Mediawatch Midweek 6 June: Under the influence

Mediawatch's weekly catch-up with Lately. Colin Peacock talks to Karyn Hay about the Daily Mail's shameless rip-offs of other people's journalism - and why no-one can stop it. But first: a string of stories about media under the influence of lobbyists, spin doctors, PR pros, sports stars and  . . . the influencers.

Influencers - part one: social media stars

The Herald on Sunday devoted its front page and page two to a story by Alice Peacock (no relation) about council-controlled organisation in Auckland spending $12,000.  

From a budget of many millions, why was this modest sum front-pageworthy?  

"Ratepayers have helped fund Auckland Transport’s spend on social media influencers over the past year — a cost labelled a “waste of money” by some," said the story.

"Influencers such as former reality TV star Viarni Bright and Mai FM presenter Lily Taurau have been paid between $1500 and $2500 for their parts in a campaign encouraging people to use public transport," the story said.

“Having celebrities say nice things is no substitute for the delivery of a service funded by the commuters of Auckland and the ratepayers of Auckland,” said one councillor.

Maybe. But - as Alice went on to explain - it’s fairly common practice in digital ad campiaigns these days “to reach a younger audience and to frame their messages in an engaging way”.

She also says Wellington City Council has also forked out on social media influencer Lucy Revill this year, as part of its “planning for growth communications and engagement strategy”.

Clearly didn't work on this Wellingtonian. I'd never heard of the former NZX policy advisor turned blogger / Influencer. 

The HoS's revelation about AT triggered Mike Hosking:

“Here's my top tip: find the councillor or mayoral candidate that's going to stop this, and vote for them,” he told ZB listeners and Herald readers.

The real story here is AT as a political football in the Auckland local elections  - not the $12k on influencers.

Influencers part two: the PR professional

In his weekly media column for the Newsroom site he now co-edits, former Herald editor in chief Tim Murphy noted a Herald business story about high-profile Auckland PR professional Deborah Pead which was a bit odd.

Headlined 'Changing ownership ushers in new era for Pead PR,' it was all was about her giving three managers shareholdings in the business, with a posed picture of all four alongside.

Tim Murphy noted this sort of development probably happens al the time in small businesses around the country - so not really newsworthy.

Also, there’s no byline on the story raising suspicions it’s really a puff-piece not legit business news.

But - as Tim Murphy noted - it got a big response on Twitter.

“A clutch of media friends tweeted their congratulations to her. Broadcaster Jesse Mulligan and trade publisher Bette Flagler both used the phrase "you are the gold standard" in their tweets,” he wrote

"Everyone's free to write any story they like, and tweet what they like. But the whole, circular media-report-to-social-media-posting-to-media-influencer-endorsement just seemed a bit in-house," wrote Murphy.

Ironically, when he was a media consultant Tim Murphy appeared with Jesse Mulligan and Deborah Pead to talk about PR and the news media back in 2016 at a Massey University event - promoting Massey’s Master of Professional Public Relations programme.

In one video, Deborah Pead talks frankly about the need to get “third party endorsers” with credibility to boost brands in the media. 

Her account of managing the Mike King / NZ Pork meltdown in 2013 is especially revealing.

The pull of PR power is something to be resisted by news media people not endorsed. They are in business to boost brands whereas media people should have interests of the audience at heart.

And the audience is never let in on how their influence is deployed on media people.

Well, almost never . . .

The Herald’s Greg Bruce lifted the lid on that in a brilliant profile piece on Deborah Pead in 2017: Is this Auckland's most influential woman?

After listing a series of PR treats offered to him in the previous week, he said Deborah Pead offered nothing during the interviews.

“Then, almost a week after our first meeting, she left me a voicemail".

It as the offer of a tailor-made suit tied to a promotion of the TV show Suits.

"She went on, outlining how the story might play: I would go and interview the people behind the suit, talk to lawyers and other high-flying suit-wearers about how their suits make them feel and then I would fly to Paris, to road test a bespoke suit.”

“The deadline for the story you are now reading was still a few days away.”

Influencers Part 3: lobbyists and spin doctors

A fortnight ago, Newsroom’s Laura Walters wrote a story about the links between a professional lobbyist and the PM.

Gordonjon (GJ) Thompson quit his lobbying firm to become her chief of staff for a bit when she set up her government.

He’s now rerturned to his firm which acts for clients including Huawei – currently working to secure its 5G technology job in New Zealand.

This raises legitimate conflict of interest concerns.

But under the heading Sounding bored at media panic, Bill Ralston rubbishes the piece - and others about lobbysits - in his column this week’s Listener.  

He doesn’t name the pieces or authors or outlets so readers can’t go and look for themselves.

“The recent stories attacking Thompson Lewis are saying that the public cannot trust the Government to make a correct decision, because it is being nobbled by cunning government-relations operatives,” he said.

They didn't.

Bill Ralston winds up the piece with this:

“In my experience of covering Parliament, the inhabitants of the Beehive have well-developed bullshit detectors and, if nothing else, they are acutely aware of the terminal effect in the polls should they be caught doing backroom deals.”

Bill Ralston’s experience of “covering parliament” ended many years ago, and since them he’s become one of the lobbyists / spin doctors he’s writing about.

These days staffers in politicians' offices - including that of the PM - often go straight into professional lobbying as soon as they leave. GJ Thompson flipped between the two and back again with six months.   

But Bill Ralston doesn’t mention that in his article either.

Journalists are entitled to ask questions about this and not accept “trust us” claims from lobbyists and spin doctors whose clients are unknown.

Influencers - part four: Mo Salah

On Sunday morning  Egyptian footballer Mo Salah scored a crucial goal to win the European Cup  for Liverpool FC. He's been their star player and top scorer for the past two years.

 

“Mo Salah is a better human being than he is a football player. And he’s one of the best football players in the world,” TV comedian John Oliver wrote when Time magazine recently ranked him as one of the 100 most influential people in the world

 

Bit over the top, I thought.

 

But this week, a study by Stanford University’s Immigration Policy Lab suggested the arrival of Mohamed Salah at Liverpool FC has seen a fall in Islamophobia and racially-motivated crime in the city.

 

If true, that’s real influence.

Daily Mail’s great Gloriavale rip-off

In the weekend, the Herald published a long piece about Gloriavale by freelancer Anke Richter.

 

Yesterday, she posted in the Kiwi Journalists Association Facebook page to say The Daily Mail Australia just rehashed it “without any research or quotes of their own.”

 

It’s not the first time this has happened to her.  She asked how she could complain or get paid.

 

It’ll be tough. The Mail Online is notorious for this.

 

In Australia they even rip-off stuff from their direct rivals, Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp.

 

Late last year, the ABC’s Media Watch TV show devoted a whole episode to it: Can anything stop the Daily Mail and its brazen theft of other people’s yarns?

“f it makes the media so angry, why do they allow it to happen? And is there in fact anything they can do?” the show asked.

"What the Mail is doing may actually be legal, as the Mail claims.The key is the fair dealing provision in the Copyright Act, which says you can copy someone else’s news story if you make sufficient acknowledgement - which is why the Mail credits the author and links to the original.

So that is one obstacle. The second is the law says you have to sue on individual cases, one at a time.

And as intellectual property expert Dr Kathy Bowrey told Media Watch:

"The value of litigating for any individual work is probably not worth it".

Sad but true. And bad news for Anke Richter.

 

Another problem is that the law is not very clear on what is fair. All media organisations like to pinch other people’s stories from time to time and don’t want the law to stop them.

 

The Mail's response to ABC Media Watch is a classic of defensive, defective hostility.

“Why would I do an interview when the Media Watch team has shown a blatant and clear bias against Daily Mail Australia? Under the ABC’s charter, Media Watch is supposed to gather and present news information that is ‘’accurate and impartial according to the recognised standards of objective journalism’’. How can this be the case when a senior member of Mr Barry’s team, Jason Whittaker, has publicly tweeted that DMA is “the festering boil on the arse of Australian media’’ - and a “skidmark” on his twitter feed? 

 - Regards, Lachlan Heywood; Executive Editor;Daily Mail Australia

In the meantime, check out Anke's excellent piece Brothers and Sisters in the latest NZ Geographic.