NZers owe a debt of gratitude to those courageous MediaWorks staff who finally stood up to Weldon and said ‘no more’. A Democracy is as weak as it’s media, and the defanged lap dog Weldon had turned TV3 into left us with little in term of guard dogs.
Co-incidentally, the unemployment rate was announced at 5.7% just before Weldon resigned, so technically the unemployment rate now is 5.7001%.
Some have claimed the disruption caused by Weldon is simply a reality being faced by all broadcasting monoliths, and while that is true, the solution lies not in destroying the journalistic integrity of a news service, the solution lies in a new paradigm for public interest broadcasting funded by the tax payer through a Government who sees the importance and obligation of a well funded public broadcasting policy.
The citizens of a democracy need well funded public broadcasting with an ethos centred in the values of the fourth estate to be aware enough to cast a vote once every 3 years. Working out how we fund the next generation of journalists and journalism is vital.
This is a problem that MediaWorks needs to solve and solve quickly. The only profitable arm of MediaWorks is the radio side. Radio still use diary systems for ratings meaning they can jack up and bloat out any old number of listeners with little in way of truth. Online media with its ruthless efficiency at counting real audience numbers lost that privilege a long time ago. Once radio is forced to use a a much more honest ratings system, the justification for their prices will plummet, and the cash cow at MediaWorks dies.
Which brings us back to needing a regulated media market that forces obligations on all industry players and looks at wider funding options from NZ on Air. If the journalism of tomorrow is to have any quality, public broadcasting is necessary but we need a Government who doesn’t benefit from our ignorance to gain power before we will see any real changes.
Oh, and welcome back TV3.
Bye bye Mark Weldon. Try and convince Julie Christie to join you on the ranks of the currently unemployed.
I hear John Key is looking for another trust lawyer? Maybe you and Julie could job-share?
All I want to know is, is when John Campbell is coming back to Campbell Live?
Lets see if the brave journalists can now call a spade a spade again like “Corporatism” is privately operated/controlled “communism” simply put!!!!!
It is the purse string holders that determine who stays and goes at Mediaworks, it is the ones that pay and dictate the terms, nothing short of that.
Any day dreaming about the journalists there having much to say is a waste of time, as this is simply not happening.
The departure of staff and news-readers has led to questions and embarrassment, and Weldon may have been a significant and responsible person to be shown the door, there are others that continue to reign, after all this.
Instead of wasting too much time with Mediaworks and other privately owned and run media, we should focus on demanding that RNZ and TVNZ are returned to being true public broadcasters, and that their existence, resources and framework to work in are maintained and improved.
Snide remarks by one Mr Joyce should not deter us, he is one major factor to target, he has a lot to answer for, that man, as he has many connections and influence behind the scenes.
You’re forgetting Maggie Thatcher and her handbag Martyn
AGREED MARTYN,
God we love you TV3 Journo’s, you who finally stood up for us all here so long without a voice, suffering under the brutal clutches of excessive Government over reach into media control through their stool pigeon, they placed to silence your free spirit.
Go with your heart and tell what your spirit tells you now and not your fear.
Thank you.
Regardless of who is running TV3 Martin the same mindless misinformed shit will apply. Hillary Barry is still just an autocue reader that repeats the drivel put in front of her, without question or informed insight, they are a dime a dozen.
Thank you Petroleum. You appear to be thinking rather than cheering for the sake of it. I thought Weldon an overpaid jumped up corporatist. I think the journos as underperforming self entitled talking heads. So they celebrate thinking they are the story…why the he’ll should we join them?
Fekk Pedro I have autocorrect on my phone and it assumes you are flammable. I hate technology.
This whole drama has to be put into perspective. These people are, in many cases, extremely well paid pampered princes and princesses and in some cases extremely egotistical individuals who work at Mediaworks who are not exactly in touch with reality. This is not like the poor workers at Fisher and Paykel, to name one of many industries in this country, who have watched their quality jobs vanish on the back of globalisation to third world exploitative countries so the wealthy can get even more wealthy.
TV3 was going downhill before Weldon, he did not hire Patrick Gower, but of course he did, all on his own, hit the self destruct button and although John Drinnan refuses to accept it, in the name of partisan politics. And he did hire Paul Henry and Rachael Glucina!
It remains to be seen if the vulture fund that owns Mediaworks replace like with like and will the likes of Joyce call in more favours for bailing his old place out with our money?
MSM in NZ is shite, propaganda merchants for Joyce and Key, reminiscent of Goebbels and Hitler in Germany 1930’s-1940’s?
The end took so long to arrive, so much blood was spilled, so much harm done…but hey these days that’s the way things are, over paid idiots are made to appear intelligent, TV3 is doomed as is most main stream media as it nose dives in to the corrupt morass of political PR spin…
They’ve a very long way to go before I “welcome them back”.
A total clean out of their apalling political reporting and political editorial team would be a basic neccessity.
‘Working out how we fund the next generation of journalists and journalism is vital. This is a problem that MediaWorks needs to solve and solve quickly.’
Commerical media and the whole truth and nothing but the truth are mutually exclusive concepts.
Good wee opinion piece from Raybon Kan …this whole sorry episode should be a lesson about political tampering.
And no ….not everyone gets off on happy clappy tinsel town inspired dross … a lot of us want solid and truthful representation on important issues . Free from embellishment, deliberate omissions or any other sort of bullshit designed to enhance political bias.
If we want to read a Mickey Mouse comic we can go buy one, – until then when it comes to solid accurate reporting, investigative journalism we damn well expect that of our prominent media.
And if any political party or Prime Minister is worth their salt they bloody well shouldn’t have to resort to perverting and tampering with our main stream media in order to stay in power.
That said , obvious and overt political toadies such as Paul Henry and Mike Hosking deserve to be rooted out and sacked as part of this whole undemocratic and politically biased takeover of our media.
When that day comes , – then we can truly say we are working towards a level playing field politically. Then we can say we have a media doing its job as it should have been doing for the last 7 years.
Until then , there is a long way to go to return to an unbiased , informative media that can honestly credit itself with being able to call itself just that : a ‘ news media’.
Christ, the guy must have been a monster, judging by some of TV3 staffs’ scathing comments regarding Weldon’s time at the network!
What sort of person calls a meeting of senior personnel and tells them he’s “the smartest person in the room” (as the NZH has reported)?
FJK’s mate Mark Weldon, that’s who!
I guess now Weldon, like Fletcher will disappear into the wilderness of nothing, never to be seen or heard of again! So much for being chum(p)s of FJK.
Next to do a disappearing act … Ken Whitney?
So with that Weldon man gone, who will be next? Or will there be anybody else who will be cut loose from the Mediaworks noose?
I think it may be a bit of a symbolic sacrifice they made, and that they will more or less continue with their new direction, that is Mediaworks.
More infotainment, entertainment and also dumbing down is what is planned, making light of everything, while we should be seriously worried about the future of this country.
This morning one Mr Paul Henry showed once again, what an arrogant, patronising and insulting character he is.
But he had two sit in on a panel after 08.15 am, who were members of the modern day, upper class, mediocre NZ Who is Who celeb circle, commenting on stuff like car window washers and welfare sanctions.
One Ingrid Hipkiss, weather woman on the TV3 news that are only in part “news”, referred to beneficiaries as “useless”, and a young man, I have forgotten his name, he was another do well urban liberal, commenting on the poorest of the poor, those at the bottom of society. Hipkiss asked re the high number of sanctions of beneficiaries since 2013, whether the people would not learn (from being sanctioned), her offsider thinking, well they may not all be the same people failing to meet obligations repeatedly.
Paul Henry set the whole brief “discussion” up to deliver the usual light and silly and biased fare, commenting himself on “the rest of us paying for this circus” (“circus” being the welfare system, I suppose).
Within 3 or four minutes those “topics” were dealt with, to make room for the next round of commercials and more lighthearted stuff to be presented the idiots that still mostly bother watching this show.
I tune in at times, just to remind myself how low TV3, yes the broadcasting (or boredcasting) media have sunk. It is a reality check, and it is quite depressing.
It is time to get rid of Henry and his entourage, I reckon, it is overdue, or the journey down the gurgler will simply continue, that is in regards to ratings and “quality”.
Good riddance to him. A close relative was one of Weldon’s casualties and after eight months is still having to rebuild her confidence and self-esteem!!
To the NZ “media”:
“The media has failed. Many news networks are cartoonish parodies of their former selves, individual billionaires appear to have taken up newspaper ownership as a hobby, limiting coverage of serious matters concerning the wealthy, and serious investigative journalists lack funding. The impact is real: in addition to Süddeutsche Zeitung and ICIJ, and despite explicit claims to the contrary, several major media outlets did have editors review documents from the Panama Papers. They chose not to cover them. The sad truth is that among the most prominent and capable media organizations in the world there was not a single one interested in reporting on the story. Even Wikileaks didn’t answer its tip line repeatedly.”
Quoted from ‘John Doe’, whistleblower who brought us the Panama Papers:
http://panamapapers.sueddeutsche.de/articles/572c897a5632a39742ed34ef/
Remember what your jobs are supposed to be, we want reports on what matters, to have our democracy restored, thanks!
“Panama Papers? What t. f. is that? I roll mine in Rizla papers, mate.”
If you want to talk about dumbed down people, just chat with a so-called average NZ MSM journo, they “know” what is relevant and of interest to the dumbed down public (too may in the public, I do not want to offend all of them).
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