(First published in the Curmudgeon column, The Dominion Post, August 18.)
THE CURMUDGEON was privileged recently to be granted exclusive access to an All Blacks team meeting.
Coming after two humiliating losses to the Springboks, it was a crucial session aimed at getting the world’s greatest rugby team back on track.
NZRU officials took the unprecedented step of inviting me to observe proceedings because they were eager to counter the growing public perception that the All Blacks have gone soft and are no longer as feared by opponents as they used to be.
The only condition was that I had to guarantee anonymity to any players mentioned – a small price, I thought, for the rare opportunity to glimpse first-hand the pressures faced by our top professional sportsmen.
Team management warned me beforehand that it would be a brutal session, and so it turned out. I was shaken by its intensity.
The meeting opened with a team official launching a withering attack on player A, who had been seen in a Durban bar wearing a non-approved hair gel. The player’s excuse – that he had a new executive assistant who had packed the wrong makeup kit – was contemptuously brushed aside.
Next, player B was fined for having turned up late at a promotional appearance to launch the ABs’ new personal fragrance range, evocatively named Scrum. He tried to explain that he’d been delayed by a crisis meeting with his personal investment adviser. “I was dangerously over-exposed to commercial property and needed to strengthen my bonds and equities portfolios,” he said before impatient managers, clearly in no mood for excuses, cut him short.
The team management then turned their attention to a corrosive squabble between players C and D, caused by player C complaining that the sponsor’s car supplied to player D had leather upholstery and a GPS system while his didn’t. “We lost a lineout at Absa Stadium because you two were bickering about this and didn’t hear the call,” Graham Henry snarled.
Player E had his pay docked because he failed to turn up at a corporate golf event where one of the All Blacks’ sponsors had booked him to add a bit of star quality to their hospitality tent. Asked why he’d let the side down, Player E said he had foolishly accepted an invitation to play for his old club team that day because he felt he needed the game time after sitting on the reserves’ bench for much of the last two tests.
Player F was reminded that he’d failed to fulfil a key condition of his contract, which stipulated the number of times his name was to be mentioned in the gossip columns (with a bonus payment every time he was pictured with a hottie). On a recent Saturday night when he should have been doing the rounds of the Viaduct Basin bars, he was seen working out at a gym.
There was much more torrid stuff in the same vein, but you get the picture. I came away greatly reassured that the All Blacks’ fearsome mystique was safe.
* * *
I HAD TO smile at the 60-something gentleman photographed on the front page of this paper last week wearing a hoodie to demonstrate his solidarity with misunderstood young people.
He appears not to realise that young people who wear hoodies do so for the very purpose of differentiating themselves from everyone else. The last thing they want is to be patronised by oldies trying to appear cool by wearing the same clobber.
It’s the same with well-meaning burghers who think the answer to the boy racer problem is to provide out-of-the-way venues where they can legally do burnouts and donuts. Such people fail to understand that burnouts and donuts depend for their appeal on there being people nearby whose peace and quiet can be shattered. The moment something is sanctioned by society it loses all appeal.
Still, some good may have come from the photo of the old bloke in the hoodie. It may have convinced all self-respecting hoodie wearers under 30 to rummage through their drawers and incinerate the now fatally tainted garments.
* * *
IT’S PROBABLY too much to hope that the citizens of Tonga will decide they’ve finally had enough of their worse-than-useless monarch, who paused just long enough to mutter a few token words of condolence following the worst disaster in the country’s memory before boarding a plane bound for Scotland.
So what if more than 90 of his people had drowned? Far more important things demanded the king’s attention – like taking the salute at the Edinburgh Tattoo, where he could dress up in strange clothes and indulge in the anachronistic British pageantry of which he’s so fond.
If Tonga were any other country, enraged citizens would be digging up the airport runway to ensure this monocled popinjay can never return. Kings have been beheaded for less.
But alas, Tonga is a deeply respectful and hierarchical culture that seems willing to endure all manner of abuse from its hereditary leaders. King George’s plane had hardly left the ground before his subjects were making excuses for his indifference to their grief.
If Fidel Castro had tried to ignite revolution in Tonga, he would have slit his wrists in despair inside a week.
Friday, August 21, 2009
Saturday, August 15, 2009
Les Paul, inventor of the electric guitar?
It’s amazing how casually history can be re-written in obituaries, often cobbled together in haste from library files by reporters with scant knowledge of the subject.
Most reports of the death of American electric guitar pioneer Les Paul, aged 94, give the impression he was single-handedly responsible for the creation of the solid-body electric guitar that made rock and roll possible. It’s as if Adolph Rickenbacker, Paul Bigsby, Merle Travis and (most crucially) Leo Fender never existed.
Most guitar historians agree that no one person can take credit for the “invention” of the electric guitar. Rather, it evolved over several decades. But if anyone can lay claim to the title of grandfather of the electric guitar it was surely the Swiss-born Rickenbacker (or Richenbacher, before he anglicised his name), who experimented with electrification as early as the 1930s. Rickenbacker’s company created the famous 1931 “frying pan” steel electric guitar, so named because of its shape. It was the first guitar to use electro-magnetic pickups.
Driven by the need for the guitar to be heard over other band instruments in noisy dance halls, Rickenbacker and the rival Gibson company also began putting pickups on acoustic guitars. By 1937 you could buy an electrified Gibson ES150, the model played by pioneering jazz guitarist Charlie Christian.
Country singer and guitarist Merle Travis, best known for writing Sixteen Tons (a hit for Tennessee Ernie Ford), collaborated with Paul A Bigsby in the late 1940s to produce the Bigsby-Travis guitar, a solid-bodied instrument that has been described as “closer to the modern idea of a solid electric guitar than anything that had been made before”. It was the first guitar with all its tuning pegs fitted on one side of the headstock – a feature later imitated by Fender.
So where was Les Paul (or Lester Polfus, to use his original name, which the Times obituary misspelled) while all this was going on? Well, he had tried unsuccessfully to interest Gibson in a primitive prototype solid electric guitar that he called “the Log”, made during 1939-41. But it wasn’t until 1952 that the famous Gibson Les Paul model made its debut.
By that time, Leo Fender and his partner George Fullerton had stolen a march on Les Paul by launching the Fender Broadcaster (subsequently renamed the Telecaster). Like the Gibson Les Paul, the Fender Telecaster has remained in production – and virtually unaltered in its basic appearance – ever since. The even more famous Fender Stratocaster, a design as evocative of 1950s America as the Chev Corvette, followed in 1954.
The names Rickenbacker and Bigsby also live on. Rickenbacker guitars were favoured by the early Beatles and it was a Rickenbacker 12-string that gave the Byrds’ hits their distinctive jangle. And while only a few Bigsby-Travis guitars were produced, the Bigsby vibrato unit or tremolo arm, which enabled players to bend notes, is still a standard feature on electric guitars.
But back to those obits. Perhaps overcome by sentiment on the occasion of Les Paul’s death, some obituarists have given the impression that the guitar that bears his name reigns unchallenged as the ultimate rock guitar. Pardon me?
Arguments about which is the greater guitar – the Fender Stratocaster or the Gibson Les Paul – are a bit like debates between Holden and Ford fans, and ultimately just as pointless. But judged by which guitar was more favoured by great players, the Strat would surely have the edge.
This is not to devalue Les Paul’s contribution to the electric guitar. The one thing he had over Leo Fender was that he was an accomplished musician as well as a designer, though some of his playing seemed more calculated to show off his dexterity – and his fondness for novel recording techniques – rather than his musicality.
Most reports of the death of American electric guitar pioneer Les Paul, aged 94, give the impression he was single-handedly responsible for the creation of the solid-body electric guitar that made rock and roll possible. It’s as if Adolph Rickenbacker, Paul Bigsby, Merle Travis and (most crucially) Leo Fender never existed.
Most guitar historians agree that no one person can take credit for the “invention” of the electric guitar. Rather, it evolved over several decades. But if anyone can lay claim to the title of grandfather of the electric guitar it was surely the Swiss-born Rickenbacker (or Richenbacher, before he anglicised his name), who experimented with electrification as early as the 1930s. Rickenbacker’s company created the famous 1931 “frying pan” steel electric guitar, so named because of its shape. It was the first guitar to use electro-magnetic pickups.
Driven by the need for the guitar to be heard over other band instruments in noisy dance halls, Rickenbacker and the rival Gibson company also began putting pickups on acoustic guitars. By 1937 you could buy an electrified Gibson ES150, the model played by pioneering jazz guitarist Charlie Christian.
Country singer and guitarist Merle Travis, best known for writing Sixteen Tons (a hit for Tennessee Ernie Ford), collaborated with Paul A Bigsby in the late 1940s to produce the Bigsby-Travis guitar, a solid-bodied instrument that has been described as “closer to the modern idea of a solid electric guitar than anything that had been made before”. It was the first guitar with all its tuning pegs fitted on one side of the headstock – a feature later imitated by Fender.
So where was Les Paul (or Lester Polfus, to use his original name, which the Times obituary misspelled) while all this was going on? Well, he had tried unsuccessfully to interest Gibson in a primitive prototype solid electric guitar that he called “the Log”, made during 1939-41. But it wasn’t until 1952 that the famous Gibson Les Paul model made its debut.
By that time, Leo Fender and his partner George Fullerton had stolen a march on Les Paul by launching the Fender Broadcaster (subsequently renamed the Telecaster). Like the Gibson Les Paul, the Fender Telecaster has remained in production – and virtually unaltered in its basic appearance – ever since. The even more famous Fender Stratocaster, a design as evocative of 1950s America as the Chev Corvette, followed in 1954.
The names Rickenbacker and Bigsby also live on. Rickenbacker guitars were favoured by the early Beatles and it was a Rickenbacker 12-string that gave the Byrds’ hits their distinctive jangle. And while only a few Bigsby-Travis guitars were produced, the Bigsby vibrato unit or tremolo arm, which enabled players to bend notes, is still a standard feature on electric guitars.
But back to those obits. Perhaps overcome by sentiment on the occasion of Les Paul’s death, some obituarists have given the impression that the guitar that bears his name reigns unchallenged as the ultimate rock guitar. Pardon me?
Arguments about which is the greater guitar – the Fender Stratocaster or the Gibson Les Paul – are a bit like debates between Holden and Ford fans, and ultimately just as pointless. But judged by which guitar was more favoured by great players, the Strat would surely have the edge.
This is not to devalue Les Paul’s contribution to the electric guitar. The one thing he had over Leo Fender was that he was an accomplished musician as well as a designer, though some of his playing seemed more calculated to show off his dexterity – and his fondness for novel recording techniques – rather than his musicality.
Friday, August 14, 2009
Feeding the hungry dog
A SPEECH TO THE DUNES SYMPOSIUM, A PUBLIC POLICY FORUM PRESENTED BY THE NZ BUSINESS ROUNDTABLE, AUGUST 4.
The role of the media in shaping public policy
I will preface my comments today by saying that I assume it’s taken as a given that democracy cannot function without a free and vigorous news media. Having got that out of the way, I want to focus specifically on how the behaviour of the media has fundamentally changed in the past decade or two, how the relationship between journalists and politicians has also changed, and the implications for public policy.
I’d like to talk about the model of journalistic objectivity and how it’s under threat, and how that is fundamentally altering the role of the media in public life.
I’ll start by quoting from a speech Tony Blair gave in June 2007, just before he stepped down as British prime minister. Some commentators saw this speech as Blair getting his own back on a hostile British media, but many of the points he made are almost as pertinent here as in the UK.
Blair referred to the revolutionary changes in communications technology and how they were changing the relationship between politics, public life and the media. He thought this change had a seriously adverse impact on the way public is conducted.
He had the decency to acknowledge that New Labour, by paying inordinate attention to courting and persuading the media, had been complicit in this.
Blair noted that the relationship between politicians and the media had always been fraught but went on to say that he believed it was now qualitatively and quantitatively different from anything that had gone before.
He talked about the proliferation and fragmentation of the media. The main BBC and ITV nightly news bulletins used to have audiences of eight to ten million. Now the average was half that. Viewers now had the option of watching 24-hour news programmes that covered events as they unfolded.
In 1982, Britain had three TV networks. Now there were hundreds. Newspapers were fighting for a share of a shrinking market. Many were read online, not the next day.
There were roughly 70 million blogs in existence, with 120,000 more being created every day. (Remember, Blair was talking in 2007. If anything, the pace has quickened since then.) Younger people in particular were getting less and less of their news from traditional outlets.
The forms of communication were merging and interchanging: the BBC website was crucial to the modern BBC and newspapers provided podcasts and material on the web. “News,” Blair said, “is becoming increasingly a free good, provided online without charge.”
The news schedule now ran 24 hours a day, seven days a week. “It moves in real time”, Blair said. “Papers don’t give you up-to-date news – that’s already out there. They have to break stories, try to lead the schedules. Or they give a commentary – and it all happens with outstanding speed.”
He recalled that when New Labour fought the 1997 election, it tackled an issue a day. By 2005 the party strategists had to have one for the morning and another for the afternoon, and by the evening the agenda had already moved on.
“Make a mistake,” Blair said, “and you frequently transfer from drama to crisis. Things harden within minutes.”
Now here’s what I consider a significant quote, and it echoed my own thoughts about what was going on in New Zealand. Blair said: “I am going to say something that few people in public life will say, but most know is absolutely true: a vast aspect of our jobs today – as big as anything else, outside of the really major decisions – is coping with the media, its sheer scale, weight and constant hyperactivity. At points, it literally overwhelms.”
Not having a proper press operation to cope with media demands, he observed, was like asking a batsman to face bodyline bowling without pads or headgear. (It should be noted here that New Labour itself helped ramp up the ferocity by creating a spin factory under Alastair Campbell that was unprecedented in the history of British politics.)
Blair also talked about how Parliament was reported, or rather not reported.
“Tell me how many maiden speeches are listened to; how many excellent second reading speeches or committee speeches are covered. Except when they generate major controversy, they aren't. If you are a backbench MP today, you learn to give a press release first and a good Parliamentary speech second.”
He observed that as a result of the intense competitive pressure, the media was now driven to a dangerous degree by “impact”.
“Impact is what matters. It is all that can distinguish, can rise above the clamour, can get noticed.
“Impact gives competitive edge. Of course the accuracy of a story counts. But it is secondary to impact. It is this necessary devotion to impact that is unravelling standards, driving them down, making the diversity of the media not the strength it should be but an impulsion towards sensation above all else.
“The audience needs to be arrested, held and their emotions engaged. Something that is interesting is less powerful than something that makes you angry or shocked. The consequences of this are acute. First, scandal or controversy beats ordinary reporting hands down. News is rarely news unless it generates heat as much as or more than light.
“The fear of missing out means today's media, more than ever before, hunts in a pack. In these modes it is like a feral beast, just tearing people and reputations to bits. But no-one dares miss out.”
Blair complained that commentary on the news had become as important as, if not more important than, the news itself. There was often as much interpretation of what politicians were saying as there was coverage of them saying it.
He went on to talk about the confusion of news and commentary. Comment is a perfectly respectable part of journalism, Blair noted, but it is supposed to be separate. “Opinion and fact should be clearly divisible. The truth is a large part of the media today not merely elides the two but does so now as a matter of course.”
He talked about the British media’s tendency to see everything in terms of black and white. Life's usual grey, Blair said, was almost entirely absent.
The notion that some things were good, some bad, that some things went right and some went wrong, was alien to today's reporting. “It’s a triumph or a disaster. A problem is ‘a crisis’. A setback is a policy ‘in tatters’. A criticism becomes ‘a savage attack’.”
Was it becoming worse? Blair asked. His answer was yes.
There was a time when he thought new forms of communication (I presume he meant blogs) might provide a means of bypassing the increasingly shrill tenor of the traditional media, but he said these new outlets could be even more pernicious, less balanced, and more intent on the latest conspiracy theory.
Blair thought that politicians and journalists alike were being dragged down by the way media and public life interacted. He made the point that trust in journalists was not much above that in politicians. But he felt there was still a market in providing serious, balanced news and a desire for impartiality. There was still a thirst for the news being real news. He felt the media needed to re-assert its own selling point, namely the distinction between news and comment.
I thought he ruined things a bit at the end of his speech by hinting that perhaps the solution to all this lay in tighter regulation. Giving more power to politicians and bureaucrats is rarely a good solution for anything. But that aside, much of what he said was valid.
I’d like to turn now to the New Zealand situation and see how much of what Blair said about Britain also applies here. In my view, quite a lot.
In the past couple of decades we have seen the function of the news media change from that of an essentially passive reporter and observer of politics to that of an active player, using its considerable power to shape and drive political events.
In effect, as I wrote in a recent column, journalists have become choreographers of the political ballet. Politicians dance to the media’s tune because they can’t risk losing control of the news agenda.
How did this come about? Well, it probably started innocently enough, with political correspondents writing weekly columns in which they sought to interpret the week’s events for the benefit of the reader.
These columns were typically restrained and cautious, even timid by today’s standards, and rarely crossed the line between interpretation and comment. Statements of opinion remained the preserve of the newspaper editorial.
Political journalists were deferential toward politicians and took care not to say anything too provocative. Apart from anything else, they worried that this might cut off their sources of information.
As time went by, however, political correspondents shed their modesty. Some commentators have attributed this to the emergence, from the late 1960s onwards, of the byline.
Political writers who had previously hidden beyond the anonymity of titles such as Political Writer or Parliamentary Correspondent now began writing under their own names, sometimes with their photos alongside. They came to be viewed as people of influence whose opinions were noted and respected by those in power.
Columnists with the right political contacts were fed inside information. Their columns served as platforms from which ideas or initiatives could be floated without disclosing where they came from. It’s been suggested that this was the point at which some political journalists started seeing themselves as players on the political stage rather than mere observers.
It was at this point too that the nature of the relationship between politicians and journalists began to change. As the media became bolder and more aggressive, the balance of power in the relationship shifted.
Politicians realised they could no longer control the flow of information as they used to, or keep the media at bay with the occasional formal press statement or stage-managed press conference. David Lange acknowledged this in 1994 when he noted that the global reach of information now meant the voters often knew as much as the politicians.
Meanwhile the press gallery, which had traditionally been dominated by a handful of savvy senior journalists who operated very much as lone wolves, learned the benefits of hunting as a pack. Nowhere is that better illustrated than by the media scrum that waits to ambush politicians on their way to and from the debating chamber in Parliament.
John Tamihere a few years ago described politicians and journalists as having the ultimate in co-dependent abusive relationships. I actually think it’s moved beyond that. It’s no longer a relationship between equals but one in which the balance of power probably now lies with the journalists.
We now have a political climate in which both the tempo and the temperature of media coverage have increased enormously.
I’ve always compared the news business with having to feed a hungry dog. The difference is that 20 years ago you needed to feed the dog only twice a day. Now the pressure of the news cycle is such that the dog demands to be fed around the clock. And it’s a big ugly dog now, not just a goofy, good-natured labrador.
Newspapers used to come out in the morning and the evening. They still do, but now there’s pressure on reporters to constantly update their websites. TV and radio have discovered this thing called “Breaking News” to create an aura of drama and excitement.
The ridiculous insistence on TV journalists reporting live from the scene, even if they’re incapable of coherently stringing three words together, is part of the same phenomenon.
The story must never be allowed to go cold or solidify. It must be driven on with new angles. The pressure to be ahead of the competition is intense, which is why we saw the extraordinary spectacle of TVNZ newsreader Wendy Petrie triumphantly punching the air when she reported live from outside the Christchurch High Court while waiting for the David Bain verdict.
She didn’t even have anything to report, for God’s sake; she was just saying, “Here we are waiting for the verdict”. But the fact that she got this piece of non-information to air ahead of TV3 was apparently cause for jubilation. This is how bad it’s got.
During the course of my 40 years in journalism the media have moved from being essentially reactive – by which I mean the media respectfully waited for the politicians to announce things – to the point where they now call the shots.
The political agenda is largely driven by the beat-up du jour – the political story of the moment, as determined by political reporters and editors. Political news has become just another spectator sport.
Last week it was Paula Bennett and Roger Douglas’s holiday in Britain. The week before that it was Clayton Weatherston and the government’s decision to strike the defence of provocation from the statute books. This week, who knows?
Politicians feel they have to respond to whatever crisis or firestorm the media create. As a result I suspect a lot of policy decisions are made on the trot, largely to extinguish the latest media bushfire.
I mentioned Simon Power’s recent announcement that provocation would no longer be available as a defence in murder cases. He said that move had been under consideration by National since 2007, but who couldn’t be struck by the coincidence that it was announced in the very week that the nation was outraged by saturation media coverage of the Weatherston trial? Was it a carefully considered decision, or was it an opportunistic one driven by the media focus on a sensational murder case?
This might sound odd coming from a journalist, but I believe politicians spend far too much time reacting to media pressure
No politicians in New Zealand history have spent more time talking to journalists than Helen Clark and John Key. Key seems to be on tap virtually 24/7, as Clark was. Politicians used to be distant and aloof; political reporters would go for weeks without an opportunity to question the prime minister. Now journalists consider it their right to accost politicians at all times and in all places and thrust a microphone in their faces.
Part of me applauds this, because democracy can’t function properly if politicians aren’t held accountable by the media. But as with so many issues, it’s a matter of getting the balance right. And I believe we’ve gone from one extreme to the other; from the timid, deferential media of 40 years ago to the aggressive, impatient and even arrogant media of today.
I’ve devoted a lot of time and energy over the past 20 years to defending freedom of the press. No one believes more firmly than I do in a bold and robust news media. But as well as being a journalist I’m also a citizen, a taxpayer and a voter, and I don’t elect politicians to spend so much of their precious time dancing to a tune called by the media. We live in a country that is desperately in need of courageous, far-sighted government, and I don’t believe we can get it while our leaders are preoccupied with responding to the demands of the daily news cycle.
I’d like to turn now to the sorts of stories that drive the political agenda.
Political journalists and their editors have always determined what is news – there’s nothing new there. But as competition for viewers and readers has intensified, the underlying values and priorities considered in making those judgments have changed.
If you go back three or four decades, political journalism was largely about nuts-and-bolts stuff: select committee hearings, parliamentary debates, speeches and other set pieces. It was dull but worthy. Now the nightly TV news bulletin has morphed into another form of entertainment, complete with its own celebrities in the form of newsreaders and reporters.
Across all the news media, but on TV in particular, news is selected not so much on the basis of what matters most but rather what is most likely to provoke outrage, fear, anger, sympathy, disgust or anxiety. Tony Blair mentioned this too.
Stories that are likely to evoke strong emotional responses or tug on the viewers’ heartstrings – items about tragedy or crime, for example, or stories with clearly identifiable heroes and villains – are played up to the max, complete with cues as to how we should react to them. Judy Bailey was perfectly suited to this approach, reading the news in the manner of a teacher addressing a classroom of slow learners, and using facial expressions or tone of voice to indicate how we should respond emotionally. Brian Edwards called it the coochie-coo news.
In terms of political journalism, stories involving conflict and personalities will always make the cut ahead of others that may have deeper and more significant implications. Politicians are often reduced to stamping out bushfires fanned by the media when there may be more crucial issues requiring their attention.
And of course nothing excites the press gallery more than the scent of blood from a wounded politician. Gaffes and minor indiscretions that in a previous era would have passed unnoticed or been smoothed over are now mercilessly exploited by journalists eager to claim a scalp. Just ask National MP Melissa Lee, who must still be licking her wounds after the punishment she took during the Mt Albert by election. Or Don Brash, who was made an object of ridicule by endless TV replays of him teetering on a narrow gangplank, as if this rendered him unfit for office.
Another feature of television, in particular, is the low regard it has for the public intellect. One of the reasons why easily digestible news stories crowd out more complex, nuanced ones is that TV editors are convinced viewers have the attention span of goldfish. They worry about losing their audience if any item runs longer than two minutes – unless of course it happens to be about Michael Jackson or the new GI Joe movie.
Tony Blair also mentioned the confusion of news and commentary. That too applies in New Zealand.
One of the fundamental tenets of journalistic objectivity is that a clear separation should be maintained between news and comment, but we have seen a gradual blurring of what was once a sharp line that divided the two.
It’s now routine for political news and opinion to be so intermingled that it’s impossible to disentangle one from the other. TV3’s political editor Duncan Garner typically spends as much time commenting on what has happened as he does reporting it.
To me there is an element of disrespect for democracy here. The role of the journalist as I see it is to tell people what’s happening, to the best of your ability, but not to tell them what to make of it. They are smart enough to make up their own minds about that. As someone once put it, the role of the journalist is to be the eyes and ears of the people – not their brains.
I don’t want to single out Duncan Garner. It used to be the norm for print journalists to write straight political news stories during the week and then write a column on Saturday or Monday in which they felt free to interpret what was happening and even offer cautious comment.
The virtue of that practice was that the readers knew which was news and which was comment. But political reporters in the print media as well as in broadcasting now routinely combine news with comment in the same article, to the extent that it’s sometimes difficult to tell where one ends and the other begins. And the trend has been exacerbated by blogs in which political editors are encouraged to tell us what they think.
So what’s happening is that the model of the journalist as passive observer is under threat. Many journalists, particularly in the political sphere, now see themselves as active players in the political process.
Some see it as part of their function to make things happen. That’s not my idea of how democracy is to supposed to work. Journalists are unelected and unaccountable to anyone but their editors; it’s a perversion of the democratic model for them to be actively driving the political process.
We have also seen an increasing tendency for current affairs hosts and interviewers to take a partisan line. It seems Paul Holmes is incapable of interviewing anyone on Q + A – whether it’s on folic acid in bread or the smacking of children – without letting us know what he thinks. When you’re a celebrity, as Holmes is, it’s no longer enough to conduct an interview with the aim of extracting information or illuminating an issue; you’re entitled to consider yourself an opinion leader.
We’re also seeing more advocacy journalism – journalists pushing issues, taking sides and getting directly involved in the controversies they’re covering. Again, it’s most noticeable on television, probably because that’s where the competition is fiercest.
One recent example was John Campbell and his crew attending the after-trial party for David Bain. It just looked too chummy for comfort. Knowing how carefully Joe Karam controlled the publicity surrounding Bain you can’t help but wonder what sort of conditions were imposed.
So, to wrap up. Are journalists exerting too much influence on the political agenda? Yes, I think they are. Politicians spend too much of their time responding to the demands of an increasingly intense and competitive news machine, and we have to ask whether that’s a proper use of their energy and talents.
We need to remind ourselves that political journalists are driven more than ever by the need to win ratings and readership. They are not, as a rule, concerned with pursuing sound, long-term policy objectives. Politicians, however, need to be. That’s what we elect them for.
I’m not suggesting we regress to an earlier era when politicians treated the media with contempt and talked to them only when it suited them to do so. As with so many things, it’s all a question of balance.
What’s the solution? Well, I think Tony Blair was getting close to it before he got sidetracked by the temptation of regulatory intervention.
The model that has underpinned journalistic practice in liberal western democracies for the past hundred years is journalistic objectivity.
This means journalists are supposed to report the news accurately, fairly and impartially. It requires that we strive for balance in the way we report issues – in other words, that we fairly represent the views of all parties with a significant interest in whatever issue we are covering. It means journalists are supposed to keep their own views out of their work, unless what they are writing is clearly identified as opinion or comment. And it stresses the importance of keeping news and comment separate, so that there’s no chance of the news being contaminated by the journalist’s own views.
Objectivity also calls for a certain detachment. It sees the journalist not as an active participant in affairs but as an observer and reporter. I should emphasise that this doesn’t preclude bold and vigorous reporting. The Washington Post’s exposure of the Watergate scandal was completely in line with the principles of objectivity; so was the Dominion Post’s reporting on Donna Awatere Huata, Clint Rickards and his mates, Winston Peters and his secret donors, the Urewera terrorism raids and Tony Veitch.
All these stories were based on verifiable facts and in every case there was a compelling public interest in knowing about them. So it’s wrong to suggest, as some people do, that an objective media is somehow tame and timid.
I would suggest that another great virtue of objectivity is that it respects the right and the ability of readers – or listeners or viewers, as the case may be – to consider the facts and make up their own minds. It is not the function of journalism to usurp people’s ability to figure things out for themselves. In fact I would suggest that political reporters based in the hothouse of the Parliamentary Press Gallery are almost uniquely ill-qualified to know what people in places like Timaru or Hastings or Whangarei make of politics.
I believe that whatever credibility and public confidence the news media enjoy is largely dependent on the extent to which we play by those rules of journalistic objectivity. It follows that we bend the rules at our peril. Thank you.
The role of the media in shaping public policy
I will preface my comments today by saying that I assume it’s taken as a given that democracy cannot function without a free and vigorous news media. Having got that out of the way, I want to focus specifically on how the behaviour of the media has fundamentally changed in the past decade or two, how the relationship between journalists and politicians has also changed, and the implications for public policy.
I’d like to talk about the model of journalistic objectivity and how it’s under threat, and how that is fundamentally altering the role of the media in public life.
I’ll start by quoting from a speech Tony Blair gave in June 2007, just before he stepped down as British prime minister. Some commentators saw this speech as Blair getting his own back on a hostile British media, but many of the points he made are almost as pertinent here as in the UK.
Blair referred to the revolutionary changes in communications technology and how they were changing the relationship between politics, public life and the media. He thought this change had a seriously adverse impact on the way public is conducted.
He had the decency to acknowledge that New Labour, by paying inordinate attention to courting and persuading the media, had been complicit in this.
Blair noted that the relationship between politicians and the media had always been fraught but went on to say that he believed it was now qualitatively and quantitatively different from anything that had gone before.
He talked about the proliferation and fragmentation of the media. The main BBC and ITV nightly news bulletins used to have audiences of eight to ten million. Now the average was half that. Viewers now had the option of watching 24-hour news programmes that covered events as they unfolded.
In 1982, Britain had three TV networks. Now there were hundreds. Newspapers were fighting for a share of a shrinking market. Many were read online, not the next day.
There were roughly 70 million blogs in existence, with 120,000 more being created every day. (Remember, Blair was talking in 2007. If anything, the pace has quickened since then.) Younger people in particular were getting less and less of their news from traditional outlets.
The forms of communication were merging and interchanging: the BBC website was crucial to the modern BBC and newspapers provided podcasts and material on the web. “News,” Blair said, “is becoming increasingly a free good, provided online without charge.”
The news schedule now ran 24 hours a day, seven days a week. “It moves in real time”, Blair said. “Papers don’t give you up-to-date news – that’s already out there. They have to break stories, try to lead the schedules. Or they give a commentary – and it all happens with outstanding speed.”
He recalled that when New Labour fought the 1997 election, it tackled an issue a day. By 2005 the party strategists had to have one for the morning and another for the afternoon, and by the evening the agenda had already moved on.
“Make a mistake,” Blair said, “and you frequently transfer from drama to crisis. Things harden within minutes.”
Now here’s what I consider a significant quote, and it echoed my own thoughts about what was going on in New Zealand. Blair said: “I am going to say something that few people in public life will say, but most know is absolutely true: a vast aspect of our jobs today – as big as anything else, outside of the really major decisions – is coping with the media, its sheer scale, weight and constant hyperactivity. At points, it literally overwhelms.”
Not having a proper press operation to cope with media demands, he observed, was like asking a batsman to face bodyline bowling without pads or headgear. (It should be noted here that New Labour itself helped ramp up the ferocity by creating a spin factory under Alastair Campbell that was unprecedented in the history of British politics.)
Blair also talked about how Parliament was reported, or rather not reported.
“Tell me how many maiden speeches are listened to; how many excellent second reading speeches or committee speeches are covered. Except when they generate major controversy, they aren't. If you are a backbench MP today, you learn to give a press release first and a good Parliamentary speech second.”
He observed that as a result of the intense competitive pressure, the media was now driven to a dangerous degree by “impact”.
“Impact is what matters. It is all that can distinguish, can rise above the clamour, can get noticed.
“Impact gives competitive edge. Of course the accuracy of a story counts. But it is secondary to impact. It is this necessary devotion to impact that is unravelling standards, driving them down, making the diversity of the media not the strength it should be but an impulsion towards sensation above all else.
“The audience needs to be arrested, held and their emotions engaged. Something that is interesting is less powerful than something that makes you angry or shocked. The consequences of this are acute. First, scandal or controversy beats ordinary reporting hands down. News is rarely news unless it generates heat as much as or more than light.
“The fear of missing out means today's media, more than ever before, hunts in a pack. In these modes it is like a feral beast, just tearing people and reputations to bits. But no-one dares miss out.”
Blair complained that commentary on the news had become as important as, if not more important than, the news itself. There was often as much interpretation of what politicians were saying as there was coverage of them saying it.
He went on to talk about the confusion of news and commentary. Comment is a perfectly respectable part of journalism, Blair noted, but it is supposed to be separate. “Opinion and fact should be clearly divisible. The truth is a large part of the media today not merely elides the two but does so now as a matter of course.”
He talked about the British media’s tendency to see everything in terms of black and white. Life's usual grey, Blair said, was almost entirely absent.
The notion that some things were good, some bad, that some things went right and some went wrong, was alien to today's reporting. “It’s a triumph or a disaster. A problem is ‘a crisis’. A setback is a policy ‘in tatters’. A criticism becomes ‘a savage attack’.”
Was it becoming worse? Blair asked. His answer was yes.
There was a time when he thought new forms of communication (I presume he meant blogs) might provide a means of bypassing the increasingly shrill tenor of the traditional media, but he said these new outlets could be even more pernicious, less balanced, and more intent on the latest conspiracy theory.
Blair thought that politicians and journalists alike were being dragged down by the way media and public life interacted. He made the point that trust in journalists was not much above that in politicians. But he felt there was still a market in providing serious, balanced news and a desire for impartiality. There was still a thirst for the news being real news. He felt the media needed to re-assert its own selling point, namely the distinction between news and comment.
I thought he ruined things a bit at the end of his speech by hinting that perhaps the solution to all this lay in tighter regulation. Giving more power to politicians and bureaucrats is rarely a good solution for anything. But that aside, much of what he said was valid.
I’d like to turn now to the New Zealand situation and see how much of what Blair said about Britain also applies here. In my view, quite a lot.
In the past couple of decades we have seen the function of the news media change from that of an essentially passive reporter and observer of politics to that of an active player, using its considerable power to shape and drive political events.
In effect, as I wrote in a recent column, journalists have become choreographers of the political ballet. Politicians dance to the media’s tune because they can’t risk losing control of the news agenda.
How did this come about? Well, it probably started innocently enough, with political correspondents writing weekly columns in which they sought to interpret the week’s events for the benefit of the reader.
These columns were typically restrained and cautious, even timid by today’s standards, and rarely crossed the line between interpretation and comment. Statements of opinion remained the preserve of the newspaper editorial.
Political journalists were deferential toward politicians and took care not to say anything too provocative. Apart from anything else, they worried that this might cut off their sources of information.
As time went by, however, political correspondents shed their modesty. Some commentators have attributed this to the emergence, from the late 1960s onwards, of the byline.
Political writers who had previously hidden beyond the anonymity of titles such as Political Writer or Parliamentary Correspondent now began writing under their own names, sometimes with their photos alongside. They came to be viewed as people of influence whose opinions were noted and respected by those in power.
Columnists with the right political contacts were fed inside information. Their columns served as platforms from which ideas or initiatives could be floated without disclosing where they came from. It’s been suggested that this was the point at which some political journalists started seeing themselves as players on the political stage rather than mere observers.
It was at this point too that the nature of the relationship between politicians and journalists began to change. As the media became bolder and more aggressive, the balance of power in the relationship shifted.
Politicians realised they could no longer control the flow of information as they used to, or keep the media at bay with the occasional formal press statement or stage-managed press conference. David Lange acknowledged this in 1994 when he noted that the global reach of information now meant the voters often knew as much as the politicians.
Meanwhile the press gallery, which had traditionally been dominated by a handful of savvy senior journalists who operated very much as lone wolves, learned the benefits of hunting as a pack. Nowhere is that better illustrated than by the media scrum that waits to ambush politicians on their way to and from the debating chamber in Parliament.
John Tamihere a few years ago described politicians and journalists as having the ultimate in co-dependent abusive relationships. I actually think it’s moved beyond that. It’s no longer a relationship between equals but one in which the balance of power probably now lies with the journalists.
We now have a political climate in which both the tempo and the temperature of media coverage have increased enormously.
I’ve always compared the news business with having to feed a hungry dog. The difference is that 20 years ago you needed to feed the dog only twice a day. Now the pressure of the news cycle is such that the dog demands to be fed around the clock. And it’s a big ugly dog now, not just a goofy, good-natured labrador.
Newspapers used to come out in the morning and the evening. They still do, but now there’s pressure on reporters to constantly update their websites. TV and radio have discovered this thing called “Breaking News” to create an aura of drama and excitement.
The ridiculous insistence on TV journalists reporting live from the scene, even if they’re incapable of coherently stringing three words together, is part of the same phenomenon.
The story must never be allowed to go cold or solidify. It must be driven on with new angles. The pressure to be ahead of the competition is intense, which is why we saw the extraordinary spectacle of TVNZ newsreader Wendy Petrie triumphantly punching the air when she reported live from outside the Christchurch High Court while waiting for the David Bain verdict.
She didn’t even have anything to report, for God’s sake; she was just saying, “Here we are waiting for the verdict”. But the fact that she got this piece of non-information to air ahead of TV3 was apparently cause for jubilation. This is how bad it’s got.
During the course of my 40 years in journalism the media have moved from being essentially reactive – by which I mean the media respectfully waited for the politicians to announce things – to the point where they now call the shots.
The political agenda is largely driven by the beat-up du jour – the political story of the moment, as determined by political reporters and editors. Political news has become just another spectator sport.
Last week it was Paula Bennett and Roger Douglas’s holiday in Britain. The week before that it was Clayton Weatherston and the government’s decision to strike the defence of provocation from the statute books. This week, who knows?
Politicians feel they have to respond to whatever crisis or firestorm the media create. As a result I suspect a lot of policy decisions are made on the trot, largely to extinguish the latest media bushfire.
I mentioned Simon Power’s recent announcement that provocation would no longer be available as a defence in murder cases. He said that move had been under consideration by National since 2007, but who couldn’t be struck by the coincidence that it was announced in the very week that the nation was outraged by saturation media coverage of the Weatherston trial? Was it a carefully considered decision, or was it an opportunistic one driven by the media focus on a sensational murder case?
This might sound odd coming from a journalist, but I believe politicians spend far too much time reacting to media pressure
No politicians in New Zealand history have spent more time talking to journalists than Helen Clark and John Key. Key seems to be on tap virtually 24/7, as Clark was. Politicians used to be distant and aloof; political reporters would go for weeks without an opportunity to question the prime minister. Now journalists consider it their right to accost politicians at all times and in all places and thrust a microphone in their faces.
Part of me applauds this, because democracy can’t function properly if politicians aren’t held accountable by the media. But as with so many issues, it’s a matter of getting the balance right. And I believe we’ve gone from one extreme to the other; from the timid, deferential media of 40 years ago to the aggressive, impatient and even arrogant media of today.
I’ve devoted a lot of time and energy over the past 20 years to defending freedom of the press. No one believes more firmly than I do in a bold and robust news media. But as well as being a journalist I’m also a citizen, a taxpayer and a voter, and I don’t elect politicians to spend so much of their precious time dancing to a tune called by the media. We live in a country that is desperately in need of courageous, far-sighted government, and I don’t believe we can get it while our leaders are preoccupied with responding to the demands of the daily news cycle.
I’d like to turn now to the sorts of stories that drive the political agenda.
Political journalists and their editors have always determined what is news – there’s nothing new there. But as competition for viewers and readers has intensified, the underlying values and priorities considered in making those judgments have changed.
If you go back three or four decades, political journalism was largely about nuts-and-bolts stuff: select committee hearings, parliamentary debates, speeches and other set pieces. It was dull but worthy. Now the nightly TV news bulletin has morphed into another form of entertainment, complete with its own celebrities in the form of newsreaders and reporters.
Across all the news media, but on TV in particular, news is selected not so much on the basis of what matters most but rather what is most likely to provoke outrage, fear, anger, sympathy, disgust or anxiety. Tony Blair mentioned this too.
Stories that are likely to evoke strong emotional responses or tug on the viewers’ heartstrings – items about tragedy or crime, for example, or stories with clearly identifiable heroes and villains – are played up to the max, complete with cues as to how we should react to them. Judy Bailey was perfectly suited to this approach, reading the news in the manner of a teacher addressing a classroom of slow learners, and using facial expressions or tone of voice to indicate how we should respond emotionally. Brian Edwards called it the coochie-coo news.
In terms of political journalism, stories involving conflict and personalities will always make the cut ahead of others that may have deeper and more significant implications. Politicians are often reduced to stamping out bushfires fanned by the media when there may be more crucial issues requiring their attention.
And of course nothing excites the press gallery more than the scent of blood from a wounded politician. Gaffes and minor indiscretions that in a previous era would have passed unnoticed or been smoothed over are now mercilessly exploited by journalists eager to claim a scalp. Just ask National MP Melissa Lee, who must still be licking her wounds after the punishment she took during the Mt Albert by election. Or Don Brash, who was made an object of ridicule by endless TV replays of him teetering on a narrow gangplank, as if this rendered him unfit for office.
Another feature of television, in particular, is the low regard it has for the public intellect. One of the reasons why easily digestible news stories crowd out more complex, nuanced ones is that TV editors are convinced viewers have the attention span of goldfish. They worry about losing their audience if any item runs longer than two minutes – unless of course it happens to be about Michael Jackson or the new GI Joe movie.
Tony Blair also mentioned the confusion of news and commentary. That too applies in New Zealand.
One of the fundamental tenets of journalistic objectivity is that a clear separation should be maintained between news and comment, but we have seen a gradual blurring of what was once a sharp line that divided the two.
It’s now routine for political news and opinion to be so intermingled that it’s impossible to disentangle one from the other. TV3’s political editor Duncan Garner typically spends as much time commenting on what has happened as he does reporting it.
To me there is an element of disrespect for democracy here. The role of the journalist as I see it is to tell people what’s happening, to the best of your ability, but not to tell them what to make of it. They are smart enough to make up their own minds about that. As someone once put it, the role of the journalist is to be the eyes and ears of the people – not their brains.
I don’t want to single out Duncan Garner. It used to be the norm for print journalists to write straight political news stories during the week and then write a column on Saturday or Monday in which they felt free to interpret what was happening and even offer cautious comment.
The virtue of that practice was that the readers knew which was news and which was comment. But political reporters in the print media as well as in broadcasting now routinely combine news with comment in the same article, to the extent that it’s sometimes difficult to tell where one ends and the other begins. And the trend has been exacerbated by blogs in which political editors are encouraged to tell us what they think.
So what’s happening is that the model of the journalist as passive observer is under threat. Many journalists, particularly in the political sphere, now see themselves as active players in the political process.
Some see it as part of their function to make things happen. That’s not my idea of how democracy is to supposed to work. Journalists are unelected and unaccountable to anyone but their editors; it’s a perversion of the democratic model for them to be actively driving the political process.
We have also seen an increasing tendency for current affairs hosts and interviewers to take a partisan line. It seems Paul Holmes is incapable of interviewing anyone on Q + A – whether it’s on folic acid in bread or the smacking of children – without letting us know what he thinks. When you’re a celebrity, as Holmes is, it’s no longer enough to conduct an interview with the aim of extracting information or illuminating an issue; you’re entitled to consider yourself an opinion leader.
We’re also seeing more advocacy journalism – journalists pushing issues, taking sides and getting directly involved in the controversies they’re covering. Again, it’s most noticeable on television, probably because that’s where the competition is fiercest.
One recent example was John Campbell and his crew attending the after-trial party for David Bain. It just looked too chummy for comfort. Knowing how carefully Joe Karam controlled the publicity surrounding Bain you can’t help but wonder what sort of conditions were imposed.
So, to wrap up. Are journalists exerting too much influence on the political agenda? Yes, I think they are. Politicians spend too much of their time responding to the demands of an increasingly intense and competitive news machine, and we have to ask whether that’s a proper use of their energy and talents.
We need to remind ourselves that political journalists are driven more than ever by the need to win ratings and readership. They are not, as a rule, concerned with pursuing sound, long-term policy objectives. Politicians, however, need to be. That’s what we elect them for.
I’m not suggesting we regress to an earlier era when politicians treated the media with contempt and talked to them only when it suited them to do so. As with so many things, it’s all a question of balance.
What’s the solution? Well, I think Tony Blair was getting close to it before he got sidetracked by the temptation of regulatory intervention.
The model that has underpinned journalistic practice in liberal western democracies for the past hundred years is journalistic objectivity.
This means journalists are supposed to report the news accurately, fairly and impartially. It requires that we strive for balance in the way we report issues – in other words, that we fairly represent the views of all parties with a significant interest in whatever issue we are covering. It means journalists are supposed to keep their own views out of their work, unless what they are writing is clearly identified as opinion or comment. And it stresses the importance of keeping news and comment separate, so that there’s no chance of the news being contaminated by the journalist’s own views.
Objectivity also calls for a certain detachment. It sees the journalist not as an active participant in affairs but as an observer and reporter. I should emphasise that this doesn’t preclude bold and vigorous reporting. The Washington Post’s exposure of the Watergate scandal was completely in line with the principles of objectivity; so was the Dominion Post’s reporting on Donna Awatere Huata, Clint Rickards and his mates, Winston Peters and his secret donors, the Urewera terrorism raids and Tony Veitch.
All these stories were based on verifiable facts and in every case there was a compelling public interest in knowing about them. So it’s wrong to suggest, as some people do, that an objective media is somehow tame and timid.
I would suggest that another great virtue of objectivity is that it respects the right and the ability of readers – or listeners or viewers, as the case may be – to consider the facts and make up their own minds. It is not the function of journalism to usurp people’s ability to figure things out for themselves. In fact I would suggest that political reporters based in the hothouse of the Parliamentary Press Gallery are almost uniquely ill-qualified to know what people in places like Timaru or Hastings or Whangarei make of politics.
I believe that whatever credibility and public confidence the news media enjoy is largely dependent on the extent to which we play by those rules of journalistic objectivity. It follows that we bend the rules at our peril. Thank you.
Monday, August 10, 2009
Key's cycleway plan has wheels
(First published in the Nelson Mail and Manawatu Standard, August 5.)
Apparently John Key hasn’t ridden a bike since his school days. Metaphorically speaking, that may explain why his cycleway plan looked decidedly wobbly at first.
At the February jobs summit, the national cycleway was touted as just that – a virtually unbroken cycling route stretching from the Far North to Bluff.
It was oversold politically and Key’s shiny new bike, sans trainer wheels, appeared to be weaving unsteadily toward a muddy ditch. Labour waited in gleeful anticipation of a humiliating face-plant.
Perhaps over-eager to show the jobs summit wasn’t just a pointless talkfest, the government greatly overstated the cycleway’s potential to create jobs while conveniently under-estimating the cost.
It quickly became apparent that $50 million, the figure initially bandied about, wouldn’t even begin to cover the planning, land acquisition and construction costs.
Critics ridiculed it as airy-fairy, pie-in-the-sky stuff. For a while it looked as if the national cycleway would become the National-led government’s first seriously embarrassing failure.
But Key regained control of his wayward two-wheeler and last week a greatly scaled-down cycleway plan emerged. It consists of seven cycle tracks, some of them partly in existence already, at an estimated cost of $9 million. About 300 jobs will be created, less than 10 percent of the optimistic figure first mentioned in February.
The plan for a national cycleway running the length of the country hasn’t been shelved; it has simply been broken into manageable, bite-sized chunks that will be tackled as resources permit. The toned-down PR that accompanied last week’s announcement portrayed the project not as a miracle cure for unemployment but more realistically emphasised its potential as a tourism booster and economic stimulant in some our more isolated regions.
What’s interesting is that much of the scorn that greeted the idea following the jobs summit in February seems to have evaporated. This suggests that while people were justifiably sceptical about the over-hyped Mk. 1 version, they see the revised model as achievable.
The reaction from councils in the districts where the first tracks are to be built was positively euphoric. Significantly, the cycleway also got enthusiastic endorsement from the Greens – demonstrating, again, Key’s ability to reach across traditional political divides.
One can almost sense Labour’s despair that the cycleway, which only months ago looked perilously close to being stillborn, could yet become a political winner for Key and National.
It’s not going too far to say it has the potential to become a defining achievement of this government – admittedly not one on a scale to match the first Labour Government’s state housing programme, or the radical deregulation carried out by Roger Douglas in the 1980s. But there is a visionary element to it all the same, and the timing – always crucial in politics – seems right.
Only agriculture rivals tourism for economic importance to New Zealand. People already come from all over the world to enjoy our spectacular, relatively unspoiled scenery. But the cycleway plan has the potential to exploit a powerful new dynamic in tourism: the desire for the feel-good factor that comes with being healthy and environmentally friendly.
If this type of tourism can work anywhere, it should work in New Zealand. Access to some of our most beautiful and remote country is limited because the fractured topography makes it difficult and expensive to build highways. But many back-country areas were opened up in the 19th century for logging and mining, and many of the tracks created then still exist.
In other hard-to-reach parts of the country, access roads were built from the 1930s onwards to allow the construction of electricity transmission lines. Many of these routes are rideable – or could be, with relatively little work.
I know because I’ve ridden some of them myself. My mountain bike has taken me to breathtakingly beautiful, out-of-the-way places that most New Zealanders never see. You could reach them on foot, but walking is too slow (and, dare I say it, too boring) for all but the seriously committed tramper. On a bike, you can cover surprising distances while still rejoicing in the magnificent landscapes and relishing the silence and solitude.
Examples? The 42 Traverse through wild bush country in the Central North Island, so named because it passes through what was once State Forest 42; the spectacular 112 km Rainbow road, which cuts through soaring mountain ranges and lonely tussock high country between North Canterbury and Nelson; the Dunstan Trail, along which gold miners travelled through the Rock and Pillar Range to get to the Central Otago goldfields (in places, you can still see the ruts left by their wagon wheels); and the Maungatapu Track, once the main route from Marlborough to Nelson, now a pylon maintenance road that takes you past Murderers’ Rock, scene of one of New Zealand’s most infamous crimes.
Then there are the routes that cyclists are currently barred from due to opposition from trampers, such as the Heaphy Track, which with relatively little effort could be adapted for dual use.
I could go on. In the central North Island and in the ranges north of Wellington – and doubtless in many other parts of the country too – there are mazes of old forestry tracks, mostly still in good nick. Abandoned railway lines offer potential too, as in the Rimutaka range north of Upper Hutt, where specially designed steam engines once hauled trains up the Rimutaka Incline.
In the South Wairarapa, there’s potential – with co-operation from landowners – to create a spectacular ride along one of New Zealand’s wildest coastlines. The tracks are there.
These are just some of the routes I’m familiar with personally; doubtless there are many more. Even as I’m writing this, I bet local cycling organisations and council planners all over the country are poring over maps and drawing up proposals.
It’s not wildly fanciful to visualise New Zealand as a recreational cyclists’ mecca, with all the economic benefits that conjures up. The hugely successful Central Otago rail trail gives just a hint of the possibilities.
Apparently John Key hasn’t ridden a bike since his school days. Metaphorically speaking, that may explain why his cycleway plan looked decidedly wobbly at first.
At the February jobs summit, the national cycleway was touted as just that – a virtually unbroken cycling route stretching from the Far North to Bluff.
It was oversold politically and Key’s shiny new bike, sans trainer wheels, appeared to be weaving unsteadily toward a muddy ditch. Labour waited in gleeful anticipation of a humiliating face-plant.
Perhaps over-eager to show the jobs summit wasn’t just a pointless talkfest, the government greatly overstated the cycleway’s potential to create jobs while conveniently under-estimating the cost.
It quickly became apparent that $50 million, the figure initially bandied about, wouldn’t even begin to cover the planning, land acquisition and construction costs.
Critics ridiculed it as airy-fairy, pie-in-the-sky stuff. For a while it looked as if the national cycleway would become the National-led government’s first seriously embarrassing failure.
But Key regained control of his wayward two-wheeler and last week a greatly scaled-down cycleway plan emerged. It consists of seven cycle tracks, some of them partly in existence already, at an estimated cost of $9 million. About 300 jobs will be created, less than 10 percent of the optimistic figure first mentioned in February.
The plan for a national cycleway running the length of the country hasn’t been shelved; it has simply been broken into manageable, bite-sized chunks that will be tackled as resources permit. The toned-down PR that accompanied last week’s announcement portrayed the project not as a miracle cure for unemployment but more realistically emphasised its potential as a tourism booster and economic stimulant in some our more isolated regions.
What’s interesting is that much of the scorn that greeted the idea following the jobs summit in February seems to have evaporated. This suggests that while people were justifiably sceptical about the over-hyped Mk. 1 version, they see the revised model as achievable.
The reaction from councils in the districts where the first tracks are to be built was positively euphoric. Significantly, the cycleway also got enthusiastic endorsement from the Greens – demonstrating, again, Key’s ability to reach across traditional political divides.
One can almost sense Labour’s despair that the cycleway, which only months ago looked perilously close to being stillborn, could yet become a political winner for Key and National.
It’s not going too far to say it has the potential to become a defining achievement of this government – admittedly not one on a scale to match the first Labour Government’s state housing programme, or the radical deregulation carried out by Roger Douglas in the 1980s. But there is a visionary element to it all the same, and the timing – always crucial in politics – seems right.
Only agriculture rivals tourism for economic importance to New Zealand. People already come from all over the world to enjoy our spectacular, relatively unspoiled scenery. But the cycleway plan has the potential to exploit a powerful new dynamic in tourism: the desire for the feel-good factor that comes with being healthy and environmentally friendly.
If this type of tourism can work anywhere, it should work in New Zealand. Access to some of our most beautiful and remote country is limited because the fractured topography makes it difficult and expensive to build highways. But many back-country areas were opened up in the 19th century for logging and mining, and many of the tracks created then still exist.
In other hard-to-reach parts of the country, access roads were built from the 1930s onwards to allow the construction of electricity transmission lines. Many of these routes are rideable – or could be, with relatively little work.
I know because I’ve ridden some of them myself. My mountain bike has taken me to breathtakingly beautiful, out-of-the-way places that most New Zealanders never see. You could reach them on foot, but walking is too slow (and, dare I say it, too boring) for all but the seriously committed tramper. On a bike, you can cover surprising distances while still rejoicing in the magnificent landscapes and relishing the silence and solitude.
Examples? The 42 Traverse through wild bush country in the Central North Island, so named because it passes through what was once State Forest 42; the spectacular 112 km Rainbow road, which cuts through soaring mountain ranges and lonely tussock high country between North Canterbury and Nelson; the Dunstan Trail, along which gold miners travelled through the Rock and Pillar Range to get to the Central Otago goldfields (in places, you can still see the ruts left by their wagon wheels); and the Maungatapu Track, once the main route from Marlborough to Nelson, now a pylon maintenance road that takes you past Murderers’ Rock, scene of one of New Zealand’s most infamous crimes.
Then there are the routes that cyclists are currently barred from due to opposition from trampers, such as the Heaphy Track, which with relatively little effort could be adapted for dual use.
I could go on. In the central North Island and in the ranges north of Wellington – and doubtless in many other parts of the country too – there are mazes of old forestry tracks, mostly still in good nick. Abandoned railway lines offer potential too, as in the Rimutaka range north of Upper Hutt, where specially designed steam engines once hauled trains up the Rimutaka Incline.
In the South Wairarapa, there’s potential – with co-operation from landowners – to create a spectacular ride along one of New Zealand’s wildest coastlines. The tracks are there.
These are just some of the routes I’m familiar with personally; doubtless there are many more. Even as I’m writing this, I bet local cycling organisations and council planners all over the country are poring over maps and drawing up proposals.
It’s not wildly fanciful to visualise New Zealand as a recreational cyclists’ mecca, with all the economic benefits that conjures up. The hugely successful Central Otago rail trail gives just a hint of the possibilities.
Friday, August 7, 2009
To heck with constitutional niceties, I say
(First published in the Curmudgeon column, Dominion Post, August 4.)
IT WAS unfortunate that media coverage of Chief Justice Dame Sian Elias’s recent speech about crime and punishment focused on the constitutional propriety of the country’s top judge straying into territory usually reserved for politicians.
To heck with constitutional niceties, I say. The issues raised in Dame Sian’s thoughtful speech to women lawyers were far more important than the fact that she trod on Justice Minister Simon Power’s toes. But that was the angle most of the media went with.
Regardless of whether you share Dame Sian’s contentious view that imprisonment doesn’t work, and more controversially that criminals are the victims of circumstance, there is an important debate to be had about crime and punishment. The views of the Chief Justice are surely worth hearing.
Having said that, it was a politically provocative speech and it’s hard to believe Dame Sian didn’t know she was stepping into a minefield.
It wasn’t just the fact that she was trespassing on his turf that rattled the usually affable Mr Power. Dame Sian wasn’t only out of step with public and political sentiment about the need to put offenders behind bars, but directly challenged the belief that criminals have power over their own lives.
Commenting on a 2001 government report about the need for targeted intervention to prevent socially and economically disadvantaged people turning into criminals, she noted that the report had languished – “partly, one suspects, because in a punitive climate which stresses individual responsibility and is intolerant of excuses, the idea that many offenders do not have much of chance is not a welcome thought.”
It was hard to see this as anything but a condemnation of government policy, which has responded to public anxiety about crime by putting more people behind bars.
What made Dame Sian’s speech even more pointed, politically, was that it was delivered in honour of the late Shirley Smith, a feisty left-wing barrister – the wife of Dr Bill Sutch – who championed the underprivileged, and for whom Dame Sian expressed unalloyed admiration.
Whoever said 1970s-style Wadestown (or in this case Remuera) liberalism was dead?
* * *
IN THEIR efforts to counter the unremitting barrage of anti-smacking propaganda from state-backed organisations such as Barnardos, the backers of the smacking referendum are mincing their words almost to the point of dishonesty.
Answering questions from a hostile Paul Holmes on TVNZ’s Q + A (we keenly await the Holmes Guide to Parenting), Sheryl Savill from Focus on the Family, who initiated the referendum, talked about giving children a “light smack” and was at pains to insist this was not something good parents do when they are angry.
Why pussyfoot around on this issue? Let’s be honest – a “light smack” is hardly more than a pat. It won’t deter a child who’s running amok.
And where’s the harm in admitting that parents smack kids when they’re angry? A child is less likely to be traumatised by a smack administered in exasperation than one given in a cold, ritualised punishment session of the type favoured by religious oddballs.
A sharp smack from a parent whose patience has run out is nature’s way of showing a child that there’s a price to pay for bad behaviour. As a perceptive correspondent recently wrote in this paper, evolution has come up with a very effective means by which animal species provide their offspring with a potent warning about consequences. “It’s called pain.”
This doesn’t mean parents are free to fly into a homicidal rage and start bashing their children around the head with a piece of four by two. The irony, of course, is that the type of parent who does this isn’t going to be deterred for a moment by what the law says. The 13 children who have been killed since the Bradford Bill passed are proof of that.
* * *
IT’S A MEASURE of how public emotion overcame reason in the Clayton Weatherston case that many people seemed to transfer their revulsion from the defendant to his lawyers.
Lead defence counsel Judith Ablett-Kerr QC has been reviled for the way she conducted the case. People seemed to assume that because she defended Weatherston, Mrs Ablett-Kerr condoned his behaviour. But isn’t a barrister professionally obliged to do his or her utmost, within ethical limits, to get an acquittal (or in this case, a manslaughter verdict)?
It’s a fundamental principle of our justice system that even the most contemptible criminal is entitled to a defence. Dirty work, but someone has to do it.
The same applies to the defence’s use of Sophie Elliott’s intimate diary entries, which provoked public outrage. People should get real: courtrooms can be brutal places. Defence lawyers wouldn’t get very far if they fretted about offending people’s sensibilities.
I’m not sure that Mrs Ablett-Kerr is the sort of person I would want to go on holiday with. But if I were accused of murder, I’d probably feel reassured to have her as my barrister.
IT WAS unfortunate that media coverage of Chief Justice Dame Sian Elias’s recent speech about crime and punishment focused on the constitutional propriety of the country’s top judge straying into territory usually reserved for politicians.
To heck with constitutional niceties, I say. The issues raised in Dame Sian’s thoughtful speech to women lawyers were far more important than the fact that she trod on Justice Minister Simon Power’s toes. But that was the angle most of the media went with.
Regardless of whether you share Dame Sian’s contentious view that imprisonment doesn’t work, and more controversially that criminals are the victims of circumstance, there is an important debate to be had about crime and punishment. The views of the Chief Justice are surely worth hearing.
Having said that, it was a politically provocative speech and it’s hard to believe Dame Sian didn’t know she was stepping into a minefield.
It wasn’t just the fact that she was trespassing on his turf that rattled the usually affable Mr Power. Dame Sian wasn’t only out of step with public and political sentiment about the need to put offenders behind bars, but directly challenged the belief that criminals have power over their own lives.
Commenting on a 2001 government report about the need for targeted intervention to prevent socially and economically disadvantaged people turning into criminals, she noted that the report had languished – “partly, one suspects, because in a punitive climate which stresses individual responsibility and is intolerant of excuses, the idea that many offenders do not have much of chance is not a welcome thought.”
It was hard to see this as anything but a condemnation of government policy, which has responded to public anxiety about crime by putting more people behind bars.
What made Dame Sian’s speech even more pointed, politically, was that it was delivered in honour of the late Shirley Smith, a feisty left-wing barrister – the wife of Dr Bill Sutch – who championed the underprivileged, and for whom Dame Sian expressed unalloyed admiration.
Whoever said 1970s-style Wadestown (or in this case Remuera) liberalism was dead?
* * *
IN THEIR efforts to counter the unremitting barrage of anti-smacking propaganda from state-backed organisations such as Barnardos, the backers of the smacking referendum are mincing their words almost to the point of dishonesty.
Answering questions from a hostile Paul Holmes on TVNZ’s Q + A (we keenly await the Holmes Guide to Parenting), Sheryl Savill from Focus on the Family, who initiated the referendum, talked about giving children a “light smack” and was at pains to insist this was not something good parents do when they are angry.
Why pussyfoot around on this issue? Let’s be honest – a “light smack” is hardly more than a pat. It won’t deter a child who’s running amok.
And where’s the harm in admitting that parents smack kids when they’re angry? A child is less likely to be traumatised by a smack administered in exasperation than one given in a cold, ritualised punishment session of the type favoured by religious oddballs.
A sharp smack from a parent whose patience has run out is nature’s way of showing a child that there’s a price to pay for bad behaviour. As a perceptive correspondent recently wrote in this paper, evolution has come up with a very effective means by which animal species provide their offspring with a potent warning about consequences. “It’s called pain.”
This doesn’t mean parents are free to fly into a homicidal rage and start bashing their children around the head with a piece of four by two. The irony, of course, is that the type of parent who does this isn’t going to be deterred for a moment by what the law says. The 13 children who have been killed since the Bradford Bill passed are proof of that.
* * *
IT’S A MEASURE of how public emotion overcame reason in the Clayton Weatherston case that many people seemed to transfer their revulsion from the defendant to his lawyers.
Lead defence counsel Judith Ablett-Kerr QC has been reviled for the way she conducted the case. People seemed to assume that because she defended Weatherston, Mrs Ablett-Kerr condoned his behaviour. But isn’t a barrister professionally obliged to do his or her utmost, within ethical limits, to get an acquittal (or in this case, a manslaughter verdict)?
It’s a fundamental principle of our justice system that even the most contemptible criminal is entitled to a defence. Dirty work, but someone has to do it.
The same applies to the defence’s use of Sophie Elliott’s intimate diary entries, which provoked public outrage. People should get real: courtrooms can be brutal places. Defence lawyers wouldn’t get very far if they fretted about offending people’s sensibilities.
I’m not sure that Mrs Ablett-Kerr is the sort of person I would want to go on holiday with. But if I were accused of murder, I’d probably feel reassured to have her as my barrister.
No Kiwis dead? Ah well, no story
I have been appalled by our media’s casual approach to the tragedy in Tonga, where latest reports indicate as many as 62 people may have drowned following the sinking of the ferry Princess Ashika.
In radio news bulletins yesterday the sinking was generally ranked about fourth or fifth in terms of news significance, although even then it was clear the death toll was likely to be catastrophic. Freeloading politicians were the story of the day and nothing was going to displace it.
Tonga is one of our nearest neighbours and there are more than 50,000 Tongans living in New Zealand. The links could hardly be closer.
To gauge the scale of this disaster, consider this: Tonga has a population of 120,000. I’m no mathematician, but by my calculation 64 deaths in a country that size is the equivalent of more than 2000 deaths in New Zealand. In other words, this is a tragedy of almost unimaginable proportions. Tonga will be stunned.
In a speech in Auckland earlier this week I joked about the sliding scale by which news editors (and I used to be one) judge the news impact of disasters. A crowded train crashing into a ravine in Bangladesh killing 200 people is probably rated as having the same news value in New Zealand as a bus crash on a Sydney freeway that kills three, which in turn merits about the same amount of newspaper space as a house fire in Blenheim that kills the family dog. I exaggerate, of course, but you get the idea.
Even by this cynical journalistic yardstick, I think the Tongan tragedy has been grossly underplayed.
Perhaps the worst aspect of the coverage – and it’s all too typical of the way we react to overseas disasters – was TV3’s report last night in which the main interest was whether there was a New Zealander on board the doomed ship. If not – ah well, no story.
I note that today's New Zealand Herald devoted an entire story to Daniel McMillan, the New Zealand-based Scotsman who apparently died in the sinking. Mr McMillan also took up a big chunk of the Dominion Post's report of the tragedy, which ran on page 3.
What does this say about us? It's almost as if death matters only when it happens to New Zealanders - or in this case, to a white man who happened to be living here temporarily.
In radio news bulletins yesterday the sinking was generally ranked about fourth or fifth in terms of news significance, although even then it was clear the death toll was likely to be catastrophic. Freeloading politicians were the story of the day and nothing was going to displace it.
Tonga is one of our nearest neighbours and there are more than 50,000 Tongans living in New Zealand. The links could hardly be closer.
To gauge the scale of this disaster, consider this: Tonga has a population of 120,000. I’m no mathematician, but by my calculation 64 deaths in a country that size is the equivalent of more than 2000 deaths in New Zealand. In other words, this is a tragedy of almost unimaginable proportions. Tonga will be stunned.
In a speech in Auckland earlier this week I joked about the sliding scale by which news editors (and I used to be one) judge the news impact of disasters. A crowded train crashing into a ravine in Bangladesh killing 200 people is probably rated as having the same news value in New Zealand as a bus crash on a Sydney freeway that kills three, which in turn merits about the same amount of newspaper space as a house fire in Blenheim that kills the family dog. I exaggerate, of course, but you get the idea.
Even by this cynical journalistic yardstick, I think the Tongan tragedy has been grossly underplayed.
Perhaps the worst aspect of the coverage – and it’s all too typical of the way we react to overseas disasters – was TV3’s report last night in which the main interest was whether there was a New Zealander on board the doomed ship. If not – ah well, no story.
I note that today's New Zealand Herald devoted an entire story to Daniel McMillan, the New Zealand-based Scotsman who apparently died in the sinking. Mr McMillan also took up a big chunk of the Dominion Post's report of the tragedy, which ran on page 3.
What does this say about us? It's almost as if death matters only when it happens to New Zealanders - or in this case, to a white man who happened to be living here temporarily.
Thursday, August 6, 2009
Jack Darmody would have approved
Australian police are reportedly furious at Rupert Murdoch’s newspaper The Australian for supposedly jeopardising this week’s anti-terrorism raids. Someone tipped the paper off about the raids in advance, forcing the police to bring the operation forward. According to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, police claimed that copies of the paper carrying details of the raids were circulating before the last arrests were made. Now the hunt is on for the leaker.
If it’s true – and The Australian denies that the story was out before the raids took place – then it’s simply carrying on a great Australian newspaper tradition.
In 1969 a legendary old-school Melbourne police reporter named Jack Darmody learned that police were closing in on Great Train Robber Ronnie Biggs, who was living quietly with his wife Charmian and three children in an outer Melbourne suburb. Biggs had fled to Australia after escaping from prison in Britain in 1965 and was later joined by his family.
Darmody, whose contacts were impeccable, got the tipoff from sources at Russell St police headquarters. His story was splashed over the front page of Melbourne Truth hours before the raid was to take place – just enough time for friends to tip Biggs off and enable him to make his getaway. Several weeks later he turned up in Brazil.
According to Wikipedia, it was a Reuters correspondent who broke the story of the impending raid, which was then picked up by Channel Nine and headlined its six o’clock news. But that’s not my recollection, and it also conflicts with the obituaries written when Darmody died in 2006.
Darmody was a tough hack of the old school – a virtually extinct breed that I referred to in passing in my speech to Agcarm last month, reproduced below.
If it’s true – and The Australian denies that the story was out before the raids took place – then it’s simply carrying on a great Australian newspaper tradition.
In 1969 a legendary old-school Melbourne police reporter named Jack Darmody learned that police were closing in on Great Train Robber Ronnie Biggs, who was living quietly with his wife Charmian and three children in an outer Melbourne suburb. Biggs had fled to Australia after escaping from prison in Britain in 1965 and was later joined by his family.
Darmody, whose contacts were impeccable, got the tipoff from sources at Russell St police headquarters. His story was splashed over the front page of Melbourne Truth hours before the raid was to take place – just enough time for friends to tip Biggs off and enable him to make his getaway. Several weeks later he turned up in Brazil.
According to Wikipedia, it was a Reuters correspondent who broke the story of the impending raid, which was then picked up by Channel Nine and headlined its six o’clock news. But that’s not my recollection, and it also conflicts with the obituaries written when Darmody died in 2006.
Darmody was a tough hack of the old school – a virtually extinct breed that I referred to in passing in my speech to Agcarm last month, reproduced below.
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