Guest Post: Working From Home and Interview with PM
A guest post by a reader:
On Tuesday 24 September I had the misfortune to watch Jenny-may Coffin interview the PM on the Government’s tighter guidelines for working from home in the public sector.
Let us count the ways in which this interview demonstrates the deeply facile and unbalanced nature of what passes for news and inquiry on TV1:
1. The whole interview bar one small snippet at the end was about WFH. Only in an organisation severely out-of-touch would this be the main subject of a chat with the PM. Normal folk have long since returned to work, recognise the right of the employer to have a view on such things and are getting on with life. It is not for them a matter which warrants this focus. The fact TVNZ gives it such attention says a lot about where it is at culturally. Maybe small matters like the Middle East, Ukraine, and the economy would have been more worthwhile subjects. Oh but I forgot, those subjects limit the opportunities to play gotcha.
2. The issue was posed as a matter of contrasting but equally legitimate claims within the employer/employee relationship. No regard for employment law. No regard for the commendable but discretionary flexibility of the public sector up to this point in allowing WFH. In brief no regard to onus when placing the matter in context.
3. The PM was requested to provide evidence for the merits of the change. Wrong question JM. See above points. Maybe you should have asked the PSA to attend and justify the benefits to the employer of WFH?
4. Note also the inherent laziness of this approach. Instead of me as a journalist or my producer getting online and researching the merits of WFH I will ask the PM to do it. If he has none then I have a gotcha. And if he does I have the equally compelling views of the unions to hit back with (see next point). Such rigour….
5. Repeating in an interview union and Labour Party talking points without interrogation is vacuous nonsense. What self-respecting journalist would simplistically suggest that only public sector redundancies are driving hospitality industry difficulties in Wellington and that WFH pays no part in the downturn? Good on the PM for reaching for the “rubbish” word he pulls out these days.
6. Nowhere in this interview or any interview done by JM or Daniel is evidence of the interviewer listening to answers. So feeble is their craft that the format is a list of prepared questions asked regardless of answers being elicited. It’s pathetic. By way of contrast it was a treat to hear John Campbell actually listening and thinking in a couple of interviews over the last month.
Is there no one at TVNZ who is sufficiently wired into the wider community to ask themselves whether their work touches the concerns and ideals of a glazier from Henderson, or a farmer from Southland, as much as a policy analyst from Miramar. Or perhaps the policy analysts are the only ones watching as they “work” from home?