New Zealand Newspapers and Media                            January 27, 2000

The media differs from country to country. It’s an excellent source for noting differences, say between the US and New Zealand. The stories reported and the way they are presented point to some interesting contrasts between the two countries. These observations are admittedly based only on the Christchurch Press and local TV programming, but I don’t think these are atypical in their coverage.

One of the first things I noticed is the straightforward way news is reported. Kind of a ‘just the facts, ma’am’ style. This appears to be true of newspapers, TV and radio. Reporters in all the media have thus far stayed away from the personality cult, news with opinions-interjected styles we have become used to in the States.

The Press has a similar structure to most US papers, but the emphasis is quite different. Front-page news is always local or NZ-related, relegating all coverage of world events to the second section.

Extensive current coverage is being given to:

• Whether and where Helen Clark, the newly elected PM, will speak at upcoming Waitangi Day events. Political, cultural, gender, and historical issues complicate her decision as to how best participate in this day of recognition for the 1840 treaty which provided the groundwork for settling Maori/English differences.
• Government waste. In particular, golden handshakes to officials forced out of positions for what appears to be poor performance. Also, questionable spending by Work and Income NZ, a welfare agency, for luxuries and badly timed office relocations.
• Highway fatalities and drunk driving. The high speed, two-lane, undivided blacktops that make up most of New Zealand’s primary highway system are dangerous at best. Coupled with a minimal police presence and a tendency to condone (some) drinking and driving in rural areas, this deadly mix leads to a disproportionately high accident and fatality rate. There are constant advertisements asking people to drive carefully. The obvious solution to this problem -- divided highways -- probably cannot be cost justified, given the low volume of traffic outside of the few major population areas.

One quite different legal concept, "name suppression", affects reporting of court cases here. In any legal action, the judge has the authority to keep the name of a defendant from being disclosed to the public. Name suppression is usually invoked when the judge feels the potential damage to a person’s reputation, family, or ability to make a living outweighs the public’s right to be informed. The recent arrest and deportation of an American millionaire made headline news after he was caught with hashish at the airport in Auckland. However, he has never been identified in the media here because the court suppressed his name. This action, of course, does not carry weight in other countries, so you in the States may very well know who the miscreant is.

There are a couple of pages on business, but no business section per se. The lack of a significant NZ stock market tends to make the coverage ufocused. There’s lots of info on sheep and trees, which make it clear that these are the primary underpinnings of the NZ economy. There is some coverage of U.S. companies, especially high tech leaders like Microsoft, Intel, Compaq and IBM that have subsidiaries here.

The ‘features’ section pops up in different forms on different days. Gardening is often featured. Judging from the general high level of landscaping around homes in NZ, people are very keen on this subject. Articles on movies and TV are popular, but can give Americans a sense of déjà vu. Releases of movies tend to lag the U.S. by several months and TV shows are often years old. Comic strips, hah! The Wizard of Id, Garfield, Peanuts (with Charles’ retirement they’ll probably rerun oldies indefinitely), and one or two local strips, which I’ve yet to fathom, comprise the comic section. I’ve not had the guts to attempt one of the crossword puzzles. The clues look difficult and words rarely overlap one another by more than two letters. In an interesting twist, the travel section often describes tourist spots in the U.S. Today’s paper, for example, had articles about Wyoming ‘Cowboy Country’ and the battlefields at Gettysburg.

The letters to the editor section is always good indicator of current popular opinion as well as which topics are of most general interest. Welfare, race relations, executive salaries, gun control, the legalization of marijuana, gay rights, etc. generate familiar one-sided diatribes from the left and right. The ongoing creationism/evolution debate in one of the smaller papers here could easily come from any Bible Belt publication in America. Makes you realize that despite some differences, Kiwi hot buttons are identical to those of Americans.

Sporting news is covered more extensively than anything else. This isn’t a lot different than US but the sports themselves are. Cricket is big in the summer, but there are still many articles about rugby, the national passion. (The loss by the national team, the All Blacks, last year to the French was rated by Kiwis among the top ten disasters in the world for the twentieth century, ranking right in there with a couple of world wars.) Horse racing in various forms can consume three full pages of the sports section on any given day. Mix in a little soccer, softball, rogaining, lawn bowling, and breakfast is over before you know it.