Define Political
On the one hand, it is pretty easy to define political:
po·lit·i·cal [puh-lit-i-kuh
l] adjective
On the other hand, how do you define what is political and what is merely topical? That is the question behind NZ on Air’s desire to stop broadcasters screening documentaries on political issues in the lead-up to an election. The spark for this was the documentary on Child Poverty by Bryan Bruce screened by TV3 four days before the last election. The MacDoctor has not seen the documentary, but apparently it was emotive and heavily slanted towards the sorts of solutions favoured by the Left (i.e. Lots of Other Peoples Money). NZ on Air consider that the program may have compromised their “apolitical” stance – whatever that it.
For once, the MacDoctor actually agrees with the likes of Bomber Bradbury and the Denizens of the Standard in that any further form of censorship of political expression at elections is anathema to decent political debate and should be avoided at all costs. However, it should be observed that the stance of the Left is somewhat hypocritical at this juncture, given their near terminal frenzying over a little harmless DJing by John Key. It is also the Green’s stated policy to bring the heavy hand of government regulation (code-word for censorship) down upon media content.
One also wonders whether the Left would have been quite so upset about NZ on Air’s stance if the documentary in question had been one documenting the practices of NZ unions in an uncomplimentary manner.
Be that as it may, the MacDoctor finds the NZ political discourse to be ridiculously stifled already, without adding to the problem. Already parties are unable to spend whatever they want on advertising or media slots, despite all the evidence pointing to the fact that you cannot “buy” elections (except, of course, in the time-honoured way of electoral bribes and promises). It is practically impossible to mount any parallel campaign to get people to vote for your preferred party (unless, of course, you are a labour-affiliated union). You can’t even use your own blog-space to shill for your candidate on election day.
Having a quango going through media broadcasts, trying to define what is political and what is not will just add to the already poor quality of political debate in this country. The Broadcasting Standards Authority already has the powers to censure any broadcasting media that publishes in an overtly biased fashion, there should not be any necessity for something more. Besides, at election time almost anything will have some sort of political charge to it.
Perhaps we should ban all news broadcasts in the month before the election…
(NZ on Air: that last sentence was sarcasm, not a suggestion)
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Jan 18 12 6:42 pm
Broadly I agree, but think heavily biased polemics like Bruce’s doco should not be funded by NZ On Air.
Much of the ‘concern’ is manufactured, as you suggest, especially from Bradbury and others who cannot abide any view other than their own.
Jan 19 12 7:26 am
“heavily biased polemics like Bruce’s doco should not be funded by NZ On Air.”
Yeah, they should stick to cooking shows. Jesus, who wants confront difficult and sensitive issues when they’re watching tv? It might cause people to start thinking! Wouldn’t want that would we boys? They should balance it out with a doco showing the benefits of child poverty. Jenny Shipley could narrate.
Jan 18 12 10:33 pm
I actually got myself on considerable trouble on that one, because I engaged in a debate on the doco without having seen it.
Having been told repeatedly that it wasn’t political (by people I’ve know for some time), I was utterly shocked to finally view it and discover that it was in fact intensely political – far, far more so that I would ever have expected even in my wildest dreams. He spent considerable time lauding the socialist past and cleverly presenting selected facts from history and overseas.
Oh, and as expected he did the usual sly misrepresentation of working for families and beneficiaries.
Basically, to someone who spends his time following politics as much as I do, it was political propaganda writ large. And while I had calmed down considerably by the time I replied to my friends’ comments, I should have taken a *lot* longer!
I agree, we should not have regulation on this sort of thing. But it defies belief that a single person ever thought this was responsible programming before an election – or any time for that matter.
scrubone´s last [type] ..That completes our description of the red form. Now the blue form is quite interesting…
Jan 19 12 8:03 am
“any further form of censorship of political expression at elections is anathema to decent political debate and should be avoided at all costs.”
There is a difference between decent political debate and the presentation of obvious political propaganda. The latter should be unacceptable during our election campaign period, which in New Zealand is quite brief. At other times I am quite happy for Mr Bruce to make such a programme, less happy for him to use my money to do it.
Jan 19 12 10:18 am
Judge Holden
Still trying to figure out what Jesus had to do with Bruce’s doco?
Jan 19 12 5:55 pm
“Perhaps we should ban all news broadcasts in the month before the election…”
We don’t have real news the rest of the year – why should the election period be any different?
Actually, I think the issue is that the TV3 programme was biased in favour of Labour, while being funded by the taxpayer. This is always wrong, but especially during election time.