Press Gallery ratings broken down
I blogged on Friday the topline data from the survey of MPs and Press Secretaries on the press gallery. I’ve now got the breakdown by party and by type of respondents.
The question asked about institutions was:
For each media organisation please give them a rating from 0 to 10 for how well you think they do in their parliamentary reporting.
This should take account of all relevant factors – accuracy, fairness, thoroughness etc.
Now again these are highly subjective ratings from the subjects of the stories written. So a low rating may just mean that an MP or press secretary feels that organisation has been too tough on them (and members of the public may feel they are not tough enough).
There were 70 responses. 39 from National, 22 from third parties and 8 from Labour. One did not specify. 46 respondents were MPs and 24 were press secretaries or comms staff.
National respondents ranked the Herald highest, followed by NZPA, Newsroom, Radio Live and Newstalk ZB. The five lowest were SST, Scoop, Radio NZ, Fairfax and Prime TV.
Labour respondents ranked the five top as Scoop, Radio NZ, Newsroom, Newstalk ZB and NZPA. The five bottom were NBR, TVNZ, SST, Prime TV and TV3.
Comparing differences between National and Labour respondents, those most ranked higher by National than Labour are NBR (2.2 difference), TVNZ (1.7) and NZ Herald (1.6). Those ranked higher by Labour than National are Scoop (3.3) and Radio NZ (2.9).
Those ranked evenly by both National and Labour are Fairfax (0.0 difference), SST (0.3), Maori TV (0.4) and TV3 (0.4).
Third Party respondents ranked the top five as Maori TV, Radio NZ, NZPA, Scoop and Newsroom. The bottom five were TVNZ, TV3, Fairfax, SST and NZ Herald.
Third party respondents rated TVNZ, TV3, Fairfax and the NZ Herald lowest compared to the two big parties. This may reflect a view that the four big media do not give them enough air time?
I have given each outlet a weighted average. This is based on National being 58/122, Labour 43/122 and Third Parties 21/122. When weighted the top five become Newsroom, NZPA, Scoop, Radio NZ and Newstalk ZB. The bottom five are SST, TVNZ, TV3, Fairfax and NBR.
Finally I look at the difference between ratings from MPs and press secretaries. The four outlets significantly rated by MPs than press secretaries are Scoop, Maori TV, Radio NZ and Newstalk ZB. The three outlets rated significantly higher by press secretaries than MPs are NBR, Newsroom and NZ Herald.
Tomorrow (if I have the time) I’ll blog results for individual journalists.