I was on National Radio’s Afternoons (with Jim Mora) programme yesterday. One of the topics which fellow panellist Michelle Boag and I were discussing arose from an item in that day’s Dominion Post. The story was about a Wellington man whose complaint to the Broadcasting Standards Authority about an item on One News had not merely been dismissed as ‘frivolous and trivial’ by the Authority, but had resulted in his being ordered to pay TVNZ costs of $50 as ‘a form of deterrent’. The man’s name is Don McDonald, a beneficiary who is unable to work and receives the invalid’s benefit and pension.

I was surprised, as no doubt many Dom Post readers and listeners to Afternoons were, to learn that the BSA had the power not merely to punish broadcasters for their transgressions but to punish people whose complaints to the broadcasters and subsequently to the Authority were deemed to be ‘frivolous’ or ‘trivial’. As a general principle, that seemed to me an inappropriate function for an organisation whose mandate surely is (or ought to be) to represent the interests of listeners and viewers, not to ‘deter’ listeners and viewers from complaining with the threat of punishment if their complaints overstep the Authority’s arbitrary benchmarks of what is ‘serious’ or ‘important’.

The problem here is that ‘frivolous, trivial, serious, important’ are all subjective terms. What is ‘frivolous and trivial’ to one person may be both ‘serious and important’ to another. If you read all of Mr McDonald’s complaints to the BSA – I can find a total of 25 over the past 8 years – it becomes crystal clear that, in his mind, none is ‘frivolous’ or ‘trivial’ in intention or nature. Mr McDonald is simply a stickler for accuracy, one of the 11 ‘Standards’ which it is the broadcasters’ responsibility to maintain and the BSA’s responsibility to uphold.

What’s more, when he complains that a broadcast statement is inaccurate, he is, as far as I can see, almost invariably  correct. The complaint for which the BSA has ordered him to pay a fine of $50 to TVNZ is a case in point.

On 6 January of this year One News reported on the discovery of a supernova by a 10-year-old Canadian girl, Kathryn Gray. The report included the following statement:

‘The Canadian Astronomical Society says Kathryn’s supernova was in a galaxy 240 light years from Earth.’

Mr McDonald complained to TVNZ that the statement was inaccurate because ‘a supernova star at such close distance would barbecue the earth.’ He said the distance from the earth to its neighbouring galaxy Andromeda was at least two million light years.

He was right. What’s more, TVNZ agreed that he was right. Kathryn’s supernova was in a galaxy not 240 but 240 million light years from the earth. In other words, a million times further away that TVNZ had reported.

I’d call that fairly inaccurate. I’d say that was a clear breach by TVNZ of its duty under Standard 5 to be accurate in its news reporting. I’d have thought the decent thing for TVNZ to do was to uphold Mr McDonald’s complaint and maybe apologise and promise to do better.

Dream on! TVNZ’s lawyers were scanning the fine print. You see ‘Standard 5 Accuracy’ requires broadcasters to make reasonable efforts to ensure that news, current affairs and factual programming is ‘accurate in relation to all material points of fact’. And TVNZ decided that the distance of Kathryn’s supernova from earth was not a material point of fact in the item, which focused on the discovery of the supernova by a 10-year-old girl. Hey, this was a human interest story, who cared about the facts?

And the Broadcasting Standards Authority agreed with TVNZ that the supernova’s distance from the earth ‘was peripheral to the story’ and decided that it had had just about enough of Mr McDonald and his never-ending complaining and ordered him to pay $50 to TVNZ for its and their trouble. As a ‘form of deterrent’, you understand.

Now here’s an interesting question: If you were 10-year-old Kathryn Gray would you consider that the fact that the supernova you had discovered was 240 million light years from earth (rather than a mere 240 light years from earth) was or was not ‘a material point of fact’ with regard to your discovery? The question is rhetorical. Only an idiot could get the answer wrong.

What’s concerning about this story is that Mr McDonald is actually being fined not for his entirely justified complaint with regard to One News’ coverage of Kathryn’s supernova -  for being right –  but for all his previous complaints which the BSA considered ‘frivolous’, ‘trivial’ or ‘vexatious’. The Authority has thus  assumed the mantle of a judge dealing with a repeat offender.  His ‘deterrent’ sentence is intended to discourage him from making further such complaints, however right in fact. Like all deterrent sentences it finds its justification not in what the accused person has done in this case, but in what he or other offenders might do in future. The warning is for you and me as well as Mr McDonald.

But what about the facts? What about Mr McDonald being right? In its finding the Authority makes the following statement: ‘Mr McDonald wishes to apply standards of scientific or mathematical accuracy where these are not required.’ It would be interesting to know just where ‘standards of scientific or mathematical accuracy’ are ‘not required’ in broadcasting. Perhaps the BSA will tell us. In the meantime, less scrupulous broadcasters will no doubt be reassured by this invitation to be careless with the facts and get away with it.

I’m told by friends of Mr McDonald that he has a brilliant mind  and is or has been a member of Mensa. Reading his submissions to broadcasters and to the BSA, I don’t for a moment doubt it. His arguments display a scientific and linguistic subtlety that I find extraordinary. One friend told me: Don is particularly good at numbers, and handles them with care. He is the sort of person who is precise, and expects that precision in others. ‘Too clever for his own good’ perhaps, as my mother used to say.

But if there’s a bottom line to this story, it is that the Broadcasting Standards Authority, whose mandate is surely to look after the interests of the consumers of broadcasting rather than the broadcasters themselves, has ordered a beneficiary on the bones of his financial arse to hand over $50 to a multi-million dollar corporation which had its facts wrong.  That stinks.

Pic: auckland.jollypeople.com

Today’s Herald reports an increase of 5% among viewers in the 5+ demographic for One News over the past year, giving the bulletin a cumulative nightly audience of 665,100. 3 News’ audience in the same demographic over the same period declined by 15% to 375,190 viewers. Put simply, 3 News has just over half as many viewers at One News.

Setting aside the argument that TV3’s target audience is the 18 to 49 demographic, having just over half of your competitor’s audience is not a good look when you’re arguing that you’ve got the better product. And it’s an even worse look when that  target audience is also falling.

My personal view is that 3 News is the superior product, or at least it would be if it dealt with a situation that I’m convinced is not only keeping viewers away but driving them away – the dual newsreading/reporting role of Mike McRoberts. 

For some considerable time TV3 has pitched the concept that its 6pm newsreaders not merely deliver the news but are out in the field collecting it. In other words, they are journalists and isn’t that good? But the average viewer doesn’t give a stuff whether the people reading the news are journalists or are out in the field collecting the news. They either like the look of the newsreaders or they don’t. Moreover, despite what we read on the backs of buses, Hilary Barry is rarely out in the field collecting stories. But Mike McRoberts frequently is, often wearing a flak jacket the middle of some theatre of war.

Barry and McRoberts are, in my view, the best newsreading team in the country. And McRoberts is a superb foreign correspondent. The trouble is that on a significant number of nights his dual role means that he isn’t there to read the news, but is replaced, generally by Alistair Wilkinson.  This is a bad arrangement for two reasons:

First is the loss of continuity. Viewers like things to be predictable and familiar. They like to know that when they turn on the prime-time news bulletin of their choice, the same people will be reading the news on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday who were reading it on Monday. But TV3 doesn’t have one weeknight newsreading team, it has two: Hilary and Mike; Hilary and Alistair. And though it pains me to have to say it, because he’s a really lovely  bloke, Alistair Wilkinson is a terrible newsreader.

Put more kindly, he is miscast in the role of newsreader. As a field reporter he is fine. But in the studio his reading can only be described as bizarre. There is absolutely no connection between his delivery and the sense of what he is reading. His emphases are random. The significant is unstressed, the insignificant stressed. His sentences are punctuated with no regard to their meaning. His plosive or perhaps explosive delivery is reminiscent of the late lamented Keith Holyoake.

And here’s the bottom line:  Alistair looks like an absolute sweetie. But when he is reading the news on 3, Judy and I switch to Simon and Wendy. We find Alistair too hard to listen to. And we may not be alone.  

But ultimately this is not Alistair’s problem. It is Mark Jennings’ problem and it arises directly from Mike McRoberts’ dual role as newsreader/foreign correspondent. Until that conflict is resolved, 3 News may continue to languish in the ratings.

In the meantime, TV3 might consider using Simon Shepherd, a perfectly good newsreader, as McRoberts’ permanent stand-in. And wouldn’t Alistair make a wonderfully quirky and endearing reporter on Campbell Live?

With no supporting evidence of any sort, Lisa Owen reported a series of ‘serious allegations’ against ‘Lion Man’ Craig Busch, including animal cruelty and putting the lives of Zion Wildlife Gardens workers at risk.

The allegations were based on ‘documents forwarded to TV1 News’ by three employees of the park who ‘want to remain anonymous through fear of retribution’. The three, we were told,  ’didn’t speak up at the time’ because they were ‘too scared to’.

It strikes me that by choosing to remain  anonymous they are still not speaking up. They were gutless then, and they are gutless now. But this did not deter One News from massively defaming Busch by presenting these untested allegations to TV1 viewers as the lead item in Sunday’s bulletin and in a tone which suggested that Busch had a case to answer.

And the allegations were indeed serious. Busch was accused to having ‘cruelly killed unwanted cubs’; of having used ‘a rock the size of a softball’ to kill one of the cubs, taking ‘three or four blows’; of having ‘beaten two cats with a short wooden handle’; and of having put the lives of Zion staff at risk by getting them to run alongside the big cats.

The item contained several verbatim quotes from park staff. We can’t judge those people’s credibility of course, because we don’t know who they are.

It’s worth remembering that Busch is currently involved in a bitter legal battle in the Employment Court  over his sacking without notice from the lion park and that, following the killing of a keeper by a white tiger which was shot dead during the attack,  he has made some serious criticisms of the running of the park in his absence. He is a man with enemies who have a vested interest in discrediting him. Might those not be the same anonymous complainants to One News? Might that not be a serious consideration for any news editor or reporter intending to put such allegations to air? Apparently not.

A spokesman for Busch did give a statement to One News. It read; ‘These allegations are part of an ongoing campaign of misinformation against the Lion Man. A smear.’

I don’t know whether that is the case or not. Nor do I know whether any of the allegations are true. But neither do One News or Lisa Owen. Yet they put the allegations to air in peak time, as the lead item in the bulletin.

I’m not sure whether that is worse than the media manipulation by Busch’s adversaries  in which One News  allowed itself to be complicit.

As Brooke Howard-Smith would say – Shame on you!