136. Mother said build a Wall

Like everybody else in society, politicians like to tell the news media how to do their jobs, without having the faintest fucking idea what that job is. Career politicians are particularly good at it, because they're always pissed off about some reporter digging into their shit and making them look bad, as if incompetence and corruption in power should be held to account or something.

In New Zealand, the King Arsehole in this respect remains deputy prime minister Winston Peters, who is bloody appalling to deal with and has some fucking weird ideas about how the media works. But last week it was MP Louisa Wall's turn to take a big bite of this particular shit sandwich, with this lovely social media post (via the brilliant @avancenz)

It was a statement of such breathtaking ignorance about how the modern media works, that it initially appeared that Ms Wall had just completely fucked up. And she had, mistaking the PM's moves to crack down on social media fuckery with regulation of the actual news media, but Ms Wall has doubled down on her comments ever since, which means she probably means it.

In that case, if Ms Wall is concerned about duty of care in the media, she can probably take a look at the entire fucking history of journalism, which has been grappling with that whole idea since the whole thing started. The news media doesn't exist in a void, it's a part of the ongoing societal conversation about these very issues, and while that sometimes leads us all down the wrong path for a while, we soon course-correct onto a road of increased fairness, openness and balance.

It certainly helped that there are formal and legal processes to ensure that the news media isn't doing any harm - there are watchdogs that consider any and all complaints about broadcasts and websites and publications, and can order corrections and retractions.

And yet, while there are tens of thousands of news stories, written, printed and broadcast every year in this tiny country, only the slightest fraction require this kind of attention. That's because even after years of cutbacks and redundancies, there are still some experienced editors who spend all fucking day thinking about the shit Ms Wall is suddenly musing about, and are trying to strike the right balance in their daily output.

They're always thinking about the standards they have to uphold, and are always very, very careful with what they put out under their banner. Anyone working in one of the big newsrooms for more than a week knows that anything legally dodgy is always, always immediately checked with the lawyers before going to print, and that's just one level of care.

The weird thing is, Ms Wall is actually making a good point about social media, which has all the editorial oversight of a graffiti scrawl wall in West Auckland - actually less, because the council are excellent at quickly covering up cocks and swear words, while Facebook misses straight-up murder videos because the overworked and underpaid moderators at a warehouse in Buttfuck Idaho are taking a smoke break.

Companies like Facebook are facing some massive issues, and one of the big problems is that it still thinks of itself as a tech company, not a media company, and seems clueless when it comes to stopping the encouragement and broadcast of massacres around the globe, and this is absolutely something that needs to be looked at closely. It's not a fucking free speech argument, it's a fucking public health issue.

It would be easy to give Ms Wall the benefit of the doubt - she's been on the right side of a lot of good arguments - and believe that she can see the difference between news media and social media, but she doesn't really seem to know what the fuck she is talking about.

Unless she really does, and 'formal recognition' comes with any kind of government oversight, in which case, she can go get fucked. That doesn't end well for anybody.

- Margaret Tempest

 *Media Scrum would also like to note that the NZ Herald has finally pulled the pin on the paywall hand grenade and lobbed it into the public arena, and we would just like to say that good journalism is always worth paying for. We bitch about the editorial judgment on show at the Granny a lot, but really do wish them the very, very best. It's just a shame you can't mix populism with a paywall.

135. The importance of switching off

Professional journalists never stop being journalists, even long after they've clocked up their regulation hours for the week. When they are at dinner parties and the cinema and the pub, they never really switch off and are always listening for some new angle, or new contact, or new story, no matter where they are. You really do have to watch what you say around them.

It's an important part of the job, seeing something and asking a question about it in your personal life can blossom into something truly worthwhile. Most decent journalism doesn't have an origin story set in an office, it's out there in Real Life.

And then there are the ongoing stories, which journalists can work on for weeks, or months, or even years, going over and over things in their heads as they try to stack something up, waiting for that vital piece of information or source that could blow the whole thing wide open. Most of the thinking about that takes place outside office too.

And yet, it's vitally important that journalists – including writers, reporters, editors, producers and visual journalists - do turn off for a while, and stop thinking about this shit, because that kind of obsession can be extremely unhealthy.

It's especially important right now, because a lot of reporters have returned to the newsroom after covering the Christchurch mosque attacks, and need to be able to step away from the things they have seen and heard in recent days. Last month's terror attacks were one of the very worst things to ever happen on our soil, and the stories have been harrowing and extremely distressful for those who had to cover them.

Many of those reporters have been taking days off, and have fled to happy places to take their minds off things, but it's also incredibly important to be able to switch off at the end of every day, and not take some of this shit home with you.

In the first few days after the attack, some people were working 18-hour days, and for their own mental health, it was vital that they took a fucking break when they finally got home. Fortunately, there are a number of simple and well-proven ways to switch off from work.

There is the obvious example of spending time with close friends and family outside journalism, and rejoicing in the simple pleasures of life outside the newsroom, without being constantly reminded of the horrific events you had to deal with on the job.

If that's not really an option, there is always the traditional journalist method of getting completely fucking wasted. This has worked for years, with a long history of drunks and addicts in NZ's press history. This still works for some people, although many of us can't be bothered dealing with the inevitable hangovers, not when the job now has multi-media demands and long shifts.

The simplest way to get away from it all is to take some solace in entertainment - binge the fuck out of some Netflix, or watch a dumb Will Ferrell movie, or go to a cheap and nasty gig, or play video games all night long, or something. We've never had more access to more entertainment than we do right now, and it can be the best and easiest way to take your mind off the job.

(It's also important that you don't choose an entertainment that will remind you of the thing you're trying to escape – a game or movie with a lot of machine gun action would not help after dealing with the awful consequences of real-life gun use.)

Most of all, if you want to get away from it all, just stay the fuck off all social media, because you'll never escape the news that way. It's surprisingly easy to switch it off for a while and you can always quickly catch up again when you're back on the clock.

As a profession, we do have to take a close look at these things, but we also have to know when to step the fuck back, or this can really have an impact on our lives, both professional and personal.

Some of us are still fucked up from covering the Christchurch earthquakes, years after the disaster, because we forgot to take time out, and that event didn't have the added horror of man's inhumanity to man. Switching off is essential, for everybody's well-being.

- Ron Troupe

134. 'You do not fuck the future, sir, the future fucks you'

It's been a hectic month, and the Media Scrum crew haven't had time to have a proper moan about anything this week. Instead, we'll just leave this message for those in the cheap seats, who still don't understand why we sometimes have to name the Christchurch terrorist:

It's surprisingly easy to write the vast majority of the stories about the appalling attack on the two mosques without ever mentioning the name of the motherfucker responsible for it. A focus on the stories of the victims and survivors, as well as the rapid-fire legislation on gun control coming down the line, and we can help ensure that the fame that the dangerous fool wants is denied as much as possible. We don't have to make a big deal out of it, we just don't need to name him.

That said, it is still very important that we name the motherfucker in any and all court stories over the next few months, for two distinct reasons.

The first is that justice must be seen to be done - especially in this case, above all other cases - and there can be no ambiguity about the legal moves at all. Leaving out the name creates wriggle room for harmful and idiotic conspiracy theories, and none of us need that shit right now. It must always be absolutely clear who is facing the full weight of the law.

The second reason is that every story that is told about this case becomes a statement of historical record, and while the archiving of digital news stories is woefully inadequate these days, some stories will survive for years and decades to come. And they will become crucial as the entire event is analysed and studied, to understand how this terrible tragedy occurred, and how we stopped it ever happening again.

It might give you all the feels to deny the killer the fame he wants, but if we're ever going to learn anything from this shit, we need to name the one responsible for it for the record.

We're sorry, but history doesn't give a fuck about your feelings.

Love,
Media Scrum

133. Putting the spotlight on yourself

If we were ever supposed to learn anything from the Watergate clusterfuck, it was that it's often not the crime that matters, it's the reaction to it. The initial misdeed might be something relatively innocuous - like someone rummaging around in a deserted office at night - but trying to cover it up or stamp the story out only made things exponentially worse for everybody involved.

This may partly explain why the current President of the US can be so openly corrupt and rotten, and still remain in power. The shallowest man to ever sit in the Oval Office is so obviously on the take from corporate and foreign interests, including several awful dictatorships, but makes no secret about it all, and relishes in the attention. It's so hard to bring down somebody with absolute no shame.

But many people in power try to hush up an embarrassing story and do it so badly, and hurt themselves so much, by putting themselves under the microscope. If you're trying to get away with something, you need to draw as little attention to yourself as possible.

In other words, don't get some journalists who are asking questions about you thrown in jail, you stupid fucking wankers.

The arrest of the Newsroom team in Fiji while they were chasing down a meaty story last week was a breathtakingly stupid move, and whatever the people who were responsible for it were thinking, it was a massive mistake.

It was a strong enough story anyway, and they were there to interview a Chinese resort developer accused of environmental desecration of an island in the Mamanucas, and Newsroom was obviously going to go big and get the word out about this story when they were ready to publish. 

But now everybody is looking at the story to see what was worth that kind of attention, and any corruption is going to be exposed. Because if you're scared enough to put people in a Fijian jail for a night, you're got something big to be ashamed of.

It's still a bit unclear who ultimately gave the order for the arrests, and the local authorities are already throwing the usual rogue patsies under the bus, but it's hard to understand what they thought they would gain from such action. Did they think that the journos involved would all be so intimidated by the arrest that they would stop digging into the story, and just go home and forget about it?

Have they.... Have they met Melanie Reid?

Even Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama- no stranger to his own huge PR blunders, and always willing to look the other way when his own critics are threatened to keep quiet - knew what a bad look this was, especially with an increasingly complex political environment in the Pacific right now, and immediately started sending out the apologies. Even Frank knows that you can't hush up professional journalists that way.

Beyond the specifics of this case, there is no self-respecting journo who is ever going to drop a story after being treated in such a heavy-handed way, and will double down on their efforts after such clumsy bullying.

To be incarcerated in such a manner is a badge of fucking honour - it means you're the best of the best, willing to give up your freedom to get at the truth, and it means the stories you are covering are big and worthy.

The Newsroom team got more than some midnight munchies form McDonalds from their night behind bars, they got the impetus and justification to follow this story through, right to the very end. And we'll all be watching them do it.

- Katherine Grant

132. Thanks for your feedback

There's this really great thing in a national crisis where large and small newsrooms get bombarded with messages second-guessing everything they're producing, and offering up obvious leads, and delivering a massive case of what-aboutism, in the most massively passively-aggressive way. And when we say it's really great, we mean it's a enormous pain in the arse.

It's not as bad as some of the outright racist and hateful bullshit that some reporters - mainly women, funnily enough - have been getting in their emails, they're more notes from people on their high horse about the issue, and even though they've never set foot in a newsroom before, they're convinced every journo in the country is doing it wrong, and they just want the media to know exactly how they feel about it.

So after innumerable phone calls and emails - and even a fax or two! A fucking fax! - we figured we'd offer up 10 easy answers for dumbarse questions. Anybody who picks up the main phone line in the newsroom and gets stuck with Clive from Gisborne and his racist, moronic ideas is welcome to use any of them:

1. Yes, we have thought about the way our newsroom is handling the naming of the motherfucker responsible for the Christchurch terror attacks, and it's a complex issue that requires some strong consideration, and it's going to take some time, as is the judicial case against him.

2. Yes, we did hear what the Prime Minister said about not naming the gunman.

3. Yes, we do still think he's a terrorist, but he's also a gunman, an attacker, a killer and a shooter. And those words just fit better in tight headline space.

4.  No, person on the street with a common-sense perspective, we're not going to put you on air because you have to tell the world that it's all the Jews' fault.

5. Yes, we did hear what the Prime Minister said about not naming the attacker.

6.  Yes, we've heard about the slaughter of Christians in Africa and we do think it's an appalling loss of life, but it didn't take place in a cultural vacuum of good versus evil, but in a hugely complex environment that is dealing with huge resource exhaustion.

7. Yes, we've heard about the slaughter of Muslims in Africa and we do think it's an appalling loss of life, but it didn't take place in a cultural vacuum of good versus evil, but in a hugely complex environment that is dealing with huge resource exhaustion.

8. No, it's not censorship by taking away a platform to spew out harmful ideas. Go start your own fucking website if it's that important.

9.  Yes, we did hear what the Prime Minister said about not naming the killer.

10. No, we don't need another link to the fucking video.

Thank you for your feedback. Now please fuck off.

- Margaret Tempest