Section 14

Thousands of Venezuelans filled the streets of Caracas on Saturday to protest President Hugo Chávez’s plans to shut down Radio Caracas Television (reported here in January).

RCTV is being closed down in revenge for its alleged support of a coup attempt against Chávez in 2002.

Speaking to Cuban news agency Prensa Latina, General Alberto Muller claimed that Venezuela has “as much freedom of expression as anywhere in the world”, although he later confirmed that he was using the authoritarian definition of freedom of expression - the freedom to say whatever you like as long as you don’t disagree.

The general also condemned those who confuse freedom of speech with political insults, which does not allow respectful dialogue and debate.

When you’re talking to a man holding a gun, you’d better make sure that your dialogue is respectful.

Hat tip: FP Passport.

Martin Durkin, director of The Great Global Warming Swindle (video, 211 MB), is interviewed at Spiked and talks about the intolerance of environmentalists for any dissent and their attempts to attack the messenger and force this and similar programmes off the air.

On Wednesday, before the film even aired, a left-leaning website provided readers with a link to Ofcom’s website and the instruction: ‘Please do complain [about The Great Global Warming Swindle], and please do publicise this link and ask others to complain.’ It gave a link to the Channel 4 complaints website, too, saying that if Channel 4 ‘get a number of complaints then they will find it harder to commission future programmes from Durkin’. This represents a new low in the discussion of environmentalism. Instead of having an upfront, open debate about the science, and the social and political courses of action that might be required to alleviate pollution while still meeting people’s needs and desires, some try to have a film written off by the suited and booted powers-that-be at Ofcom and a director excommunicated from the world of TV.

‘It is soft censorship’, Durkin insists. ‘If there is a huge response to a programme, then the ITC and now Ofcom feel the need to do something. So they end up censuring seriously controversial work. I mean, Channel 4 shows a lot of rubbish, like “wank week”. But because hardly anyone complains about that, Ofcom doesn’t say anything. And then people complain about my work, which is serious, and these bodies take action. It might not be formal censorship, but it is a kind of invisible censorship. The end result is phoney controversialism on TV but not much real controversialism. Ofcom is supposed to uphold standards but it does the opposite.’

He believes that such official chastisement – which was widely celebrated by some greens in relation to Against Nature and which is being demanded again for The Great Global Warming Swindle – has a ‘chilling effect’ on TV output. The big broadcasters, desperate to avoid being ticked off by Ofcom, will avoid showing anything liable to invite large numbers of complaints. So they stick with the wankers of ‘wank week’ instead. A far safer bet.

The Dominion Post has as its lead business item this morning the suggestion that TV2 be sold to take advantage of changes in Australian media ownership rules.

Goldman [Sachs JBWere] analyst Rodney Deacon suggests that, with TV2 sold, TV1 could be transformed into a BBC-style, commercial-free, public channel fulfilling TVNZ charter obligations. Mr Deacon values TV2 at $392 million but said that, based on recent media deals, it could fetch $436 million.

There is absolutely no reason for the government to own TV2, which is simply a light entertainment channel that already operates on a fully commercial basis. There is considerable support for keeping TV1 in the government stable and perhaps even reforming it into a commercial-free public broadcaster.

Baby steps have already been taken in that direction. TVNZ had a “charter” foisted upon it by the government in 2003, since when advertising revenue has fallen and the audience for TV1’s flagship 6 o’clock news had dropped 26 percent. Top presenters have resigned or been pushed out, taking top producers and technical staff with them and this series of disasters today claimed the job of Bill Ralston, TVNZ’s head of news and current affairs.

The biggest problem with state-owned television has nothing to do with money or programme quality, it goes to the very core of state ownership. A state owned broadcaster will usually (as TVNZ does) have a polticially-appointed board. This means there’s a far greater chance of the state interfering in the running of the broadcaster.

We saw an example of this in late 2005, when former TVNZ chief executive Ian Fraser resigned. At the time, he said:

“I should make it clear that this is not about the TVNZ board losing confidence in its chief executive. It’s about the fact that I have lost confidence in my board.

“The board of TVNZ is politically appointed. That makes it even more critical than it would be for a commercial board to stand well back from the day-to-day running of TVNZ, particularly our news and current affairs operation.”

It is imperative in a free society that the state does not control our news outlets and, for that reason, not only TV2 but also TV1 and Radio New Zealand should be sold.

The Dominion Post is reporting this morning (Jan 20, pA3, not online) that the Smokefree Coalition is lobbying the Film Commission and NZ on Air to withhold funding from productions that “overstate or glamorise smoking”.

A ban would probably include TV3’s hit show Outrageous Fortune, which has received more than $22 million in NZ on Air funding and repeatedly featured its starts, including lead actress Robyn Malcolm, smoking.

This demand for withholding of state funding is a classic example of ‘censorship by privilege’ - the showing of smoking on TV would not be banned (direct censorship), but the state would favour programmes that toed the politically-correct line by funding them at the expense of others. Not PC posted an excellent article on just this topic back in December: “The establishing of an establishment” - a different kind of censorship.

NZ on Air active chief executive Bernard Duncan said it was unlikely the agency could ban smoking because that would influence editorial content, but warnings were a possibility.

Duncan has got it right. State funding of the arts, if it is to occur, must be done with a neutral point of view. Anything else would constitute censorship by privilege. Funding decisions must be made on the basis of artistic merit and other such considerations, not to push the values of a political lobby group.

Sadly, far more people are interested in Big Brother the TV show than in Big Brother the all-seeing state that punishes thoughtcrime.

The utterances of some under-educated, famous-for-nothing Londoner to Bollywood star Shilpa Shetty has caused international discomfort (of sorts) between Britain and India.

The show has precipitated a record 30,000 complaints to Ofcom, the British Communications regulator. (This may be helped by the fact that they have a great big “Complain to Ofcom about Celebrity Big Brother” link at the top of their homepage to drum up business.)

Comment of the day however, and advice that more people should listen to, comes from Conservative Party leader David Cameron:

“There’s a great regulator called the off button and I think we should use it.”

President Hugo Chávez has taken a further step towards turning Venezuela into a Soviet-style socialist republic with his decision not to renew Radio Caracas Television’s licence.

Much to the bane of the government, [RCTV] also features Miguel Angel Rodriguez, whose three-year-old program, “The Interview,” makes mincemeat of Chavez’s government every weekday morning. Sitting before a giant screen where Chavez’s speeches are replayed, Rodriguez and his guests, usually staunch foes of Chavez, dissect the president’s statements and declare his government anti-democratic and incompetent.

“Could we say to Venezuelans that a person of this sort, Hugo Chavez, is rising up against the liberty of Venezuelans?” Rodriguez asked a guest on a recent morning. “Is this constitutional reform, the enabling law and this giant step to consolidate 21st-century socialism a method of finding a legal way to install totalitarianism?”

Chávez is certainly leading Venezuela down the path to Cuban- or Soviet-style socialism and his closing down of media that disagree with him illustrates his totalitarian leanings. Chávez’s cheerleaders will often point out that he was democratically elected. They would do well to remember that democracy is there to support human freedom, not the other way round.

UPDATE 31/1/07: Chavez’ power is about to become total. The National Assembly is ready to pass a law allowing Chavez to rule by decree.

Former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra is still having an influence on the country’s politics despite not having been back to Thailand since the coup that removed him in September.

The military government is unhappy about this and has attempted to block interviews with him from being shown. This week an interview he did while visiting Singapore was broadcast on CNN, which was blocked both on-air and online.

Thanks to YouTube you can see both sides (and with the speed that technology moves, the people of Thailand should be able to see both sides as well, no matter how many web-sites the government blocks).

Here’s what the rest of the world saw:

And here’s what was broadcast in Thailand:

Ironically, one of the original complaints that the military made against Shinawatra when deposing him was that he used his position to compromise freedom of the press. Plus ça change…

Hat tip: Boing Boing.

Bluebirds Foods has withdrawn an advertisment for its potato chips after a compaint to the Advertising Standards Authority by the Obesity Action Coalition.

Not happy with this victory, the OAC is saying that the current system doesn’t work and is demanding that advertising be regulated.

Among its failures is the fact that action is only taken to review an ad once a complaint has been made. This means that vulnerable consumers are always exposed to the irresponsible and misleading ads for some time before they are withdrawn. The ASA say that complaints are dealt with in about 24 days from the time they are received. So, at best, it is weeks before an offending ad is withdrawn.

Like all those who would regulate our speech, they know best and they’re willing to prevent us, the poor “vulnerable consumers” from hearing “irresponsible” information that might lead us to make a choice that they disapprove of.

Trey Park and Matt Stone feature in this month’s Reason magazine talking about South Park with a big emphasis on religion, free speech and censorship.

The interview was held as part of a conference Reason held in Amsterdam to explore the future of free expression and free markets in Europe. Amsterdam was specifically chosen because it was “the site of one of the most brutal crimes related to free speech in recent memory: the 2004 murder of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh.”

On religion:

Reason: What’s more terrifying, crossing Islam or crossing Scientology?

Trey Parker: They’re really the same people. This is what happened. I was on my honeymoon in Disney World. I turned on the television, and there were thousands of rioting Muslims, and the caption said, “Muslims enraged over cartoon.” And I said, “Oh, shit. What did we do?”

On free expression:

Reason: This is a bizarre time to be alive. You have places like YouTube, where you can createwhatever you want and disseminate it. At the same time you have lawsuits, and you have people literally being killed. So what’s the state of free expression?

Matt Stone: Basically all we’ve ever done is said what we wanted to say, and people have thrown money at us. […] It’s pretty good, you know? We can say whatever we want. […] It doesn’t mean that we don’t have battles like we did this year, where you get really frustrated with the fact that Mission Impossible: 3’s bigger than South Park and they can shut you down.

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 proposed ban on direct-to-consumer (DTC) pharmaceutical advertising has not materialised. (Hat tip: Kiwiblog)

There had been rumbling that the new Therapeutic Products and Medicines Bill would include a ban on advertising prescription drugs on television. That ban has not eventuated - not because the government has suddenly developed a respect for free speech, but because they couldn’t guarantee the numbers to pass the law.

The bill, expected to have its first reading next week, had been expected to curtail the advertising of prescription medicines.

However, widespread political opposition has forced Labour to scrap any attempt at a ban.

State Services Minister Annette King said the Government’s preference was to ban prescription medicine advertisements but “the necessary support within Parliament” was not there.

Congratulations to all those members who failed to provide that necessary support.

The threat of censorship still exists with Health Minister Annette King showing her anti-speech colours by promising “better controls” to ensure the public is given “balanced and truthful [i.e. only state approved] information.”

Some background information can be found in the Foundation for Advertising Research’s report on DTC advertising of pharmaceuticals.

In New Zealand rugby is the national religion - it certainly has a far wider following than Christianity - but we still have laws that hark back to the days when Christianity operated in cosy collusion with the government.

TV3 is looking for an exemption to s81 of the Broadcasting Act, which forbids the broadcast of advertisements from 6am to noon on Sunday mornings. Sunday mornings are generally the low-rent end of television, so the gagging of advertisers to protect Christian sensibilities goes unnoticed, but that won’t be the case during next year’s rugby World Cup. Five potential All Black games, including a semifinal and final would fall during restricted hours.

Canwest, who presumably paid a fair bundle for the broadcasting rights to the tournament, have petitioned Broadcasting Minister Steve Maharey for an exemption to these archaic regulations. Maharey has delegated the decision to Sports Minister Trevor Mallard.

The real question should not be about just the World Cup but about what right the government has to dictate when broadcasters are allowed to broadcast advertising. Clearly this should be at their own discretion. Advertisers have the right to express themselves and broadcasters have the right to provide them with the means.

The Broadcasting Act bans television advertising on Sunday and Anzac Day mornings and all day on Christmas Day, Good Friday, and Easter Sunday. Gagging advertisers to protect religious sensibilities has no place in a free country.

I’ve received a reply from Reporters Sans Frontières about why New Zealand’s press freedom index rank slipped this year.

RSF preface their comments by saying that in the past New Zealand’s ratings have been “especially good, even perfect”. The two reasons given for our drop are

1. tensions and pressure around the Mohammed cartoons [when Helen Clark attacked the Dominion Post and The Press for printing the cartoons, saying the issue “is not one of freedom of the press but of taste and judgement and the cartoons will do nothing to bring communities together”], and
2. TVNZ’s Board being hauled before Parliament’s Privileges Committee during the Ian Fraser affair.

RSF gave New Zealand black marks for having Parliament interfering in the running of TVNZ (interference from the politically appointed Board was Fraser’s original reason for resigning) and then, when the TVNZ Board punished Fraser for what he’d said to the Select Committee, the Greens defended Parliament’s punishment of TVNZ’s Board on freedom of speech grounds.

Both of these comments are about government meddling in the media. The temptation to meddle will always be there for politicians who think they know best, but clearly the meddling is more effective when the medium in question is state-owned.