Business Interests - Newstalk ZB, Morning Newses, 21/03/2006
| Newstalk ZB has once again proven itself to be an unobjective source of information. While broadcasting a story surrounding Cyclone Larry earlier this week, business influence was sprouting at the seams. House of Travel were given a whole story on the 7am Tuesday morning Wellington news, which ran along the following lines: Few New Zealanders have been caught up in Cyclone Larry because it's the tourist off-season. House of Travel is however trying to get in touch with its 24 clients in Queensland. And on the Auckland frequency on the 6am news: House of Travel says it will determine the extent of the damage caused by cyclone Larry, before making any recommendations about travel warnings to the area. So it comes across as if Newstalk ZB had made an honest attempt to get comment from a local New Zealand business with an interest in issue at hand. But why House of Travel? Well, it is interesting to note that on Newstalk ZB morning talkback, House of Travel have a paid advertorial session. Although the news item wouldn't have been paid for, it's a clear attempt by Newstalk ZB to hattip House of Travel and nod in the direction of the story 'Look, we gave you free coverage'. It really is nothing more than an attempt to satisfy a paying advertiser at the cost of free and objective news. Newstalk ZB really needs to clean up its act. Thank goodness for National Radio. |
posted by praising_idleness at 10:16
Comments on "Business Interests - Newstalk ZB, Morning Newses, 21/03/2006"
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Anonymous said ... (20:16) :
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Lyndon said ... (12:23) :
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praising_idleness said ... (13:09) :
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Anonymous said ... (22:34) :
post a commentTrust me, they're not organised enough to do that deliberately. I'd suggest lazy journalism as being the culprit.
As in:
"shit we need a local angle on this."
"Anyone know anybody over there?"
"Fuckit, let just ring a travel agency. How about the one that played in the adbreak just before? Christ if they buiy airtime there's no way they'll tell us to piss off"
Actually, they probably didn't have to pick up the phone. House of Travel sent out a media statement:
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/BU0603/S00306.htm
and I don't believe anyone else did.
From memory your quotes were in there.
To Anonymous:
Good point. Media laziness is however a pretty poor excuse. Either way, advertising interests or poor journalism, objective and informative media suffers.
To Lyndon:
They would've picked up the phone to talk to the House of Travel representative, who had a sound bite on the segment.
Newstalk ZB newswriters are nothing more than sausage factory workers - they have to churn out anything up to 6 stories an hour or more, with audio. I'd say this is way more a case of "grab the closest comment you can" than any editorial policy dictating preferential audio grabs from advertisers.
And yes, despite all their internal culture problems, praise heaven for NatRad :)