Section 14

A few days late - the shouting happened on Thursday - but still worth a mention. (Hat tip: Lyndon Hood, offline prodding.)

Gerry Brownlee demanded to know why TVNZ turned up to Commodore Bainimarama’s press conference on Tuesday night at which he announced that the military had taken control of Fiji.

“This is not a question about whether the Commodore’s threats were news. They were. This is a question about whether, without TVNZ’s satellite assistance, the Commodore would have been as effective in his campaign of fear.”

Almost all political activity happens today with half an eye on the television camera. To suggest that a news organisation shouldn’t cover the news because the subjects of the news story might be trying to promote themselves is ridiculous. If we’re going to play that game we should start by not showing anyone grandstanding during Parliamentary question time.

How far do you take this argument? The most spectacular television event of the last few years was the attack on the World Trade Center. It was an attack perfectly devised to take advantage of the 24-hour live network news world. Would Brownlee suggest that a news network refuse to report the event because showing that gripping horror live was part of al-Qaeda’s propaganda?

Andrew Little, national secretary of the EPMU (which represents journalists) got it spot on:

“Television New Zealand news is run by professional journalists and has a duty to cover news of major significance,” he said.

“They and they alone should decide what should be covered. The day that a politician decides what the state broadcaster covers will be a sad day for the integrity of New Zealand democracy.

“The union is seeking an assurance from the National Party that media censorship is not National Party policy.”

Where I’m sure I would part company with Little is in thinking that there should be no such thing as a “state broadcaster”. Political interference is far more likely when the state owns a major news broadcaster. If TV3 had made the broadcast, it couldn’t have been used by Brownlee to try and score points in his role as State Owned Enterprises spokesman. The state has no role either owning a television station or telling it what to broadcast.

The Dominion Post’s editorial this morning is entitled Chipping away at freedom of speech.

Last week was an intriguing one for advocates of free speech.

It first notes two instances of news censorship around the world - the failure of the Russian state media to report that former KGB colonel Alexander Litvinenko may have been poisoned by Vladimir Putin’s hired thugs and the cutting in the Tongan re-broadcast of One News of a segment about the aftermath of Nuku’alofa riots.

The editorial spends most of its words on Don Brash’s injunction that prevented the publication of Nicky Hager’s new book and muses on how the court might have handled the case in the U.S. with its much stronger First Amendment culture. It also constrasts the halt in publishing Hager’s book with the halt in publishing O.J. Simpson’s pseudo-confessional.

The Simpson case is perhaps the most far-reaching because it showed that, even in a country where the right to free speech is enshrined in the constitution, public opinion can make even the planet’s most influential media magnate reconsider a profitable proposal that offended not only the families of the late Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman but ordinary Americans, too.

And that’s fine. The First Amendment begins “Congress shall make no law…”

If a media organisation makes a commercial decision not to publish a book because people have expressed disgust at its contents, that shows common sense an eventual succumbing to good taste. It cannot really be spun as censorship; It’s simply a case of the market setting standards without any legislative interference.

The High Court injunction forbidding anyone from releasing the contents of Don Brash’s e-mails raises some very interesting free speech questions.

The interim injunction was gained by Don Brash on Friday. It enjoins unknown respondents (John and Jane Doe) from copying, issuing to the public, broadcasting or making an adaptation of any of Don Brash’s e-mails. There is already a criminal investigation going on into the copying of these e-mails from Brash’s computer.

Nick Russell of Chen Palmer says in this morning’s Dominion Post (Brash blocks ’stolen’ e-mails) that this sort of prior restraint is very unusual.

“This is absolutely a gagging writ on the media.”

It’s worth noting as an aside that this injunction doesn’t cover documents tabled or read out in Parliament or select committee as these arenas are covered by parliamentary privilege.

There are a whole swag of questions here: In what circumstances (if ever) should we allow prior restraint of the press? To what extent can a “public figure” (or anyone) expect privacy? Should the probably illegal manner in which the information was gathered have an impact on whether it can be published? Are copyright restrictions relevant here and how should they apply?

(more…)

Wellington Airport has refused to put up a National Party billboard because it is “too politically sensitive”.

The Dominion Post suggests that the reason for the refusal may be that the Airport is concerned about the Government’s pending decision on the Qantas/Air New Zealand codeshare agreement, which could cut flights to the capital and hence cut airport profits.

A chilling effect is the self-censorship that occurs when someone fears the actions of another. A newspaper declining to print a cartoon not because it isn’t news but because it fears reprisals from medieval thugs would be one example.

In this case the Government has the power to make decisions that could negatively affect the running of the Airport. The Clark Government has a history of being vindictive and so the Airport might rightly fear them and censor themselves in the hopes of getting the “right” decision from Pete Hodgson. An air of fear can sometimes be more effective than explicit censorship laws and it’s certainly more stealthy.

UPDATE: I’ve just seen on Not PC that Bill English was talking about the chilling effect on National Radio’s Morning Report this morning.