49: NZ is more than just rugby now

Sport is a big, fat metaphor for everything, but it's still just a metaphor. And despite many claims to the contrary, especially with the Lions series about to start, the whole country doesn't live or die on the result of an All Blacks game.

Once upon a time,this might have been the case, where the only joy to be found in grey old New Zealand was the thrill of a big test match, or in the frenzied swill before the six o'clock closing at the pub. Ninety percent of the population did once give a genuine shit about the All Blacks selections, and there were days of national mourning if we lost to the bloody Springboks.

But even those of us who grew up being bullied by the dickheads in our high school's First XV, sparking a life-long loathing of the game and the macho bullshit culture around it, can recognise that while there is still a significant proportion of the population who deeply care about rugby, it's not the full sum of New Zealand culture anymore.

Maybe, once upon a time, it really was a major part of the nation's identity, but the country has come a long way since then, and has more art and culture than it has ever had before to fill that void.

There was still some gnashing of teeth after the one loss to Ireland last year, especially when it fucked the All Blacks' world record, and there were a few of the usual quiet demands for immediate change in coaches and team members, but most rugby fans were happy to concede the fact that no team wins everything all of the time. And besides, at least it wasn't the bloody English.

There are those whose job is it to observe and analyze the finest minute details of every game, and this includes coaching teams and media groups, but we want these people to take these things seriously, so we don't have to.

The bore who gets too loud at the game - swearing at the opposition and booing every damn thing - or the jerk who just can't let the referring go - and has to go on and on about the unfairness of it all - might be the loudest voices of talkback radio, but they're still a minority.

Most people can still enjoy a game, and can still be a little bit gutted when they're losing, but it's all fun and games, and life goes on. The frankly traumatic world cup losses in 1995 and 2007 soaked up most of the nation's disappointments for a long while, and while they made the inevitable victory – and astonishing run of wins the All Blacks are currently on – all the sweeter, they also showed us that it is just a game, and not worth crying over.

Most sports media is actually still focused on pure results – scores and figures and averages and placings, reducing the complexity of the world to easy-to-digest nuggets of endeavor and effort. It's actually a rigorous, exhausting and unappreciated role, especially when you're trying to avoid dull cliches, and unfortunately, it's the loud ranting that is easiest to hear.

Apparently, towards the end of the last international season, all of Ireland was up in arms over dirty tactics, and all of NZ was angry and annoyed by the one blot on their record this year, if you just followed a few hyperactive columns, blogs and broadcasts.

But the loudest voices don't just give a false impression of the importance of a rugby match, they blot out the more thoughtful analysis, and everybody really needs to be playing a game of two halves.

-Katherine Grant

48: 'But there's no sexism in NZ!' says Clive from Wanganui

A selection of tweets from Susie Ferguson, RNZ Morning Report presenter and genuine legend:

This just in: "Susie is not interested in informing us only on scoring points herself is she going through the Menopause!!"

— Susie Ferguson (@SusieFergusonNZ) February 19, 2017

I think this text to RNZ is in connection with the Massey vet row.. "Another male terrorised by the feminist bitch SS media lobby"

— Susie Ferguson (@SusieFergusonNZ) December 14, 2016

On the RNZ texts - there's "a overepresentation of silly opinionated whining female news readers".
Hmm, always thought I had a deepish voice

— Susie Ferguson (@SusieFergusonNZ) October 24, 2016

And now on the text, I'm told I'm "disparaging, rude and frankly quite
stupid" and "crass".

They're out in force this morning.

Lovely.

— Susie Ferguson (@SusieFergusonNZ) December 14, 2016

Just been called a "moron bitch" by a listener on text to RNZ. Ach, you sweet talking charmer..

— Susie Ferguson (@SusieFergusonNZ) October 17, 2016

The text Kim referred to.. "We can xpect anothr week of feminist soapbx grandstanding passing as news can we?"
Up and at 'em today.

— Susie Ferguson (@SusieFergusonNZ) December 4, 2016

As @janepatterson and I spoke abt SAS raid, this text came in
"If you hav not the stomach for war go back to the kitchen where you belong"

— Susie Ferguson (@SusieFergusonNZ) March 27, 2017

Txt to RNZ: "Well no wonder kiwi men look to other countries for a wife after listening to those 3 kiwi women you just interviewed"

— Susie Ferguson (@SusieFergusonNZ) November 9, 2016

On the RNZ text: "Did ya have thistles for breakfast then?"

Oh yeah!
Every. Single. Day.

Sheesh

— Susie Ferguson (@SusieFergusonNZ) May 22, 2017

More from the RNZ text: Suzie is very impatient & it shows in her voice. She continues to interrupt people.The IV is not about her. 1/2

— Susie Ferguson (@SusieFergusonNZ) November 2, 2016

In last 3 wks I've been told "don't be cute" & "don't be smart" by male interviewees on @NzMorningReport.
👀
So.. smart AND cute then?
😂

— Susie Ferguson (@SusieFergusonNZ) September 28, 2016

Guyon doesn't have to put up with this shite.

- Perry White

47: Canon fodder

Media Scrum would like to congratulations all the winners from the Canon Awards on Friday night. The victorious few were just a tiny fraction of the incredible amount of great journalism going on in New Zealand newsrooms at the moment, but they certainly highlighted some of the very best.

In particular, we'd like to congratulate Matt Nippert, whose award was one absolutely everybody could agree with, and the NZ Herald in general - as far as this blog is concerned, that's still the strongest collection of reporting talent in the country.

Congratulations also go to all those who were nominated - they might not have gone home with a plaque or little monument, but we hope they enjoyed all the small reunions and unbridled gossip that always take place at the event.

Well done to those who didn't get too drink of the free wine in the first half of the ceremony, before the bloody food came out.

And particular congratulations must be paid to the poor fuckers who still had to work in a newsroom on Friday night, getting the latest bulletin or newspaper ready, watching on Twitter some of their colleagues party it up while they're trying to find a photo for the fucking rugby. We hope you at least got some free pizza out of it.

The staff at Media Scrum still have three day-long hangovers, because we're such light-weights when it comes to the drink these days, so that's all you're getting out of us today. See you on Thursday.

Love,

Media Scrum

46: We're sorry, but nobody cares what you think

A decade after the internet really came into popular use, technology gurus started throwing around the phrase 'web 2.0', promising a new era of interactivity, with a process driven by the end user, with glorious new content created by some kind of strange symbiosis between the provider and the consumer.

Unfortunately, with the harsh benefit of hindsight, it's easy to see that this whole idea really didn't work out that well for the media. This type of thinking led down the dead end of blindly following analytics, and getting rid of people like trained photographers, because the public could be begged for photos, or they could just be nicked from social media.

And it led to the awful, awful mire of comment sections.

There is a noble idea behind comments, and in a perfect world, they would be a sharp-as-fuck way of getting new information and perspectives, with readers sharing views, and new connections built between news websites and their audiences.

Unfortunately, they tend to get taken over by shit-lickers whose only goal in life is to prove that they are absolutely right about absolutely everything, and anybody who disagrees is a moron. Somehow, they always seem to devolve into bun-fights about politics or religion. Every fucking time.

Moderating these comments for the big news sites is one of the shittiest jobs in media, and if you think they're a cesspool as they are, you should really see the kind of sexist, racist and generally appalling rubbish that gets denied. There is no chance of building a community in this ocean of bile.

Unsurprisingly, now that we're another 10 years past the promise of Web 2.0, many media organisations are giving up the fight and shutting down the comments altogether. The Spinoff and RNZ both made a fairly big deal about getting rid of them last year, and even the NZ Herald quietly shoveled them off its opinion pieces, without making much of a deal about it.

You can't really blame them - there is too much to lose, for so little gain. The moderisation of comments was essential, because the companies who host the comments become responsible for what is said on them. If Joe Fuckballs from Waicuntiki breaks a suppression order in a court case, it's the business that is liable, not the anonymous dickhead.

RNZ knows this better than most – it was recently found to have breached standards because of a goddamn Facebook post, which cannot be moderated before being published. The fact that the funding-frozen organisation just did not have the resources to have somebody watching what these shitbirds are saying on Facebook 24/7 didn't cut much slack, and it was held responsible for the gross and childish behaviour in comments on its posts.

This might seem like prosecuting the owner of a wall that has had some obscene grafitti sprayed upon it, but that's the standard that has been set, and it's a shit-sight easier to knock the fucking wall down in the first place, or at least put up some big fuck-off barbed wire so nobody can get to it.

Everybody's got arseholes and opinions, and everybody wants to share both of them on the internet, but if you're annoyed that these sites don't give you the chance to say something about their stories, it's tough shit. You might be looking for somewhere to shit out your vital and unique opinion on general news topics, because this is why you can't have nice things.

- Katherine Grant

45. The blame game behind low election turnouts

The local election season came and went last year, with the usual shrugs and yawns. A good two-thirds of eligible voters made it clear that they didn't give a flying fuck about who ran our cities, towns and health boards, and didn't bother to fill out their ballots.
 
There were a number of possible reasons for this failure to engage with the public – the convoluted election process, the depressing array of talent that were up for election, or the postal voting system, which forced generations of people who have never licked a stamp to figure out how post boxes work.

And, of course, it was all the media's fault. It didn't take long for that blame and shame to be thrown about, that the entire media was apparently failing in its duty to inform. Everyone would have voted if they only knew the personalities and issues involved, and it was a failure on the news industry's part that was responsible for low turn-outs.

As usual, RNZ's Mediawatch programme had a crack at all the coverage immediately after the local elections took place, and was deeply concerned that national media outlets were not covering hyper-local issues. It was all backed up by chin-stroking comment from media personalities who hadn't actually worked in a newsroom for more than a quarter of a century, but knew it just wasn't the same anymore.

Unfortunately, this skated over the fact that there wasn't room in the 27 minutes of news on the national television stations to get really in-depth with things like local boards or councils, and the fact that were covered at all was a minor miracle.

It also glossed over the fine work done by a lot of great journalists at a lower level, at small newspapers and local radio stations, the people who do go to staggeringly dull debates and council meetings. Newsrooms have been depleted, but there is still a lot of great work going on at that level – local journalism for local people.

Mediawatch even ignored the fine efforts of its own reporters at RNZ – with strong work including Todd Niall's reporting in Auckland, Lois Williams' coverage up north, or Tracy Neal's stories from the top of the South Island. Mediawatch did find some nice things to say about The Spinoff's work in Auckland, but this was a bit undermined when the next day The Spinoff published a hot take from a Wellington Council comms person, who lamented and moaned that the coverage of the things they were directly involved with was so limited.

Fortunately, when a comms monkey is sad that you didn't tell the story they wanted you to tell, you know you're doing something right as a reporter.

When things get a bit more national, there is obviously a lot more coverage, and you can see that already with this year's general election - there are already plenty of stories from the big organisations on election pledges, promises and bribes.

There will, of course, still be a worryingly low election turn-out, and plenty of opinionating about the possible need for compulsory voting, and how to get the message out. And, once again, there will be loads of moans that it's all the media's fault, even after months and months of coverage.

But the media hasn't got the hang of diluting essential news into liquid form and injecting it into everybody's eyeballs yet, and short of that, it's hard to see what more New Zealand's newsrooms can do to spread the message of policies and personalities.

It's an easy target to blame journalists for low turnout, but it takes more than wall-to-wall coverage to get people off their fat arses and down to the polling booth, and the underlying reasons behind this might be a bit more complex than an easy blame game.

- Steve Lombard

44: Getting the most out of the OE

Like many New Zealanders, a lot of young journalists see heading overseas as a inevitable step in the process of building a career. Reporters who have reached the top newspapers, radio stations and TV shows in this country before they turn 30 invariably start looking at an OE as the logical next move forward.

Fortunately, the Kiwi work ethic has a strong reputation around the globe, and the willingness of our nation's youth to work overseas is equally well-known, so you find Kiwis in newsrooms all over the bloody world. There are little enclaves of ex-pats working at Al Jazeera, or the Telegraph, or in US cable news, and they soak up many of their countrymen and women that are away from home for a few years.

Some of them thrive on their overseas adventures and become big shots in big organisations - journos who have a global reputation include former 3News reporter Elizabeth Puranam at Al Jazeera, and Taranaki's finest Lucy Hockings, who has been a familiar face at the BBC for well over a decade.

And some of them disappear inside these megalithic organisations, swallowed up by huge multi-national news beasts. Big names in the NZ media pool fade away when they try to swim with the big fish, and some barely make an impact at all.

That's if they can even get their foot in the door in the first place. Unfortunately, when it comes to looking for jobs in the news media, it's all about who you know, and that is especially true when you're thousands of miles from home and nobody knows your name.

Unless you do know somebody at one of these tiny enclaves of NZ journos, it can be really tough. Nobody in the UK or the States or even Australia cares about all those Canon awards you won, or how you fucking nailed Michael Laws in that interview that one time, what makes you any different from the thousand other people looking for work?

It has become a lot harder to find a good job overseas, and a lot of that is because there are way, way more people looking for media work over there. After two decades of cutbacks and redundancies, thousands of journalists in countries like Canada and the UK apply for jobs, and standing out in that pack can be an absolute nightmare.

Even though we've had our fair share of cuts in our tiny island nation, the smaller scale of the media scene in this country has helped, because there aren't the same huge amount of folk floating around in freelance hell or short-term contract nothingness. Even a strong job in NZ's news media will only have a few dozen serious candidates - which can still be shitty odds, but it's better than thousands.

This is likely to change again soon - the Fairfax/NZME merger disapproval means there will be a flood of unemployed journalists suddenly looking for work soon, and they are likely to run smack into a bunch returning home from overseas, looking for a bit more stability in the world.

But it's not all doom and gloom, there are always good jobs going here at home as somebody else heads off on a grand adventure. And there are all sorts of new opportunities for journo work overseas if you think outside the box a bit. Kiwi reporter Laura McQuillan does terrific work for Fairfax from her Canadian home, and can provide invaluable overnight coverage of a big international event for the Stuff website.

The world is getting smaller and smaller, but that also means new doors are opening all the time, and there are plenty of us ready to rush through them.

- Ron Troupe

43: Even more journos who get the job done

It's only been a few short months since Media Scrum sounded off on some of our favourite journos, and many of them have already abandoned these shores, or moved onwards and upwards. While Alexander, Bridgeman, Niall, Ryan and Singh are all still fighting the good fight, Donnell, Hall and Hassan have all buggered off overseas. And Hudson is now a big fancy news director, while Nordqvist is doing a stellar job presenting and producing Newshub's new 4pm show.

So it feels like the right time to throw some shout-outs to some more of our favourite journos working in the NZ news media scene. There are dozens and dozens of truly great reporters, editors, producers, camera-people and subs out there, and these eight great journos are just the tip of the iceberg, but it's a start.

Claire Eastham-Farrelly/Rebekah Parsons-King, RNZ visual journalists: Getting journalists whose sole job is to provide visual content is a relatively new move for public radio, but both Eastham-Farrelly and Parsons-King have been producing great photos and videos for the RNZ website, most notably on the recent excellent 9th Floor series. There are a lot of great visual journos out there, especially on the local papers, but these guys get special mention here because they have to put up with endless goddamn dad jokes about taking photos for a radio station. 

Nicola Kean, The Nation producer: One of those news journos who seems to be at the centre of the media universe, (she knows everybody), Kean has also been one of the main driving forces behind the success of The Nation on TV3 in recent years. She's a top producer and a sharp reporter, with a keen eye for some of the absurdities of modern politics. There aren't enough meaty politics shows like The Nation on TV at the moment, especially in an election year, but at least this one has some of the best talent behind the camera.

Anna Leask, NZ Herald reporter: Leask's police copy for the country's biggest paper has been sharp as fuck for years now, with a no-bullshit style that doesn't mess about, whether it's covering the day-to-day drudgery of urban crime, or bigger features on moments of great injustice. She's breaking out of the demands of daily print journalism with a new book this year, looking at life inside the NZ prison system, which will no doubt feature more of those disturbing truths, told with the same straight talk.
 

Charlie Mitchell, Fairfax environment reporter: The best reporters don't let go when they get stuck into a meaty subject, and Mitchell has proven the worth of this with a brilliant series of articles looking at the issue of water quality in New Zealand's rivers, streams and lakes.  The appalling drop in this quality is a goddamn national disgrace, and Mitchell isn't going to let anybody forget it. This is especially important when everybody involved is too busy trying to shift the blame to do anything about it, so expect plenty more stories about the whole mess to come.

Michael Morrah, Newshub reporter: Like Mitchell, Morrah doesn't let go of a story once the first headlines have faded, and his ongoing work on issues related to fishing in New Zealand waters has been an exemplary example of that. It can be difficult to fit exclusive stories into the hard format of a TV news bulletin, but Morrah continues to find new stories and angles that no other journalist in the country has even thought of. Along with TVNZ's Barbara Dreaver, his continuing coverage of Pacific affairs stories is a vital part of the journalism scene in this part of the world.

Toby Morris, freelance cartoonist: Morris' work shows up all over the place - his distinctively clean and clear art line is always recognisable, whether he's putting out a book about Dad-life, doing an insightful and clever graphic review of a book about Trump for the Spinoff, or his ongoing Toby and Toby excellence for RNZ. But his Pencilsword cartoons for The Wireless are another level of brilliance, often bristling with anger at social injustices, and giving the voiceless a platform to explain their circumstances. Painfully raw and blatantly emotional, the Pencilsword is as indispensable as it can be rage-inducing.

Siena Yates, Herald entertainment reporter: Being an entertainment journalist is a lot harder than just heading along to free gigs and movies, and requires long hours and a tough work ethic. Yates is a member of the generally excellent entertainment crew at the NZ Herald, and offers a strong new perspective on the entertainment world. Her recent writing on the suicide issues raised by the Netflix show 13 Reasons Why was the best in the country.

- Steve Lombard/ Katherine Grant

42. StuffMe: Merging pains and the inevitable cull

The Commerce Commission's decision to reject the proposed merger between NZME and Fairfax took nobody by surprise yesterday, even if the media companies involved put out plenty of corporate comment about how shocked and disappointed they were with the whole process.

The ComCom had already put the brakes on the plan with its earlier decision late last year, and there wasn't much to indicate they had changed their mind. Even though both companies had made submissions warning of  media apocalypse if they didn't get their way, they also couldn't help talking up their rising online numbers and readership figures in the months since, which severely undermined their own argument.

While the future for these companies may look shaky and uncertain, as they struggle to make money while giving away huge amounts of content for free, one thing was always going to happen, no matter what the result. A shitload of journalists are going to lose their jobs, and they always were.

The corporate heads at both companies have done a brilliant job of covering their own arses, and can slash costs by getting rid of staff and piling more work on the poor, damned souls who survive the cull. If the merger went through, they could have argued that having things like two business editors was redundant, (promises that all those extra resources would be diverted to creating more original work were treated with the open contempt they deserved); and now it's rejected, they will blame that denial for inevitable cost-cutting.

Fairfax has already made its intentions clear, with promises of consolidation and compression. Hours after the ComCom decision, the Australian arm announced it was slashing the editorial staff at some of Australia' biggest newsrooms with a rusty machete, and intentions are clear.

They don't say it, but it's undeniable. Remarkably, the head honchos at both companies have once again forgotten who they employ, and try to reassure staff with corporate buzz-words and blatant bullshit. Journos are trained and experienced enough to see through that shit when other companies try to justify dire news with optimistic nothingness, they don't turn off that part of their brain when it comes from their own bosses.

After all, this has been going on for a while, and there are hellishly experienced journos who have never worked in a newsroom that wasn't suffering a death by a thousand cuts. It's been happening since the start of the digital age, and literally thousands of other newsrooms all over the world have gone through this shit, over and over again.

So more journos will lose their jobs, and those that survive will be left with a humongous workload, and some of them may actually crack if they hear one more fucking speech about the physics-defying impossibility of 'doing more with less'.

Which will all result in an inferior product, leading to more cuts, and an inevitable death spiral. The bosses at NZME and Fairfax still don't have a fucking clue how to pull themselves out of it – the point of the merger was unashamedly just to buy more time until they could figure out how to make money from this new-fangled internet thing – but at the very least, one option has now been taken off the table. What else have they got?

- Ron Troupe

41. Fuck you, Mr Peters

The news media's love-hate relationship with Winston Peters tipped right over into hate-hate last week, with an appallingly tone-deaf and outright racist press release from the NZ First leader, accusing two journalists of skewing numbers on housing issues because of their ethnicity.

Peters doubled down over the next couple of days. He told talk radio that he wasn't a racist just because he said racist things, and he was quoted in articles that he wasn't being prejudiced against other races at all, he was just saying that the professional journalists involved changed the data in their own favour purely because they were 'Asian immigrant reporters'.

While Peters has, reportedly, been perfectly happy with a bit of the ol' casual racism behind closed doors for decades, this was something else. This was right out in the open, unapologetic and unashamed.

It's obvious where he's getting it from. Nobody can keep up with the cascades of dogshit coming out of the White House right now, because it's all piling up so high. President Pumpkin can offer a tax plan that will obviously benefit his personal wealth, and nobody does a fucking thing about it, because they're too busy worrying about what he's doing with North Korea, or the latest stupid fucking tweet.
 
This kind of 'straight talk', which always seems to come from men in positions of power who wouldn't touch the common man with a 10-foot pole, is undoubtedly appealing to Peters - a politician who really is in the twilight of a long career, trying to kickstart some life into it by appealing to the most xenophobic aspects of the public.

And it's not just racist - it's fucking offensive to the integrity of the journalists involved. Lincoln Tan has been doing some spectacular work for the Herald for a long, long time, covering issues that nobody else ever notices, while Harkanwal Singh, (whose praises we've sung before) has given the Herald an immeasurable amount of credibility with data journalism that is both enlightening and entertaining.

To suggest that these men might mess with the numbers, just because their families had an Asian background, is fucking intolerable. And Peters' refusal to apologise is equally vile and cowardly. Have you no decency, sir?
 
It was the kind of bullshit that couldn't be ignored, so Peters got what he wanted - more publicity for his stupid old man theories, and a couple of chicken-sucking dullards thinking 'fuck yeah, Winston tells it like it is', because he's giving a public voice to their idiotic prejudices against both the media and Asians.

(Of course, all these stupid old men are blissfully unaware they're on the wrong side of history, and will be remembered as goddamn cavemen in our history books, with their old-world hatreds holding back any hope of progression. For people reaching the end of their natural life-span, they seem incredibly blinkered by how their legacy will actually look.)

But the fuckwit-in-chief in Washington got where he is because, even though there was a huge amount of fine reporting work showing his corruptions and incompentencies, he always had a voice on cable news, with some stations falling over themselves to lick his saggy backside.

Nobody in the New Zealand media wants to lick Winston Peters' arse, because he's shat on all of us at some point. Considering his antagonistic approach, he still gets a lot of free publicity from the news media, because he's always willing to offer up a comment on any fucking story, (and, yeah, because there is always the horrific possibility that he'll end up being a goddamned kingmaker again after this election).

But maybe we don't have to seek Peters' comment on every other bloody thing. He can provide a valuable refutation of a government line, but he's just as likely to blame the media, immigrants and young people for everything that's wrong with the world, and maybe we've heard the old voice enough.

- Steve Lombard