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Mediawatch looks critically at the New Zealand media - television, radio, newspapers and magazines as well as the 'new' electronic media.
End of the World Cup:
England won it fair and square and it's only a game - but our media found much more to say about last weekend's semi final to fill out acres of space in the papers and hours of airtime.
"Mourning has broken: Kiwis cycling through seven stages of grief" was the headline on the Sydney Morning Herald website last Sunday afternoon above a story about this country coming to terms with defeat in the semi-final the night before.
"The country's biggest newspaper blacked out its front page. The Prime Minister felt compelled to defend the team's honour. And a Union Jack-painted car had its windows smashed in," reported Ben McKay, New Zealand correspondent for Australia's national news agency AAP.
Smashing up an English pub’s mini in Devonport was presumably part of the ‘anger’ stage.
New Zealand’s adults have lived through this sort of thing before, but McKay was thinking of the children.
"Leading into Saturday night, there were 12-year-old Kiwis that had had never seen their national heroes lose a World Cup match. But against the English, the Kiwis couldn't break through an inspired defence, losing 19-7 to begin a country-wide malaise," he wrote.
The same story riffing on New Zealand's rugby grief appeared in several other Australian papers and news websites - and the outlets of the AAP's New Zealand clients.
TVNZ’s website ran it and the Newstalk ZB bulletin at 3 pm in Sunday was the same - almost word-for-word - but with the words "a commentator says . . ." bolted on to the front.
So not only were we schooled by the English in rugby last Saturday, Australians were writing our news copy on Sunday.
McKay's notion of an entire nation in grief was spot-on according to TVNZ1 News which opened with the words: "The whole country is hurting."
The Herald on Sunday's late edition - as McKay noted earlier - had in funereal all black cover with this blunt message in white:
"The All Blacks are out of the World Cup. If you want to read more go to the sports section."
But rival paper Sunday Star Times tried to lighten the mood with a front-page pun playing on a veteran Japanese avant-garde artist and the fact the game was played in Yokohama.
But just over the page, a colour piece by correspondent Kevin Norquay was headlined: "All Blacks horror show in Tokyo."
The All Blacks were based in Tokyo, so some people there may have been horrified - but the “horror show” was in Yokohama - 30km away as the Japanese green pheasant flies.
Norquay’s piece, mostly written before the result was known, was actually a thoughtful reflection on rugby 'fandom and fanaticism’.
“You may be surprised just who best knows how ‘‘we’’ feel today. Ardent England rugby fans are pretty much just like you and me. They Are Us." he wrote.
"So today, if you need to feel better about yourself, find an England fan and give them a hug. You know you want to.”
Bold call.
In a similar vein, the former Herald sports reporter Liam Napier said in the UK’s Guardian last Monday that New Zealand “has moved in from the hysterical outcry” that followed World Cup failures between 1987 and 2011.
But it seems sports journalists haven’t stopped projecting their own assumptions onto the All Blacks.
"The hurt and suffering that will long linger is etched on the faces of the All Blacks as they struggle to suppress the emotional scars of their defeat to England," Napier wrote.
"The All Blacks captain Kieran Read cut a shattered figure. His inner wounds may never properly heal," he said.
On the the other hand, it is entirely possible they will all recover completely from the intense disappointment of last weekend to be happy, whole and healthy in the years ahead.
England coach Eddie Jones had wound up New Zealand’s rugby reporters before the match by calling them "fans with keyboards.”
But there was an edge to one question for the outgoing captain Kieran Read from one Kiwi reporter in the post-match press conference.
"Did the team turn up with the right attitude?" Newshub's Andrew Gourdie asked.
Steve Hansen's slightly menacing response turned it into a story for New Zealand media by branding the question disrespectful.
"Spend some time outside . . . and I'll give you a rugby education on that," Hansen told Gourdie.
Should our leaders be more 'out there' in the media?:
A media monitoring company reckons leaders who are ‘out there’ more in the media reap rewards when the news turns bad for them. But would it be better for the rest of us if they stuck to their knitting instead of trying to manage the media?
Meet the new boss. Air New Zealand introduces Greg Foran to customers via email and social media. Photo: screenshot / YouTube
Even before coach Steve Hansen and captain Kieran Read led the All Blacks out for their last game on Friday, the media were churning out speculative stories about who will replace them.
One of those who'll decide, New Zealand Rugby’s chief executive Steve Tew, was grilled at length about that by reporters. He is also stepping down soon.
Whoever ends up in the trio of top jobs at the sharp end of our biggest sport will need to know how to handle the media. Indeed, some experts reckon that is now as essential to success for modern business leaders as handling the actual business they lead.
One who seems comfortable with that is the man in charge of rugby’s main broadcasters here: Sky TV boss Martin Stewart.
Last month he announced Sky’s big rights deal for top grade rugby not just in the usual way via the media - but also direct to the public on YouTube.
This ended with a rugby ball being fired at him from stage left - a riposte there to those who had reckoned Sky had "dropped the ball" on TV rights.
When Air New Zealand unveiled its new boss Greg Foran last month, the airline emailed clients and customers with the news and urged them to watch a YouTube video featuring Greg at home in his All Black shirt to “learn more about him”.
In the sentimental video, Greg Foran talked about important stuff like sustainability - a key PR challenge facing the airline - as well as how much he had missed sausage rolls, chardonnay and cream donuts while working overseas.
But is it really important for leaders to be 'out there' a lot in the news media and social media like this?
Media monitoring company Isentia looked at media coverage of business and political leaders and concluded New Zealand’s bosses “need to be more visible if the public is going to trust them when the proverbial hits the fan".
Isentia's latest report 'Leading Through Crisis' analysed media coverage of four crises and how they were handled by leaders:
Mark Zuckerberg under fire for the spread of hate on Facebook.
the response of Boeing’s boss to the crashes of 737 Max planes earlier this year.
Rugby Australia’s handling of Israel Folau’s staunch religious stance on homosexuality Jacinda Ardern’s response to the Christchurch mosque attacks.
“In the digital age we live more of our lives in a public space, but we also crave personal connection and leaders need to factor this into their behaviour, making themselves visible and building a broader connection with their audience. It’s no good trying to do that when something goes wrong – it’s far too late," says the report.
Isentia's head of insights, Ngaire Crawford, reckons public trust in leaders is enhanced by seeing them more often in the media - but New Zealand’s business leaders were all too often absent.
"We're trying to look at how media define leadership and what contribution the media make to the current idea of leadership. The main thing we found is that corporate leaders are quite absent on social media," she told Mediawatch.
"There has been a tendency not to use CEOs in the media if they're not media-savvy. But in times of crisis and bad news, it will decrease trust in a CEO if you only see them in a difficult situation," she said.
It makes sense that a leader with a positive public profile built up in the media will have a head start when a crisis happens - but is it actually better for us if our leaders are sticking to their knitting instead of trying to manage the media?
Air New Zealand is certain is be the subject of significant stories while Greg Foran is at the helm.
The previous CEO Christopher Luxon had a low profile in the media in his seven years in charge while his predecessor Rob Fyfe became a well-known national figure.
Will social media outings like his 'getting to know me' video help Foran - and the airline - in any forthcoming crisis?
"It's a start. But no one piece of content will achieve that," she said.
Ngaire Crawford says there can be a wariness about CEOs from offshore running big names in business here.
"A lot of that video [of Foran] was about demonstrating that he was from New Zealand and had returned to run this business. It could have been a story about a Walmart boss coming in to take the job," she said.
"Leadership requires a two-way conversation with a broader audience more than ever. If information is one way, conversations will just happen without you. Audiences demand connection more than ever before. Content is more tailored, individual and auteured, and this impacts the expectations we have on our leaders," says Isentia's research.
But being out on the front foot personally on social media doesn’t always work well for business leaders.
After years of manufacturing exclusively from its local base in Levin, outdoor clothing company Swazi took a difficult decision earlier this year to move some work for some garments to Thailand.
Swazi boss Davey Hughes announced it in a personal fireside chat-style video on YouTube.
That prompted the New Zealand Herald to report that "the Kiwi clothing company is moving production offshore". An irritated Davey Hughes went to Facebook to set the record straight. The Herald published a clarification..
Isentia's 'Leading Through Crisis' report criticised Boeing CEO Denis Muillenberg for being absent and too silent after two 737 Max crashes recently. But if he and his company didn't know for sure what caused the crashes, why was it wrong to say little in public and keep a low profile?
"I don't think the expectations leaders place on themselves are the same as the public have," Ngaire Crawford told Mediawatch.
"It's easy to say nothing if you don't know. I don't think that's acceptable in the current media environment," she said.
"Boeing communicated incredibly defensively. They weren't in the discussions about what went wrong. If they had made a proactive decision to ground the planes they would have taken less of a financial hit," she said.
The new Sky TV boss has made it a priority to communicate with the public in social media and to make major corporate announcements personally.
But Martin Stewart has only 840 followers on Twitter. The number of YouTube and Facebook views for the videos he's fronted amount to only a fraction of Sky's customer base.
"This is the right direction when you think of what he walked into. You had a CEO previously who was quite aggressive and when he did comment he didn't understand the tone of his audience or where the industry was going," Ngaire Crawford told Mediawatch
But US-born media executive John Fellet was in charge for more than 20 years during which the shareholders made good money and never sought to replace him. He didn't need to raise his profile and go on social media.
"But he led the business at its height and did not future-proof it," Ngaire Crawford argued.
"Now Sky has to portray that it is completely different and has an attitude that will win over old customers and potential new customers and the New Zealand public in general because it is in a sports rights content debate where people have to have multiple subscriptions to watch just one sport," she said.
"There is a huge task ahead of them to build trust and I think putting the CEO at the head of it is the right way to approach it," she said.
"This is now a core part of being the head of a business. The cultural context around the world has changed. How people choose to follow and support people is completely different," she said.
Businesses worldwide have noted the rise of 'influencers' online.
"The amount of money and trust being put into people creating personal connections with their audience is huge," said Ngaire Crawford.
"That's capitalising on a desire - especially among younger audiences - to be able to know someone and connect and take their word for what it is they recommend," she said.
"It's used to present issues, get political support, get votes just as it's used to get people to buy your t-shirts or your make-up," she said.
Royal revelations prompt a pile-on:
Even before it screened here, the latest fly-on-the-wall royal TV documentary prompted a pile-on from pundits here who are hostile to Meghan and Harry.
“No-one talks about free-to-air television any more. TV is withering and dying,” former TV star Paul Henry said recently of the business that made him rich and formerly famous.
But just a few days later, there was plenty of talk in the media here about Meghan and Harry: An African Journey which had just aired in the UK.
It made headlines because Prince Harry told ITV reporter Tom Bradby they were struggling with the intense scrutiny from elements of the British tabloid press. The Duchess of Sussex said she was “not okay” and couldn’t deploy the fabled “British stiff upper lip.”
TVNZ’s Breakfast and Newstalk ZB’s Drive both turned to Victoria Arbiter, the royal correspondent for CNN.
She’s also the daughter of Dickie Arbiter who made a long media career out of talking about the royals in the world’s media. Like royalty itself, reporting on the royals passes down the generations it seems.
“You’d have to have a heart of stone not to sympathise,’ Ms Arbiter told Heather du Plessis-Allan.
But du Plessis-Allan wasn’t the only one with little sympathy - and outright hostility for Meghan
TVNZ’s Hilary Barry told Seven Sharp viewers the couple were “heading down a rabbit hole of negativity” in spite of “such privileged lives”.
And TVNZ made it possible to wallow in the negativity. Seven Sharp that night was effectively advertising the doco’s hastily-arranged screening on TVNZ1 last Monday.
At least it gave us the chance to see what made our media front-people so uptight.
ITV’s Bradby had exclusive access to the couple on their recent tour of southern Africa but the programme wasn’t entirely focused on the unhappiness of the royal couple. It also showed the hard life in post-apartheid Cape Town districts and the hard road out of civil war in Angola.
But when it did zero in on the mental health effects of balancing royal duties and private life Bradby found common ground with the prince.
He admitted he had taken time off work this past year to tackle his own mental health problems.
But that didn’t move Mike Hosking on Newstalk ZB - who once went to court to prevent tabloid media compromising his family's privacy.
He described the royal couple as “simpering,” the Duchess as “an airhead” and Prince Harry as “flaky".
(He didn’t mention that Prince Harry was apparently not ‘flaky’ under fire with the British Army in Afghanistan a decade ago - a deployment cut short because New Idea magazine in Australia broke the media embargo on his service).
While he was at it, Hosking also had a dig at TVNZ for being late to the party on the programme.
“What a remarkable thing it has been in this day and age to know of a documentary's existence for well in excess of a week . . . but for us here at the bottom of the world to have to wait for the ship to dock in the port, for the horse to grab the film reel and transport it to the state broadcaster for last night’s viewing. And you wonder why linear TV is in the trouble it is,” he told his listeners.
Ironically, his wife Kate Hawkesby was way ahead of him on the same network.
A full week earlier she had given the royal couple a similar slagging on her ZB show - and in sister organ The Herald - for their “un-British hypocrisy”.
“I know they're trying to show they're human, but what they've also done here is tried to portray themselves as victims. It's very 2019, but it's not very royal,” she said.
It’s also very 1981 to 1997, she could have added. Prince Harry’s mother was living proof that a woman marrying into royalty could quickly become miserable in spite of all the privilege.
Apart from their lack of empathy and surfeit of spite, there’s one other thing talk radio commentators criticising the royal couple - and free to air TV - had in common.
All of them were big names on TV in the past - but not any more.
Is it a coincidence they’re so cranky about celebrities on screen who can still pull a crowd on old-fashioned national TV?
https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/mediawatch?page=2