Mediawatch's weekly catch-up with Lately. This week Colin talks to Karyn Hay about a chilling picture of the White Island rescue risks, RNZ's ads riling the rest of the media, more on Critic's campaign on party politics - Clive James' online life after death.
White Island rescue risks laid bare
The landing bay on Whakaari/White Island as seen from a helicopter on approach. Photo: Supplied/Auckland Rescue Helicopter Trust
After the eruption in December, some journalists and armchair pundits amplified calls from chopper pilots and relatives urging the powers-that-be to authorise an immediate recovery mission - in spite of warnings from experts it wasn't safe.
Patrick Gower for example said pilots told him it would only take 20 minutes to get all the bodies off the island.
20 minutes. That is what is needed to get the bodies off White Island. The chopper pilots know their stuff. Tne Prime Minister needs to listen to them and the families. We need to give them that 20 minutes.
— Patrick Gower (@patrickgowernz) December 11, 2019
Other pundits complained risk averse ‘health and safety’ culture had hamstrung the Police and Defence Force.
But when the SAS did recover bodies four days later, it took hours. Their commanding officer later said it took the soldiers to their physical limits - and beyond.
This week more details of the risks emerged when documents released to media under the OIA revealed the head of the Defence Force signed a special exemption to bypassing health and safety protocols.
"Eight members of the Defence Force ventured onto Whakaari / White Island in December, knowing there was a chance they could inhale toxic gases or have their skin burned by acidic sludge," RNZ’s Ben Strang reported:
"Defence Force personnel made their way to Whakatane, and ran through their preparation for heading to the island. That included a rehearsal before the recovery operation itself, in which the men and women who would head to the island would run through the use of their suits, and how loading of bodies onto the helicopters would work, he said "
Stuff’s report said the team admitted they were unprepared for the "unbelievable conditions"
But they would have been far less prepared and rehearsed if those journalists and pundits urging the NZDF to go immediately had held sway.
RNZ's ads annoy fellow media
RNZ’s rolled out its biggest ad campaign in years, with roadside billboards, the backs of buses and even pitchside during upcoming Super Rugby clashes - mostly in and around Auckland.
There’s also a lot of digital advertising - even ads in podcast feeds:
RNZ interrupting my Real Housewives podcast to entice me over to their ad free content. I wonder when they’re starting a Bravo recap show
— Heather Goode (@HeatherGoode1) March 3, 2020
But sponsored ads also going out online on social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram - and some of the slogans in them - are rubbing other journos up the wrong way.
Interesting ad from RNZ especially in light of Mediaworks’ arguments against TVNZ.
— Thomas Coughlan (@coughlthom) March 2, 2020
Government agency now throwing ad money to Facebook to attack the paywall of one of our biggest news providers.
Also... come to stuff, it’s free as well. pic.twitter.com/ttdcrhf51j
"I don't have it in for RNZ. They do an incredible job with a tiny budget. Media is an ecosystem and the state broadcaster should probably act responsibly in that ecosystem. Chucking money to Facebook to troll an effort by private media to survive isn't responsible," Stuff's Thomas Coughlan said on Twitter.
The Herald's Simon Wilson added:
"Hey @radionz all news is paid for. By advertising, by the cost of the paper at the newsagent, by subscription, by sponsors or, ahem, by taxes. We pay for every second of your news, and for your advertising promotions."
Meanwhile the NBR - which depends upon subscriber revenue and run its own online paywall - ran the headline: RNZ launches anti-paywall offensive with public purse.
“The campaign (is) seen by some as rubbing salt in the wound of declining commercial journalism models,” said the NBR's Dita Di Boni, a former RNZ producer.
“It is not so much the cost of the ads but the fact they are being used by publicly-funded RNZ to undermine a paywall for premium content among its commercial competitors that has attracted some ire,” she said.
Stuff’s Sinead Boucher told the NBR the tone of the campaign was: “appalling – to not just promote RNZ’s own work but instead to actively undermine other news organisations, who are not state-funded and who slog it out every day.”
To add insult to injury (or the other way round?) the RNZ ads were displaying in the building of the Wellington HQ.
One reason why the tone of some slogans is jarring is that RNZ currently runs a policy of “radical sharing” - giving ts content to all bona-fide news media outlets in New Zealand. The idea is to become part of the media ecosystem and cross-fertilise commercial media.
RNZ CEO Paul Thompson said in 2018
“In this environment, public service media have a unique responsibility to help their commercial counterparts survive. Gone are the days when publicly-funded media were obliged to compete for market share.“
This marketing campaign is about reaching people RNZ doesn’t currently connect with - in pursuit of its current mission “to grow both the size and diversity of its audiences to 1-in-2 New Zealanders a week - and develop lifelong relationships with the all people of Aotearoa,” RNZ ciurrent Staement of Intent says. .
In doing so, RNZ's aggressive ad slogans have strained relations with media peers.
Commercial media were already up-in-arms about state-funded media being backstopped by government policy while there’s no sign of any intervention to sustain them. This has made it worse.
Clive James: online life after death
Photo: Screengrab
A fascinating article by pioneering kiwi tech writer Richard McManus about writer, broadcaster and critic Clive James who died last November after years of illness: Internet Amnesia: Clive James & his website
Richard says Clive James was “one of the great preservers, and explainers, of twentieth century culture” and he he viewed his website as a way to preserve his work - and that of others.
He told The Financial Times in 2015:
““The website is a version of immortality, isn’t it? It’s a bit like an Egyptian pyramid without the drawbacks. It doesn’t take up any space. When I caught myself thinking of living for ever through the website, I, luckily, was saved by a more sane and humane insight, which is to preserve other people’s stuff, along with mine.”
Photo: screenshot
Richard writes:
“What he didn’t realise is that the Web forgets the past all too easily, and sometimes erases it entirely.”
www.clivejames.com/ went offline at the end of 2018, when its hosting service wasn’t renewed.
Last Sunday Richard updated the piece to say he was given a tip on Twitter to contact Stephen J Birkill, who runs a website devoted to Clive James’s songwriting partner Pete Atkin: peteatkin.com.
Mr Birkill decided to create his own online archive of James’ work using The Wayback Machine copy of clivejames.com as foundation.
While he was working on the alternative archive, the official clivejames.com site suddenly re-emerged last September – thanks to its webmaster Dawn Mancer.
He and Pete Atkin then met Clive at his Cambridge home in October just seven weeks before his death, and agreed that Birkill would carry on independently of Dawn’s site - and that Clive’s daughter would take over the editing of the ‘official’ clivejames.com.
“The end result is that there are now two Clive James websites: the official one, clivejames.com, still run (at time of writing) by Dawn Mancer and a second one being built by Stephen Birkill, currently residing in draft form at clivejames.peteatkin.com.
You can read more about Mr Birkill’s project here.
Critic confronts party politicians
Handy hints from the Critic editor - possibly warming up for a political exchange with a local MP. Photo: screenshot
Last week Sinead Gill - editor of Otago University student magazine Critic - stirred up a mini-controversy with her decision to give party politics a swerve in the magazine in election year expressed in the memorably-titled editorial: F*** The 2020 Election And Fuck Anyone Who Wants Me To Cover It.
“Party politics is boring and bullshit, and politicians are too,” she wrote.
“Critic interviewed a couple of available politicians over O-Week to give them the benefit of the doubt and make sure that I wasn’t just being a c***. But we did, and I was right,” she explained.
Hayden Donnell asked her about her staunch stance:
“I’m still going to cover issues and policies but not the party political shitfighting that comes with it. There’s a million hot take and plain reporting about what these politicians say - but you don't see young peoples’ voices. They get talked about - and talked to instead,” she said.
“It makes me feel gross that these politicians don't want to come to talk to students themselves and they want to ue my magazine to communicate with them,” she said.
Hayden mentioned her anti-politics stance has angered quite a few people, among them former Broadcasting Minister and South Dunedin MP Clare Curran, who tweeted:
“Sad & tbh small-minded to think that all uni students care about is fees. Has she heard about climate change or mental health? Or does she just exist in an ego-centric bubble? Happy to debate her any day.”
Sinead took her up on that and offered to bring the wine for a afternoon get-together.
@clarecurranmp hey lmk if/when you're keen to come have that yarn in the Critic Office. I've got some goon
— Sinead Gill (@sinead_gill) February 26, 2020
Critic live streamed it on Facebook and Clare's yarn about being busted for pot back in the day led to this Stuff story - and others.
