Events

27 July 2010

Watching the watchdogs

Lecture

Colin Peacock, Mediawatch presenter, Radio New Zealand National: Watching the watchdogs.

Chair: Dr Brian Edwards, distinguished radio and television broadcaster.

Radio New Zealand’s Mediawatch is a programme which strives to reflect the views of media professionals and critics, as well as reporting week-by-week on the media from the perspective of readers, viewers and listeners. Broadly speaking, many critics, academics and some journalists feel that standards are falling in journalism and the media in general. Judging by their feedback to the programme, many Mediawatch listeners clearly feel the same. They complain that the media seem less thorough and more trivial than in the past; more sensational and tabloid in style; more cynical and less ethical than they used to be. They complain about too much opinion and too few facts - a media striving for impact rather than truth or understanding. Yet hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders still turn to them every day for entertainment and information about the world around them. So are standards falling? If so, which ones - and how far? Is it something to worry about? Is it happening elsewhere in the world too? Should we continue to depend upon the 'old' media to give us 'all the news that’s fit to print' - and broadcast? Or is that asking too much of an industry in decline, in which journalists are outnumbered by people in PR, communications and promotions - not to mention bloggers?