Fri, 06 Nov 2009 1:21p.m.
How many dudes you know flow like Bill?
The only conclusion I can draw from
TVNZ’s request to have Finance Minister Bill English read a script containing the line “give the snip snap to the zip zap plastic fantastic”, is that they think he’s a closet-rapper.
That mouthful would give Scribe a run for his money. Add the scissor-finger hand gesture, and we’re talking
roadside-impairment-test level of difficulty.
Yes I, like a lot of other people, first saw the TVNZ7 promo and thought it was leaning into the realms of a party political broadcast. I’m pretty wary of any attempt to make politicians looks good – and when it’s the state broadcaster doing it, the smell of rats gets a little powerful.
When the ad first aired, Labour did what opposition does, and cried foul. Mr English’s office assured New Zealanders that any script changes they made were for the sake of accuracy, and dusted their hands a-la scandal averted.
But drat – there’s that pesky Official Information Act thing. Email exchanges between English’s office and TVNZ demonstrate pretty clearly that there was more to the minister’s involvement than he first let on.
Ok, so they changed the “snip snap zip zap” line, and rightly so – who talks like that other than the Wiggles? But this alteration made by English’s office doesn’t appear to be in the interests of accuracy:
TVNZ Script: "Keep a few bob in the bank and Bob will be your uncle. We'll get there. Bottom line: it's your economy too."
Bill English rewrite: We're nearly through the tough times and things are looking up. We have plenty of work to do. But I'm confident New Zealanders are up for it and together we'll do it." (Changed by TVNZ for final cut to "We're nearly through the tough times and things are looking up. Together us Kiwis can do it.")
“Things are looking up” is not more accurate than “it’s your economy too.” It’s not even the same thing.
What English’s office has done is spin, plain and simple. If accuracy was the goal, the
latest unemployment figures from Statistics New Zealand certainly pour cold water on the whole ‘things looking up’ idea.
The number of people out of work is the highest it’s been in 15 years, the jump in the number of unemployed over the last year was the highest ever, and Social Development Minister Paula Bennett tells us it’s going to get worse!
On top of this, around 90 TVNZ staff lost their jobs, the rest were asked to accept a salary freeze, while their
CEO Rick Ellis just got a massive pay rise of $110, 000. He’s now on $830k a year – about four times as much as the Prime Minister. Things are looking up for him I suppose.
Back to the promo, what we obviously have here is a breach of the TVNZ Charter. It requires the state broadcaster to maintain high standards of editorial integrity, and to ensure that its current affairs programming (and this surely includes promotional airtime) is impartial, and balanced.
“TVNZ6 and 7’s funding is uncertain after the next couple of years. When one has to go cap in hand to the shareholding Ministers asking for ones job, I guess it doesn’t hurt to have Bill English happy.” Luckily, his minders made enough changes to the script so he would be.
TVNZ stuffed up, and in their eagerness to create a stir (success!) pretty much shat on the concept of the fourth estate. Basically they gave the government a bunch of free, and largely inaccurate, publicity.
Might be time for him to trot out that well worn phrase: it’s not a good look.