28 Aug 2019

Midweek Mediawatch: Dark side of the net

From Mediawatch, 7:36 pm on 28 August 2019

Mediawatch's weekly catch-up with Lately. Colin Peacock talks to Karyn Hay about an eye-opening multimedia portrait of life in Northland, politicians bypassing the media online and a couple of lectures raising timely questions for us about what we want from our media.

“Old lady” tells some media home truths

Every August the great-and-good of the UK media gather for an annual festival and its keynote address by a heavy hitter in the industry: The MacTaggart Lecture. It’s a big honour to be asked to deliver it. 

(I went to one in 2002 and found it a fascinating combo of sermon and pub crawl).

This year one of the UK’s longest-serving female TV executives - Channel 4's head of news and current affairs Dorothy Byrne - cut loose in a speech that was equal parts uplifting, worrying and hilarious. 

The self-described “old as Methuselah” executive said some things we could ponder now that the future of the media is up in the air here. 

She started talking about rampant sexism in the industry with some startling personal anecdotes from her past - and went on to insist that TV journalism still had the power to enhance society like no other medium.

“Tonight, there’ll be no shortage of sexist bastards, possibly among you in the audience. But I have positive messages too about how we must find courage in this time of crisis and most of all how we must unite to use the power of television to protect democracy because it is being seriously undermined.” 

The majority of people in the UK still rely on TV as their main source of news – 70 percent of the public, she said.

She said editors had been “hypnotised by the success” of podcasts and online outlets like Netflix and we need to see “big ideas” discussed on TV much more. 

"Where do we go for big ideas? Books, Tedtalks, podcasts, all really popular. If we are worried about becoming irrelevant, one of the best things we can do is to start making big controversial programmes about the UK which put us back at the heart of public debate as we used to be."

TV news is still a far more trusted institution than online platforms - or political parties, she said.  

“When we do major investigations here in Britain, like Channel Four News’ investigation alongside that of Carol Cadwalladr into Cambridge Analytica, they gain huge traction. The public appetite is there," she said.

Coincidentally UK journalist Carol Cadwalladr was on RNZ National’s Ted Talk Hour on Sunday. It was a powerful talk about "Social media as a threat to democracy" she gave back in April in which she called out the tech titans directly over misinformation. 

“It is not about left or right, or Leave or Remain, or Trump or not. It’s about whether it’s actually possible to have a free and fair election ever again. As it stands, I don’t think it is. And so my question to you is: Is this what you want? Is this how you want history to remember you? As the handmaidens to authoritarianism that is on the rise all across the world? You set out to connect people and you are refusing to acknowledge that the same technology is now driving us apart.”

Boris bypassing the media - a sign of things to come?

Carol Cadwalladr and Dorothy Byrne both talked about politicians like Boris Johnson routinely using social media to bypass social media where they can say what they like - and shunning mainstream media where they can be challenged. 

Dorothy Byrne even compared Johnson to Russian president Vladimir Putin. 

“Boris Johnson has been proclaimed by Downing Street as the first social media PM. We’ve also seen a stream of paid adverts on Facebook. He says he wants us to join him. Great, can we bring Matt Frei and a camera crew?"

No chance. 

“I genuinely fear that in the next election campaign there will be too little proper democratic debate and scrutiny to enable voters to make informed decisions," she said

Since he got the job Boris Johnson and his party have been pouring content and money into Facebook.

The UK Sky News tech correspondent ran the numbers: 

Why so many?  

'A/B testing' - aka bucket tests or split-run testing- is a way to compare two versions of a single variable, typically by testing a subject's response to variant A against variant B, and determining which of the two variants is more effective.

Subsequent ads will be more likely to cut through based on the analytics and engagement. And it’s dirt cheap.

Many of these ads were also harvesting individual information - probably for an election database. The ads link to a survey page on the Conservative website asking "What’s the most important issue for you and your family right now?" 

“You'll be amazed to hear you have give your name, postcode and email address "to make sure your views get heard," says Sky’s Rowland Manthorpe. 

In Edinburgh, Dorothy Byrne pointed out that all this social media messaging - unlike media coverage - is “unregulated and therefore under no duty to be duly impartial. And we should not show this propaganda as a matter of course.”

There are signs the we could endure an election campaign fought via claim on counterclaim on social media - and that could derail genuine debate on important issues. And we're subsiding it . . . .(We'll look at that on Mediawatch next weekend).

Meanwhile, the New York Times has discovered a case of Pro-Trump political activists using social media against the news media.

Malaysian paper bucks the trend 

No caption

Photo: screenshot

Malaysia’s oldest newspaper Utusan which has been losing money for years looked like it about to close last week.

According to business news station BFM, that’s because few rely on the MSM for news in Malaysia  - and social media is huge for news. They polled their audience to prove the point

The company had long been kept alive by its political party patron UMNO which fed government-linked ad money through it - but no longer. 

Singapore's Straits Times says “Malaysians from all walks of life” responded to a charity drive for donations and goods when it was revealed the staff had not been paid. 

Days later the publisher reversed their decision and vowed to keep the printing presses running with a new strategy: increase the cover price. 

Shining a light on stark realities in Northland

No caption

Photo: screenshot / Stuff

Check out Florence Kerr and Tony Wall's Stuff investigation 'No place to live/Kāore te kāinga, kāore te ora.

It's an eye-opening four-part account of life in Northland which zeroes in on horrendous disparities in housing brought with excellent visuals from Lawrence Smith, also showcased in the Sunday Star Times lately. Crystal Yardley photographed the Notherner motel in Kaitaia, now home to the previously homeless.

The main multi-media piece is about Horeke: A village with everything and nothing:

Zero to hero 

A year ago the name of New Zealand-born cricketer Ben Stokes was mud. 

He was booted off the England team at a crucial time after a drunken punch-up that had landed him in court. 

Many pundits wanted him cut for good - and wrote thundering editorials to make the point. 

But after seeing England home in the World Cup against the Black Caps in July and then single-handedly winning an Ashes test last Monday, you can;t find a word about that in the press. 

The nearest thing I could find was this tongue-in-cheek tweet from comedian Mark Steel: