What needs to change?

We now live in a world of multi-media. But if we really look at it we have two types of media: mass media which edited for public consumption by big media companies and community/alternative media which is created by individuals and shared without any form of editorial control. There are problems with both. In the mass media market, the key problem centres around two factors: 1) it has to make money to stay in production and 2) where the source of this funding comes from can create bias. In the community/alternative media market, anyone can have an opinion and lies can quickly become truth with the right twist. In community/alternative media opinions drive the medium; in the mass media market the sustainable funding through either advertising or sponsorship drives how and what news is shared.

Mass media has always published opinion. We have seen this in editorials and cartoons. However, what I have observed this year, particularly in Stuff, but yesterday in the Otago Daily Times is the increased use of opinion pieces to drive sales. When this occurs opinion pieces are often provocative and set up in such a way to put one group of people up against another. In the Stuff example, we have had two sets of opinion pieces this year. One regarding the uplifting of a Māori child which resulted in several opinion pieces from unnamed social workers saying that this type of practice had justification. The other, and more recent, regarding generations and who is really the greedy generation – baby boomers or millennials? Both have been divisive. I personally have been caught up in the second one as a generation sitting in between both the young and old, I can see the hints of truth in the millennial argument but I also see inequality in the boomer generation and I see an older generation that is not prepared to acknowledge that their very name ‘boomer’ hints at a time in which they were born and a period that we will most probably never see again – a time of boom.

Yesterday, the featured opinion-based cartoon in the Otago Daily Times really was a sign of how opinion pieces hurt and offend people. It is not okay to associate the spots we see in the virus called measles with tourist spots. But, unfortunately, it is understandable how this cartoon slipped through. It was an opinion piece after all. And this morning on National Radio, we could really hear the unconscious bias of the cartoonist as he defended his work. Further to this, Aotearoa – this is a wake-up call. If you are white and middle-class and reading this very opinion-piece and you are now saying in your head: this woman is PC-Gone-Made. I want to wake you up to a very real fact. For over a century, Māori and other minorities (including Pākehā poor) have been at the forefront of your jokes and they have been very politically correct by taking these jokes as a slap on the face and not for what they are – full of isms and a reality of shame that we should all feel.

So back to my original question: what needs to change?

I will argue that what needs to change is the approach that mass media takes to opinion pieces. There needs to be a targeted and focused plan from our big mass media outlets focusing on Aoteaora NZ news – Stuff, NZME, APL, TVNZ and RNZ – to lead the way and ensure that opinion pieces move from being divisive putting the majority worldview (which is full of isms) against minority peoples in the aim of being provocative to being politically correct (yes I will use these terms in the positive) and ensuring that the most vulnerable and marginalised are not scape-goated for sales. We need our senior editors (who are often white middle-class) to be culturally competent, to be prepared to challenge the isms within themselves so that change can occur.

Our mass media can be something different in this age of opinion. It can be focused on telling the ‘news’ through mechanisms of truth. We do live in a world where some people have the skills to turn an opinion piece into something that looks like a truth by falsifying it through claims to truth that have been disclaimed by good solid research. Our mass media can be a bastion against this miss-information. It can tell the news as it is and reduce the reliance on opinion pieces written and drawn by those who are clearly drawn to creating discussion through their own bias. It can be at the forefront of challenging the isms that have become so entrenched in Aotearoa NZ.

Today, I call the mass media to account. It is time that a shift occurs. Build your cultural capacity within your editorial rooms. Understand that opinions might matter but opinions also hurt and they reinforce inequity and inequality. Strengthen your editorial practices around opinion pieces. This is not just a review of policies, but a hard and very real question – when we can find opinions all around us through community/alternative media, should mass media hold up a different light? In the face of so much opinion, can mass media stand strong and true and aim to do something different – aim to tell the truth, rather than sharing opinions, even if it means being politically correct?

An opinion piece by Fiona Beals

For those of you who are interested here is the opinions of the unashamed cartoonist who still sees no issue with his opinionated cartoon
https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/first-up/audio/2018725300/cartoonist-not-sorry-for-measles-cartoon-labelled-as-racist