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One might have thought that 43 years later, the notion that it was OK for government ministers to interfere in the editorial affairs of public radio or television would be considered laughable. But apparently not.
Gerry Brownlee evidently thought that his status as a Cabinet Minister entitled him to ring up Radio New Zealand and demand a right of reply to comments made on Jim Mora’s Afternoons programme some weeks ago by Christchurch MP Lianne Dalziel. The topic under discussion was of course the Government’s handling of the aftermath of the Christchurch earthquakes and Dalziel was predictably unimpressed. Brownlee is the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Minister and seems to have considered that his portfolio gave him the right to demand an instant right of reply on the programme.
The production team disagreed. As a regular contributor on the show, I can tell you that Afternoons is a tightly scheduled programme. It isn’t easy to slot in an additional item. More importantly, Afternoons would almost certainly have been conscious of the significance of acceding to what amounted to a demand from a Government minister for immediate air time during a live broadcast. Brownlee was told that the programme could not fit him in.
Two disgraceful things then happened. First, Brownlee contacted the Radio New Zealand CEO, Peter Cavanagh, with his demand for air time. There is no way to regard that as other than an appalling example of political interference in the editorial decision-making of a current affairs programme on public radio.
Next, Cavanagh acceded to Brownlee’s demand and instructed the programme’s producers to put the Minister on the air. According to media writer John Drinnan in this morning’s Business Herald, Brownlee was on for about 6 minutes. I have to go back to the sixties to recall such an egregious example of gutlessness on the part of a public radio or television executive.
Brownlee had absolutely no right under broadcasting legislation to demand an instant reply to statements made by Dalziel on Afternoons, whether those statements were correct or not. The Act does not require balance within each episode of a radio or television programme, but over a reasonable period of time. Provided Afternoons’ coverage of the earthquake recovery programme did not show an ongoing bias against the Minister’s or CERA’s performance, he was not entitled to demand a right of reply and certainly not an instant right of reply on a live programme.
If, on the other hand, he felt he could demonstrate a bias on the part of Afternoons against him or CERA, he had the same right as any other citizen to complain to Radio New Zealand and, failing a satisfactory reply, to make a formal complaint to the Broadcasting Standards Authority.
If I seem to be making a mountain out of a molehill here, it must be understood that these events go to the very heart of broadcasting’s absolute right to be free from political interference in matters of programming and editorial control, particularly in the field of news and current affairs. In bullying Radio New Zealand into putting him on air, Brownlee behaved disgracefully. No less disgraceful in my submission was Cavanagh’s allowing him to get away with it. If we are to protect public radio from the machinations of a government that quite clearly would prefer that it did not exist, we really need CEOs who are made of sterner stuff.