More taxpayer money should equal more oversight

Like many news agencies, Radio NZ has a mild Centreleft bias.

Radio New Zealand looks set to get a major boost from the new Government, with Labour promising tens of millions of dollars in new funding for the state broadcaster.

I doubt it will ever happen, but it would be great if, as part of any expansion, Radio NZ found space for a public editor – a role that is quite common in the United States.

A public editor comments on mistakes, errors and lapses of judgment within a media organisation. Operating independently from those who produce and present content, he or she is a kind of ombudsman for news consumers aggrieved with how an issue or issues have been covered.

Often, public editors have their own platforms within their organisations to make their views known. With a newspaper, for example, the public editor might be granted his or own column. In the US, National Public Radio gives its ombudsman her own section on its website.

Now, it is true there are already means to complain about specific Radio NZ content that you feel violates some formal standard of conduct.

If you are unsatisfied with something you hear, you can, after raising the issue with Radio NZ, go down the complaint process with the Broadcasting Standards Authority.

Radio NZ is also a member of the press council, so you can lodge a complaint with that organisation in relation to written content.

But the job of a public editor isn’t only to look into complaints about specific incidents using a formal process. The role involves a wider remit to liaise between the news organisation and the public.

A public editor is empowered, for example, to consider and make comment on questions of bias.

Like many news agencies, Radio NZ has a mild Centre-left bias.

If you don’t believe it, my guess would be that you probably have a Centre-left disposition yourself.

You would be hard pressed to find any habitual National voters who shared that view. And, it must be said, those further Left probably think Radio NZ leans too far to the Centre.

Accusations of bias are fraught with peril. Those making the accusation normally hold strong positions of their own, which means that they are primed to see bias whenever something is said that doesn’t support their position.

Few things have a grip on the human mind that is stronger than confirmation bias.

But be that as it may, I don’t think its tenable to deny that Radio NZ reflects a certain gentry liberal sensibility that seeps into its coverage – even if it’s largely unconscious.

For example, I would say that a slender majority of New Zealanders favour retaining separate Ma¯ ori electorates on an indefinite basis. As a matter of disclosure, I should note that this is my opinion too.

But a substantial minority believes that, sooner or later, they should be abolished.

Do you think many of those people work at Radio NZ? How many employed or contracted to write or present content would be inclined towards that view? Do you think the proportions come close to reflecting the views of New Zealanders as a whole?

This is not to say there are no differences within the organisation itself. I’m sure there plenty of disagreements over matters of detail (often the most vicious type of disagreement).

But it seems that the worldviews of most presenters and writers stem from the same set of basic assumptions about the world.

Think back to Metiria Turei’s interview on Checkpoint after she announced she was stepping down from Parliament. John Campbell was a paragon of empathy and compassion. He was almost apologetic.

Which is fine – but can you imagine him taking the same tone with former National MP Todd Barclay or, say, ACT’S David Garrett?

Now, you might say, the cases were different.

Turei was a saint whose career was martyred by vindictive reactionaries, threatened by her message of hope. Barclay and Garrett, on the other hand, were moustache-twirling villains who deserved to be got and got good.

That’s a view – and a common one. But there are others. There will be listeners, probably a great many of them, who don’t see things that way.

They pay the taxes that the broadcaster consumes as much as anyone else does. And if Radio NZ is to be extended significantly, they will be a part of funding it.

There should be some way to give them a hearing. Establishing a public editor would be one way to do that.

I’m sure this suggestion would go down like a cup of cold sick at Radio NZ itself.

It is human to bristle at the idea of more oversight.

But if some spokesman for another industry dismissed the need for checks and balances because he thought claims against it were a nonsense, would that satisfy a dogged Radio NZ interviewer?