"Political Interference"

Broadcasting staff fear it, and wait legislative safeguards. Templeton says there'll be no political interference and personally guarantees that he won't interfere - but refuses to promise the safeguards broadcastors want.

They're really talking about different things. In National Party terms "political interference in broadcasting" means the Minister of Broadcasting phoning TV-1 and secretly making a directive. Or the Prime Minister phoning a TV production team to say "I didn't appreciate that programme about me". Their narrow conception of the problem leads them to a narrow answer: a law that Ministerial directives on broadcasting must be written, and tabled in Parliament so they can be publically scrutinized.

This was the effect of an amendment National proposed to Douglas' Broadcasting bill on 31 July 1974. Prime Minister Rowling had just made the phone call mentioned above, and upset a TV producer. National speakers called this "intimidation". They took it very seriously because the amendment provided imprisonment for up to a year and a fine up to $500 for any person convicted of "wilfully interfering with....the independence or impartiality of broadcasting." Walker said "broadcasting should be completely independent of and divorced from any political interference at all." [1974 Hansard pp 3376-7].

He meant it should be responsible to Parliament, not to one political party. The Wellington division of the National Party raised exactly the same problem and same solution. It's May Conference stated firm opposition to "political interference in broadcasting" - thus any direction to broadcasting should be in writing and tabled in Parliament [Post 29/5/76]. And Templeton had exactly the same, restricted meaning in mind when he said "any minister would be a fool to try to interfere politically with broadcasting" (parliamentary accountability does not mean political interference, because the Minister is under close scrutiny) [Sunday Times 27/6/76].

Templeton's guarantee that there'll be no secret directives or threats to broadcasters is comforting, I guess. But "bully boys" are not the real issue to broadcasting staff, who have their own professional standards and will not be influenced by "what the PM thinks" (Doug Ekhoff of TV-1 current affairs was insulted and the suggestion that Simon Walker might have been intimidated by Muldoon's comments after the famous Russian ships interview). Anyway, directives and threats are crude methods of interference - bound to back-fire when the intended victims broadcast them nation-wide, immediately!

So National is being either naive or deceptive, when it assumes political power is only exercised when the minister makes a directive or indirect threat to broadcasting staff. To both broadcasting staff and political theory "political interference" has a far wider meaning, and more subtle methods. American political scientists Bachrach and Baratz correctly claim that we must always recognise "the second face of power." The first fact involves decision making - power is the ability to make the decisions. But, they continue, "power is also exercised when A devotes his energies to creating institutional practices that limit the scope of the political process to public consideration of only those issues which are comparatively innocuous to A" ("Two Faces of Power" American Political Science Review, 949]. A long winded definition! but well worth understanding because it has many applications. It illustrates why a restructuring of broadcasting, such as creates an institution that's less able and less willingto to probe, criticise and expose politicians and issues, clearly constitutes political interference in broadcasting.

Scrapping the independent TV news services and generally returning to the bad old NZBC days is a clear example of political interference in broadcasting, and it's the prospect of returning to the NZBC that broadcasting staff are concerned about. Thus at the same time as Avalon staff voted unanimously for a four-day shut-down ("to alert the people of NZ to the Government's political intervention in media services") they proposed a scheme that would constitutionally entrench the current independence of broadcasting.

An NZBC charter, like the BBC charter, would freeze the institutional structure of broadcasting for two government spans (i.e. six years). That's a logical proposal: the politicians "interfere" by constantly legislating changes in the broadcasting institutions, thus the only solution to the problem of political interference is to make broadcasting independent of Parliament and to constitutionally entrench that independence using the "NZBC charter" device.

Parliamentary Accountability

The first argument is fallacious. That $50m is not taxpayers' money. It's made up of advertising revenue and license fees. The license fee is not a tax - it's a contract between individual viewers and the BCNZ - like the purchase price of a newspaper or any other product. Taxpayer's money is used only for capital works, and for this the BCNZ is already accountable.

Ron Jarden argues that we need a central broad-casting body to order the competing interests of TV, radio, and other services. TV-1 made a profit, but broadcasting overall made a loss. TV-1 doesn't care about TV-2 transmission, neither cares about Radio, and no-one cares about FM radio - we need more overall control [phone interview, 30 June]. But this does not require accountability to Parliament. The BCNZ Board was perfectly aware of its financial obligations and was already making cutbacks. It realised that Radio needed more support than TV, thus gave RNZ a greater share of licensing fee resources.

The second argument is more inappropriate than fallacious. Why should broadcasters be accountable to Parliament? Newspapers aren't, and we would not want them to be. NZ has a tradition of Parliamentary surveillence of broadcasting, but this is not common in democratic countries. We should rethink our attitude to Parliamentary accountability of broadcasting.

There are good arguments against account ability. The concept applies to the public service - which should be responsible to its various Ministers who in turn are responsible for its actions.

But broadcasters are professional people, not public servants. Any profession requires independence, to determine its own ethics and standards of practice. Television under the 1973 structure was (is) developing the necessary professional independence. The TV producer whom Rowling "intimidated" in 1974 had become a creature of a past era when Muldoon triea to intimidate Simon Walker in 1976. One member of the Tonight team said "Muldoon just shoots his mouth off-but that makes no difference to our programme."

A return to the NZBC style chain of command - producer responsible to director general, to NZBC, to Minister, to Parliament, to mother-of-ten - must detract from the independence of broadcasting staff. Parliamentary accountability, virtuous and democratic as it sounds, essentially contradicts the more important principle of professionalism in broadcasting.

As stated above, parliamentary accountability is a principle applicable to the public service, to bureaucrats. One big problem with the NZBC was, it was too like the public service - too much bureaucracy and deadwood. Labour's reshuffle preserved much of this, in the BCNZ, because it could not decently be sacked or re-located. But the TV corporations themselves became more like professional TV companies (i.e. promoting values of artistry and talent rather than jobs for the boys).

Avalon staff are still frustrated by remnants of the civil service promotion mentality, but the situation is improving. Talent is being rewarded. Return to the NZBC chain of command, i.e. "Parliamentary page 9 accountability" means return to the civil service mentality.

By freeing broadcasters from Parliamentary accountability. NZers are not handing power from their elected representatives to the bureaucrats. A broadcasting service should be akin to a newspaper company plus a top professional theatre company - i.e. not at all like a Government Department! Broadcasting always has been bureaucratic in structure, but under the 1973 independent structure it has progressed far, and NZers attitudes would do well to progress with it.

What National is Really Scared of

Politicians stand to be criticised and exposed by mass media, especially TV news and current affairs. Any politician who would fragment the NZBC and give broadcasting independence, more resources, plus give TV news and current affairs more air time, is either brave or crazy!

Roger Douglas was a brave politician to make broadcasting independent of political control. In fact, when Douglas originated his new broadcasting structure he never envisaged the competitive news services. It is little known that the 1973 Broadcasting bill provided for a single news gatherer, Radio NZ. It would distribute items to TV-1 and TV-2 via the BCNZ. [of clause 11(i) of the bill]. The absence of competitive news gathering services was severely criticised by National MPs, especially Gair and Walker, during the introduction debates. Largely on account of their efforts, the bill emerged from committee with a modification allowing the corporations and BCNZ to work out between themselves how to organise the news. The modified bill still did not provide separate news services. These only developed on the initiative of the corporations and with the support of a progressive BCNZ Board.

In short, Labour was not so brave as it makes out, but to its credit it did let the separate news services emerge, and did make broadcasting far more independent of Parliament. Muldoon is more the politician - it is in any politician's interests to have a single news service plus political control of broadcasting.

Two news items, with two sets of resources, more staff etc, are more likely to latch onto a politicians's mistake than is one. (this quite apart from the fact that the teams are more probing when competitive TV-2's news service became so good because that corporation had few resources, and the one thing it could afford to do well was news). Then, with separate presentation there's two hours of news and current affairs programmes per night. Muldoon must watch two hours TV per night, just to check what they are saying about him. It was far less tiring for him to watch one hour only, under the single NZBC service.

Separate and competitive news gathering plus presentation, and broadcasting independent of Parliamentary (i.e. political) surveillence, is potential murder for politians. Muldoon realises that. Maybe he had a talk with Rockefeller about Watergate (scurrilous rumour only!). When Nixon was being exposed during 1974, CBS, ABC, and the Washing Post used to watch him 24 hours a day. They split into easy eight-hour shifts and could report any fresh development to all three services immediately - but poor Nixon could not keep awake 24 hours per day, every day. He didn't stand a chance.

It's only commonsense for Muldoon to want a single news service, and a less zealous broadcasting institution - an "Aunty NZBC". He has openly stated what sort of broadcasting service he likes: addressing the Wellington division of the National Party "I believe I have never seen......news media more responsible than NZs - not in Australia, the United States or United Kingdom" [Post 31/5/75]. Walker recommended the NZBC as "the envy of the world" [1973 Hansard Vol 387 p 4852].

Party members agree; Mrs N Ludbrook at the Wellington division conference "All journalists, to be credible, must be seen to be impartial....there has been a decline in standards of courtesy,, respect and good taste in many news and current affairs interviews.

Templeton promises us "a distinctively NZ style of broadcasting....to meet the needs of a changing society". But look at the adjectives National politicians and members use to describe their ideal broadcasting service: "responsible", "courteous", "respectful". That sounds fine for politicians, but it's not the brand of journalism that exposed Watergate!. We citizens, always eager to be informed, are better served by a competitive, probing and not so courteous style such as the American news media's.

Summary

This article has moved from the issues of "political interference", to "Parliamentary accountability", to consideration of the conflicting interests of politicians as opposed to people, in broadcasting. These issues are all related, i.e. political interference cannot be ended without full and constitutionally protected independence of broadcasting from political control.

Parliamentary accountability means political control. National politicians fear the prospect of independent and competitive broadcasting being allowed to continue developing in this country, because they are the most likely victims. But is is in our interests as 'the people' to allow Labour's broadcasting structure to continue as is.