The grass is greener...

The NZ Herald reported on Radio New Zealand staff facing a pay freeze as part of a round of impending cost cutting measures. The article quotes the chairwoman of Radio New Zealand, Christine Grice, who asserted: "Despite its current financial pressures, Radio New Zealand will strive to maintain the highest international standards of public service broadcasting."

Apparently Broadcasting Minister Jonathan Coleman declined to comment. But these people jumped at the opportunity to throw in their two cents when asked to respond to the question "How important is it to keep funding public broadcasting?" by Your Views:

Odette (Kohimarama)
Maybe they feel their isn't much point?! Propaganda is pumped out through largely left wing editorialised jouralism anyway. If it was the calibre of the BBC i might be more impressed. You know, excellent researching and proper investigative journalism. But the standards in New Zealand are so low you need to dig for them!

Get out your spades, folks, we've got some digging to do. It is inevitable that someone would introduce the BBC into their argument as an example of "proper" and "excellent" journalism in an attempt to draw a binary between this and "low-calibre" New Zealand journalism. The widely-held perception of the BBC as consistent producers of high quality journalism is part of a wider schema of perception which sees anything 'British' as superior. Hence the continually-invoked yet highly problematic difference between the 'crass', 'trash' of American television programmes versus the 'sophistication' of British television programmes, in every sense the thinking man's television. 

Curmudgeon (Hastings)
State funded media free from political influence is the only way to keep balanced reporting. Any media which is controlled by government or business is going to be suspected of bias.

Aren't we living in a 'post-bias' society? Come on, everything contains bias! You are a Herald reader for goodness sake! The home of Garth George! If it's "balanced reporting" you're after, you might be forever searching...