 2011 Aotearoa Film and Television Awards, Campbell Live received an award for investigation of the year for their work tracking the Samoan Tsunami relief funds – presented to host John Campbell, Executive Producer Pip Keane and Producer Claudine MacLean.
- Campbell Live has also won The TV Guide Best on the Box People’s Choice Award for Best Current Affairs Show from 2011 to 2014 and Best Presenter from 2010 to 2014.
The growth of media “personalities/entertainers”, replacing professional journalists and broadcasters, is becoming more depressing with each passing year.
Media personalities like Hosking no longer even bother hiding their political allegiances. Political neutrality, it seems, is a quaint concept left behind in the 20th Century.
When so-called “broadcasters” like Mike Hosking treats a Government Minister with unquestioning reverance, whilst badgering, demeaning, and dismissing a critic of the government, we have indeed arrived at a state of affairs little better than a satrap of Putin’s Russia.
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Luckily for Hosking, he has his supporters from the National Party parliamentary wing, as Todd Barclay revealed with his injudicious comments on Twitter.
Ironically, right-wing broadcasters such as Bill Ralston – who himself has links to the National Government – has berated TV3’s moves to “review” ‘Campbell Live‘;
“I think they’re dealing with a product that they do not understand. There is a market for news and current affairs in New Zealand and there is a market for what John is doing.
The most senior management of TV3 have been gunning for John Campbell for a long while. He has been under enormous pressure and it has been lawyers, I understand, at 40 paces as they fight this one through.”
On Twitter, Ralston lamented;
For the record: TV3 top management are intellectual pygmies (excepting Jennings) who never understand good current affairs
@JohnJCampbell
Has realisation finally dawned on Ralston that a free media can be undermined by capitalism as well as authoritarian governments? Better late than never.
Bit by bit, the so-called “free” media in this country is being neutered – not by State power – but by the unrelenting, voracious hunger of commercial imperatives for profit and shareholder returns, as well as conservative, National-aligned broadcasters.
Commercial threats to the media cannot be under-estimated. Note this intriguing (and over-looked) comment on a ‘Stuff‘ website reporting on the ‘Campbell Live‘ story;
Avocado on Toast
Okay, I’m going to shed some light on this. I use to work for Mediaworks which – ten years ago up until three years ago – was an amazing place to work. Sadly a lot of managerial/decision making positions have been given to accountants or sales representatives as of late. Neither of which have any experience in how TV nor Radio actually works; all they care about is the bottom line. Redundancies/cost cuttings have been occurring across the company in all the wrong places and all the work funneled into hubs last year and this year. This saves money but puts pressure on those hub staff as they’re not re-compensated for the extra work nor given extra resources to help with the work. The only departments getting extra resources, pay increases and extra staff are sale representatives. Questioning these decisions results in “hush meetings”. They’ll be looking at Campbell Live not asking: “How can we make this better for the staff and the business?”, instead they’ll be asking: “How can we make this cheaper yet more profitable without any regard for the staff?”. They’ll cut key staff and resources then blame the staff members whom they don’t make redundant when it falls over. And I can assure you that this paragraph is EXACTLY what Mediaworks’ business model is. Mediaworks is going to implode within the next two years, I feel pretty confident in saying this as everything that I’ve said would happen three years ago up until this very story HAS happened. Thus why I happily resigned.
The reason I give credence to that comment is because precisely the same corporate policy of staff cutbacks and drop in quality has occurred at Fairfax media. Sources within Fairfax have described very similar events taking place within our newspapers – which I scrutinised in June 2013 – and which was recently covered on Radio NZ’s “Media Watch” on 5 April.
The gutting and dumbing-down of our media has been occurring at a creeping, snail’s pace.
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Recent “milestones” – of a pessimistic variety – have been the amalgamation of Wellington’s ‘Evening Post‘ and ‘Dominion‘, in July 2002; on-going redundancies of journalists and sub-editors at Fairfax NZ; axing of non-commercial TVNZ7 on 30 June 2012; replacing TVNZ’s ‘Close Up‘ with ‘Seven Sharp‘ on 4 February 2013, and many others. The scheduling of TVNZ’s ‘Q+A‘ and TV3’s ‘The Nation‘ on Saturday and Sunday mornings is an undisguised ghettoisation of political current affairs programming in this country.
Aside from ‘Campbell Live‘, only Radio New Zealand’s ‘Check Point‘ offers a serious prime-time, professional, broadcast-programme. But even Radio NZ has been the victim of a sustained, covert attack by this National government, with a freeze on funding since 2008.
Make no mistake – ‘Campbell Live‘ is the last serious current affairs programme, scheduled for prime time viewing, on our free-to-air television screens.
The threat to a free media comes not from jack-booted secret police, acting on orders from a repressive government. The threat is more subtle, and comes in the form of commercial imperatives – which demands “more from less”.
The irony here is that our newspaper, radio, and television media are quick to point to “press freedom”, when they perceive their ability to publish/broadcast as they wish, is under some form of constraint by legislation; privacy demands; national “security”; police investigations, etc.
But the real attack on freedom of the press is coming not from externalities – but from within.
The next time TV3 complains of an attack on press freedom – someone should be asking them how they reconcile the so-called free press with TV3 executives axing the last serious current affairs programme on prime-time TV.
If an authoritarian government banned ‘Campbell Live‘ from the air, TV3 would be up in arms. There would be fierce resistance; government diktats resisted; offices raided by police; arrests made; people detained.
But when their own management does it, for commercial reasons, that is evidently acceptable.
The media demand press freedom. As longer as it’s profitable.
Perhaps, as Brian Edwards pointed out in his insightful blogpost on 10 April, it is simply that public service television and commercial television are as incompatible as mixing oil and water.
In which case, the sooner we return to a dedicated, non-commercial, public-service broadcaster – the better. And commercial broadcasters like TV1, Tv2, TV3, et al, can do what they do best; broadcast crap.
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Addendum1
Petitions to save ‘Campbell Live’. Add your voice to this campaign;
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Addendum 2
On-line poll at NZ Herald (not scientific) as at mid-day, 10 April;
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Addendum 3
From MediaWork’s Mark Jennings;
“Viewer expectations in 2015 are quite different from those of 2005 – and we need to constantly review our programming to ensure we are meeting those expectations.”
Mr Jennings – I suggest pornography;
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Nothing quite like some bare flesh to push up ratings, eh?
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References
TV1: Seven Sharp – Hager and Joyce: Head to head
Fairfax media: National MP Todd Barclay blasts Campbell Live supporters
NZ Herald: Media – Hosking plugs car and Key
Wikipedia: Campbell Live – Awards
NZ Herald: Decline in Campbell Live audience not ‘sustainable’
Dominion Post: Rise in consultant costs ‘gob-smacking’
Twitter: Bill Ralston
Fairfax media: Campbell Live to be reviewed
Frankly Speaking: Pay Walls – the last gasp of a failed media business-model? (blogpost)
Radio NZ: Mediawatch for 5 April 2015 (alternative link)
Scoop media: Redundancies at Radio NZ? The funding freeze in action
NZ Herald: Campbell Live to be axed? TV bosses place show under review
Fairfax media: Behind every TV stripper
Previous related blogposts
Mike Hosking – Minister for War Propaganda?
Message to TV3 execs – Is this really acceptable?
When the mainstream media go feral: A tale of two holidays
Letter to the Editor: John Campbell expose on Key and GCSB
The trivialisation of the News and consequences
Seven Sharp turns into Serious Shite?
NZ media; the Good, the Bad, and the Very, Very, Ugly
Pay Walls – the last gasp of a failed media business-model?
Additional
Facebook: Campbell Live
Facebook: Save Campbell Live!
NZ Herald: John Campbell: Mr Conscience
Petition: TV3 – Save Campbell Live
Petition: Save Campbell Live
Other blogs
Brian Edwards: The Campbell Live Debate – A Considered View
Insight NZ: Some of the best #SaveCampbellLive tweets and statuses (so far)
No Right Turn: Save Campbell Live
Polity: John Campbell
Public Address: About Campbell Live
The Civilian: No telling how large Mike Hosking’s erection is right now
The Standard: Save Campbell Live!
The Standard: Campbell live and politicisation of media
The Political Scientist: Seven Sharp, Campbell Live and TV Ratings – The ‘Nudge’ Factor
Lefthandpalm: Campbell … live?
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= fs =
Real good Frank.
“Free to Air” TV in NZ is a dying breed. It has been a long time since almost all households channel surfed between TVNZ and TV3 offerings because thats all we had. The internet and Sky TV have stolen their thunder. When Mediaworks went bust the free market should have been left to its own devices and the company should have folded, it’s time was up. Unfortunately it was revived, sort of, and has been on artificial life support ever since.
Campbell Live is a more quality left over from that early era when we weren’t all so dumbed down in TV land. It competed with “Holmes” which itself was a commercial knock off of far better investigative journalism from NZBC days.
Campbell live is alone in a line up of utter shite on TV3, a nutritious 3 course meal in a kitchen of cheap sugary junk food. I ceased watching almost all free to air because its awful. The 6 O’Clock news that CL naturally follows on from is so weak and so reliant on the banter and appearance of its so-called “celebrities” (extreme emphasis) that you would have to go out of your way to watch CL just to avoid the rest of the rubbish. In other words, its out of place.
We must have and badly need a properly funded state broadcaster not reliant on links to the commercial world for a functioning democracy and its here Campbell Live would flourish. But in our stupefied world of broadcasting under National, that ain’t gonna happen!
Indeed not, Xray.
In fact, the Ninth Floor must be chortling with glee – the last serious prime-time current affairs show is under threat of cancellation. That leaves Key and his ministerial cronies only… Seven Sharp . I can imagine the hardest question Hosking would ever ask Key might be, “Why are you so goddamn awesome, John?”
If ever an issue demonstrated the need for a fta non-commercial public broadcaster, this is it.
But under National (Labour?) it will never happen. Not when turkeys can vote against an early Christmas. (Or stop Christmas in it’s tracks.)
And before a whole bunch of right-wingers start jumping for joy, it would be a timely reminder that if ‘Campbell Live’ goes, that leaves practically no prime time current affairs programme to hold future Labour government ministers to account either (as Campbell did, with Helen Clark, over the ‘Corngate Affair’).
I wonder if that is what they really want?
“And before a whole bunch of right-wingers start jumping for joy, it would be a timely reminder that if ‘Campbell Live’ goes, that leaves practically no prime time current affairs programme to hold future Labour government ministers to account either (as Campbell did, with Helen Clark, over the ‘Corngate Affair’).”
This same thought crossed my mind, but then I remembered that many National supporters are all so fucking infatuated with Key that they don’t believe Labour will ever hold power again.
Richarquis – apt psychological assessment.
Not that I disagree with the idea of the media holding government to account but “Corngate” really? Do you expect that example will convince right wingers to support the idea of using taxpayers funding for public service broadcasting?
How else would you do it, Gosman?
Because your precious free market seems to be failing in this respect, doesn’t it?
And why do you scoff at Campbell’s interview with Helen Clark over corngate? You should be fully aware it nearly cost Labour the election in 2002. Here is the interview, in case you need reminding: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dET78Z5b5s
“Do you expect that example will convince right wingers to support the idea of using taxpayers funding for public service broadcasting?”
Probably not. Right wingers seem to be closed to alternatives that do not fit their narrow, preconceived, view of how the world should be.
Because Corngate was a left wing inspired scaremongering campaign. You’re assuming that because Campbell used it to attack Helen Clark right wingers would be happy with the shoddy journalism involved in it. I personally dislike shoddy journalism no matter who is being targeted.
Found this reference on another site – thought it fits well here – ‘Key wants that left-wing bastard [Campbell] gone’
I want that left-wing bastard gone
The term soap opera originated from a blatant association of a drama series with the commercial interest (sponsorship) of soap manufacturers. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soap_opera#Origin_of_the_genre
It is time to extend the metaphor. We live in the age of soap-television, the free market has stripped us of alternatives.
I wondered why MSM was regurgitating the old rockstar bullshit yesterday morning. I didn’t have to wait long with Englishs announcement of the ghost surplus. Was the diversion of the first release coincidence ? Did I get the timeline wrong? Maybe. Or is there something else going on here?
Ghost surplus? WTF?
Those of us who were alive in the 70’s remember Claytons. A ghost surplus is a clayton’s surplus – the surplus you’re having when you haven’t got a surplus. FFS why can’t the general public see the emperor’s new clothes DON’T EXIST. Manufactured reality is ghost reality. The economy is billions in debt.
The economy is a turd, no matter how much you polish it with politicobullshitspeak.
George Orwell was right 60 odd years ago when he coined Newspeak – ” It is a controlled language created by the totalitarian state as a tool to limit freedom of thought, and concepts that pose a threat to the regime such as freedom, self-expression, individuality, and peace.”
ah im with you here sport but the ”ghost” reference is pertaining to the anti drink drive ad where one youth says to his mate who is in ghost form after dying in an accident “you know I cant eat your ghost chips”. This phrase has since passed into kiwi vernacular as something that’s has no substance . ie ghost bridges, ghost jobs re the northland by-election. So in fact this is not corporate manufactured newspeak but grass roots slang.
NZ is too small to support quality independent free to air TV. Indeed even in larger polities such as the UK it is only by way of an independent public funded regime that quality independent TV survives. Obviously the solution is to bring back licence fees that include capturing Sky and Internet Streaming viewers.
Campbell live is an anomaly that should be preserved, while at ties he grates on this old cynic, this is the only show that merits the title of investigative journalism.
One hopes Media Works continues its past policy with respect to Campbell Live, if they do not then they have lost an occasional viewer, I certainly wil not be watching that “lick spittle” Paul henry.
One of the most delicious ironies illustrating free market failure to deliver quality broadcasting played out in Auckland in the mid 1990s.
Alan Gibbs (yes, that Alan Gibbs) and daughter attempted and failed in their attempt to rebroadcast BBC World Service radio in NZ on a commercial basis.
Ironic because BBC World Service is a publicly funded product which wouldn’t (and couldn’t) exist in Alan Gibbs’ twisted vision of utopia (yet he recognised its worth) and because their market model failed to even manage the job of rebroadcasting it.
Good article Frank with plenty of passion in there.
Not sure if you can let the NatZ off when you say it is an inside job as TV3 look at axing Campbell live, I think they are up to their eye balls in it, especially Goebbels/Joyce.
Be interesting to see if anyone picks up on what Metira Turei sent out on their green site this AM?
Quote; “The Government opened its books yesterday and it doesn’t make pretty reading.
With just over a month to go to the Budget, John Key and Bill English are heading towards a record seventh consecutive deficit, equalling the mark set by their National mates from 1966 to 1972.
This is a Government that has sold itself as the masters of economic management, and what do we have to show for it?
To start with, there’s that string of deficits, as well as growing inequality, and a two-track economy that only benefits a small number of people.
Tax cuts for the rich and selling off our assets have done nothing to help everyday Kiwis.
There are signs of this Government’s ineptness everywhere you look; be it growing child poverty, substantial job losses or the horrendously over-inflated housing market – all of which John Key and Bill English are turning their backs to.
The Green Party is committed to promoting a fairer, greener economy for our country.
We also know that New Zealanders are depending on us to hold the Government accountable for its fiscal failings – and that’s what we’ll be focusing on over the coming months.”
Perhaps State Broadcasters TV1 & RNZ along with our Public Health Hospitals are the next on the “for sale block then?
It is so obvious that this attack of Campbell Live is of a political nature. You only have to read the book “Dirty Politics” to understand how it all works. Cut down you’re objectors & questioners & we will have lost even more democracy in NZ. If John “Sociopath” Key can’t win elections and respect from NZers on his own merit (Without Dirty Politics) then he doesn’t deserve to be PM !! Campbell live is not only watched by adults, but by children also, who learn to have “Heart & empathy” for others from this wonderful show. To lose this show for our children to learn from would be another smack in the face to education & the “Real NZ”. I see currently that huge advertisers have ad spots around “Campbell Live” so I don’t think that is their problem at all. Any drop in viewing also needs to take into account the Internet and the likes of Sky TV etc & I suggest if TV3 takes shows like Campbell Live off the air even more people will flock to alternative viewing via the internet etc. I know many like me, turn their TV “ON” just to watch the news & then Campbell Live to start our evenings. I will be turning the TV “OFF” after the news is Campbell Live goes !
I can not even believe that we now have to petition to try to keep a “Real Show” a show with “Heart” in amongst a “Reality TV Options show era”….do you realise how stupid that is !! Campbell Live IS a show for the NORMAL “Majority”, not just the fanciful who watch the idiots like Hoskins (self absorbed with self) & the “Henry” (self absorbed with self) both I might add are being paid retainers by “Sky City” (check out their backgrounds) Is NZ to be so shallow as to fall for this crap from Media and consumerism, that we are lost and follow DICTATORS like John “Sociopath” Key into a void of ……huge sigh……..CRAP is being polite. Come on peeps…John Campbell “Campbell Live” is the best “Real” Program we have right now and we need him.
“The scheduling of TVNZ’s ‘Q+A‘ and TV3’s ‘The Nation‘ on Saturday and Sunday mornings is an undisguised ghettoisation of political current affairs programming in this country.”
This has been a strong belief of mine for some time.
Indeed.
Can we expect the sort of coverage of current affairs and politics that Campbell Live delivers, from boorish right wing laddish clowns like Mike Hosking and Paul Henry?
Or the more serious, but just as cynical and arrogant, and openly partisan right wing journalist Patrick Gower?
Not likely
“Is this journalism or a party political broadcast on behalf of the National Party?”
Karol on Gower
Gower on Gower
‘With Human Beings Perception is everything’
So what will TV coverage of social issues framed by this Right wing cabal of journalists, Hosking, Henry and Gower, mean for shaping public perceptions?
Will it shape more uncaring public views?
Will those who support inequality and benefit from social injustice be the winners from these changes in public perception?
Will this shift in public broadcasting provide the necessary ideological and propaganda underpinning for future neo-liberal social and business programs?
Shaping our opinions to accept inhumane austerity programs that target the less well off, but leave the privileged and well off alone?
Leaving us a with more unequal, more uncaring and ultimately more violent and oppressive society where the wealthy live behind gated communities and are surrounded by, and protected by, a whole state apparatus of repression?
And will the media change again to reflect this more oppressive reality?
And is this a slippery slope from which it will be hard to climb back from?
Tied with more intrusive state spying, more corporate friendly laws, a more servile and openly right wing media, is this how a society slips from a caring liberal democracy into a sort of corporate fascism?
“Thankfully, good taste prevailed and Henry’s late night programme was dumped only after one year. Perhaps viewers were simply too tired at the end of a long working day to put up with an over-grown schoolboy revelling in his crude, moronic, “sense of humour”.”
But now we get it early in the morning, instead, dear Frank!
Did he not ask one of NZ’s top sportswomen (in his first show simulcast on TV3 and Radio Live), whether she was wearing anything under her tight dress, when he met her before?
The audience and viewership has changed their behaviors, I fear, which is also the real reason behind Campbell Live having lost in ratings. With constant crap and snide remarks coming not just from talk-back radio hosts now, with such silly, sexist and also at times racist remarks coming not only from Paul Henry, but also some others on TV, the viewers get less sensitive and start considering this as “normal”. It is now acceptable for radio and TV hosts to constantly express their personal opinion and feelings about politics, entertainment and any other topic. That is as long as it fits the agenda of their employers and government. It is all infotainment now, not information that we get – not objective, well researched information that is.
The steady drop of water hollows out the rocks, we know, the same applies to media and brainwashing and manipulation.
The voters decided last election as they did, because the media “massaged” their minds, to bring the results that the bosses and Nat friendly players in the media, backed by their commercial advertisers, wanted to have.
Brainwashing works, I fear, it worked for the Nazis, for other dictators and suppressive regimes, it certainly works here in NZ also. Divide and rule, accept “humour” that others may consider offensive, and follow the crowd, so herd behaviour goes.
Consumerism is the “modern day” value that is widely promoted, shop and you will be, shop not and you will not be, kind of. Then the diy shows tell you to do up homes, as that is “smart” and pays off, as you can benefit from the exploding house prices and sell a done up home for good gains.
These young people featuring in the home do up shows, the master kitchen competitions and so, they are celebrated like stars, also some appearing on talent shows. It is all about compete, consume, show off, be better than others, as you earn your right to be better, and others must therefore be losers if they cannot do the same.
That is the messages they send, the neoliberal minded mainstream media, paid by advertisers, who determine where the journey must go. It is highly political, but most cannot see this, as they have not been taught to think politically, they are just consumers, individual fighters and opportunists, and want nothing to do with politics. At the same time they are extremely manipulated, Goebbels or the Communist dictators in the Eastern Block countries could not have done as good a job as the manipulating media are these days in much of the western world, the whole world really.
New Zealand stands out with its deregulated, privately owned and dominated media, and I know no other country where you get so much advertising and commercials and trailers broadcast per hour here. Sadly most have got used to it, and those that can afford it, they simply use new media that cuts out advertising, all at an extra cost, not necessarily monetary, as using such media cuts out many news services, e.g. consists of films, entertainment shows and games, little else.
A masterstroke by the manipulators to let the people decide, the manipulated people, to no longer watch Campbell Live, as it may make them too depressed, to hear the at times critical reports. People are brainwashed to “think positive”, and there is where the government comes in also, it is all good on Planet Key, dissenters are only troublemakers and must therefore be shut up or neutered.
Well said Pat,
Why can Nasty NatZ use openly our public funded media for Party Political broadcasts?
What ever happened to “Conflict of interest”
Has National completely removed this protective last covenant for keeping corruption out of politics?
Mediaworks already programming soft Porn with a few opornions thrown in.
Not just female scientists Porn Henry frotts over Frank.
Netballer Maria Tutia’s knickers too.
How can Hilary Barrie stomach it?
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