I want Your Views to be better. Do you?

It is not often that the users of Your Views critique the way the section is managed, the design of the questions or the quality of journalism in the related story. So when they do, their posts stand out and help to soften the blow of reading comment after comment full of gripes, groans and gullible geezers.

This very morning Your Views nominated the topic “How has National performed in its first year in office?”. Most of the users commenting feel adequately qualified to evaluate the National Party’s performance in government; being a taxpaying, true blue New Zealander is enough judging entitlement for a lot of these jokers.

However, Peaches points out that the Herald could have provided a few more hard facts in its related story before opening up the field for comments:

Peaches (Wellington City)
Could the NZ Herald please provide a bar graph showing the statistics of our debt levels and productivity levels compared to when National got into power. Also a policy general change list.
From here, I can comment.

As all of the topics or questions nominated in Your Views are linked to a related article or articles, a number of users come to the section after reading the Herald’s coverage of the issue. In saying that, news doesn’t exist in a vacuum, especially online news, so the users of Your Views might well shop around before depositing their opinions. But Peaches’ comment highlights one of the central problems with Your Views: that users are encouraged to respond to topics or questions which are closely linked to how the Herald has chosen to cover the issue concerned. Peaches seems to be critiquing the Herald and Your Views for not presenting factual information but instead privileging opinion.

In terms of criticising the Herald’s reporting and framing of opinion, Julian goes further than Peaches by suggesting the related article suspiciously paints National in a good light:

Julian (Vogeltown, Wellington City)
Did you get the Nats' press secretary to write your article?

The Herald received even more criticism of the quality of its journalism in the Your Views thread “Chris Rattue wants Wales to beat the All Blacks. Do you?”. Now usually I find the threads relating to sport in Your Views a wee bit dry (except when they intersect with something juicy like politics), but this one is off the chain. One of the Herald’s own sports columnists, Chris Rattue, wants the Welsh rugby team to beat the All Blacks, the beloved bastion of all things Kiwi, in order to give the ABs coaching panel a “giant kick up the behind”. What a disgrace!

William R (Piopio)
You are a p**** Rattue, your journalism style is absolute rubbish with your constant sarcasism (it is the lowest form of wit you know). You obviousley have a personal vendetta against Graham Henry and still cannot get over 2007. Grow up. The All Blacks will dominate Wales like they have for the last 40 years and 99.9% of New Zealand will be right behind them. Then hopefully the NZ Herald will finally see the light and get rid of you.

Dales (Sandringham)
Rattue has got to be worst sports journalist on earth. Can someone please sack him. Thanks.

There were many calls for the Herald to sack Rattue. This guy even promises to stage a boycott:

Ryan Pollock (Waitakere City)
I boycott the herald and Chris Rattue

Steady on Ryan, next thing you’ll be fronting up $450,000 for a protest march up Queen Street in the name of democracy.

mick (Kingsland)
The silly thing is, us responding to Rattue's article is exactly what nzherald would want. They want to stimulate conversation, no matter how controversal.

Yo Mick, I really like your point and I'mma let you finish, but you forgot the 'i' in controversial.

Compassion over controversy? Never!

After last night's discovery of missing Auckland toddler Aisling Symes, Police Inspector Gary Davey stated: "I know you've got a lot of questions, and so do I." As with any event which reaches a high level of national significance, Your Views gets right in there to asks its own question, not missing the opportunity to capture how the "public" really feel about the issue.

Your Views asks: How well do you think the police handled the Aisling Symes case?
This question belongs to what we might call the "privilege of hindsight" theme common across Your Views questions; Did Civil Defence respond appropriately to the tsunami warning?/What do you think of the police's handling of the Napier siege?/Was Paula Bennett right to release income details on two solo mothers?

A high number of Your Views users have pointed towards the inflammatory nature of the question posed, accusing the Herald of sensationalising what is an extremely tragic event:

Kiwi (Waikato/King Country)
What a inflamatory question. At this stage we know nothing of how this poor girl ended up where she was or how the Police received information she was there or decided to look there. Before we start blaming the Police how about waiting till all the facts are out and thinking of the families involved.

Responsible Kiwi (Eureka)
Come on NZ Herald - we expect more from you than a question that reeks of media hype. The Police seem to have conducted themselves with the utmost professionalism and compassion. The whole community has pulled together. Very sad outcome but I guess in one way it didn't end up like the McCanns - never knowing. Love to the family.

mixer1976 (Titirangi)
Really really sad that some people use this forum to criticise the Police, which is probably only due to their own shortcomings with the law. These are usually the same people who have the 'told you so' mentality, with their only contribution to the community being to criticise others from behind the security of a keyboard.you are weak people. [...] A ridiculous inflammatory question by the Herald - highly insensitive at a time like this. How about compassion over controversy for once!

Once again it is great to see user criticism of Your Views posted in the section, with the highly sensitive nature of the story and the feeling that it is 'too soon' to be asking this question working to generate disapproval.

Grant (Mt Eden)
Did a whole lot better then your jackass reporting! They were out there day and night doing their jobs and looking for her. Far too soon for this type of question and you should remove it straight away. The police did a wonderful job. but oh noooo! It's never tooo soon for the Herald to put questions like this up and they are only want to get a reaction from people. (Of course this wont get put up, but I do feel better - rant over)

I bet when the Your Views moderator(s) sees the phrase "Of course this wont get put up", they post the comment just to call the user's bluff. By publishing the entire comment, the moderators make Your Views seem even more open to criticism; however, it somehow feels like Grant is also disempowered by this. Grant thinks the thread should be removed and predicts that his comment will go unpublished - Your Views enforces that he is wrong on both accounts.

Wayne Lo (Mt Albert)
Those saying that the cops are above criticism probably have fascistic tendencies. This is the way of Communist China in the past - adulation of public officials and public servants. They are getting away from that sort of thing now bigtime - as anyone familiar with the Chiense blogsphere would well know.
The Herald is completely correct in bringing questioning the actions of the police - in any democracy (or at least in any democracy which wishes to remain so), the police, the judiciary, and the politicians should all be held up to ruthless and relentless scrutiny.

As Wayne Lo demostrates, not all users appear critical of Your Views' decision to post such a question. Wayne fully supports the Herald in questioning the actions of any civil servants, arguing that such questions are necessary for a well-oiled democracy.

C R (Papakura)
I didn't help search so I don't have a right to comment.

Technically C R, if only users with a first-hand involvement in an issue or event had the right to comment in Your Views, then the section would be unrecognisable. Your Views is the way it is because people with varied levels of understanding and involvement in certain issues or events feel compelled to share their opinions. Your proximity to the issue or event is irrelevant. Whether you were a member of the search party or simply followed the news coverage, Uncle Your Views wants YOU!

Some tough bikkies with that cup of tea?

It's no wonder that after losing out big time at the Qantas Film and Television Awards, TV3 don't feel like sharing.  Usually TVNZ and TV3 alternate years of filming and screening of the awards ceremony and this year was TVNZ's turn, but they pulled out and TV3 took up the opportunity to cover the event. It's also no surprise that TV3 didn't screen the entire event but simply a "highlights" version, in which they conveniently edited out many of TVNZ's winners. TVNZ missed out, but they won big, and therefore want the footage so they can have a wee gloat.

TVNZ spokeswoman Andi Brotherston said that TV3 giving them access to the footage would be "a gracious thing to do." TV3 spokesman Roger Beaumont replied by saying: "They need to go sit down and have a cup of tea, to be quite frank."

How did the Your Views users feel? Should TV3 hand over Qantas Awards footage to TVNZ? Or should we all sit down with a nice cuppa and let bygones be bygones?

Karen (Sunnynook)
The media in this country are of such a pitifully low standard they should be embarrassed to have awards at all. No wonder their advertising revenue has plummeted. Their big corporate spenders are all out of here and who watches them these days anyway?
Perhaps if they didn't spend so much on obscenely inflated salaries, corporate cabs, $1k lunches, $60 bottles of wine, expensive wardrobes etc they could have covered it themselves or offered TV3 a reasonable fee for a copy. Profligate wallies.

Again, a intricately-detailed description of someone's impression of a group of people. The accumulation of these "bad" habits are no doubt employed to support the idea that commercial media are blinded by their own decadence, painted as bacchanalian figures who are so consumed by the need for self-satisfaction that they ignore reason.

Opinion8d (Te Atatu South)
Why should they? TV3 filmed the awards, they get to keep the footage. Simple. Besides, April (Auckland) is right; they all produce a load of rubbish - I stopped watching mainstream television about ten years ago, and I'm pretty certain that I'm not alone out there.

And yet you still read the Herald...

Neal (Dargaville)
Tough bikkies TVNZ

Nice one Neal, simply put! On that note, I might go put the jug on...

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...