NBR on the media

NBR editor Nevil Gibson scrutinises the recent media:

We have to say it because no one else will: Almost alone among mainstream media, the National Business Review’s call on the election result turned out to be the best one.

Our summary: “National will easily win a mandate while the Greens become a stronger force on the left. Maori will not hold a balance of power and Winston Peters will be history.”

Yep. A very good call.

The left’s wholesale defeat was not reflected in the spread of commentators and pundits employed across the board. The public broadcasters – both radio and TV –can always be relied on to give Labour any doubt.

But it’s more surprising when private equity-owned MediaWorks chooses to lean even heavier to the left, mainly by hiring National Radio and TV One heavies.

Perhaps the reason Radio Live and TV3’s Sunrise have failed to gain much traction is that their personality mixes have too many of the media’s trendy lefties and not enough of those who reflect the country’s anti-socialist mood. (You can see why Newstalk is cleaning up with its strong conservative/populist line up.)

National truly reflects the heartland, yet the media are continuing down their path of denial by giving more coverage, in newspapers and on radio, to the Labour leadership issue rather than accept the broad mandate for a new broom government is much more newsworthy.

Possibly part of the problem is too many media are in Wellington, where the mood for change was dampened. More talking to people in the provinces would get you quite another feel – something the NZ Herald did with their excellent Simon Collins series.