More terrible media ethics

• David Farrar writes –

The Herald reports:

When Whanau Ora chief executive John Tamihere was asked what his expectations for the Budget next Thursday were, he said: “All hope is lost.”

Last year Whānau Ora was allocated $163.1 million in the Budget to last for the next four years but Tamihere is confident Māori will draw the short straw this year.

“I don’t have any hope. Our mate from the Hope Foundation does, but I don’t.”

Tamihere is saying that thanks to the policies of the coalition Government, the affluent will stand ahead of the poverty-stricken this year.

John Tamihere is quite entitled to say he thinks a Budget he hasn’t seen will be terrible.

The Herald is not entitled to run his comments without disclosing he is the party president of an opposition party.

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This article by David Farrar was first published on Kiwiblog.

A balanced and an unbalanced article

• David Farrar writes –

Two articles give a useful contrast in balance. Both seek to be neutral explainer articles.

This one in the Herald on Social Investment covers the pros and cons nicely. It links to critical pieces and talks about aspects that failed and aspects that are more promising.

ROBERT MacCULLOCH: The Herald calls Luxon untruthful and bases its argument on false numbers

• Professor Robert MacCulloch yesterday posted this on his blog, Down to Earth Kiwi –   

What’s gone wrong at Granny Herald? Why is the paper trying to swing an election using false numbers? Today one of its chief writer’s, Simon Wilson, has a provocative column called, “If the numbers don’t lie, do they always tell the truth?”, superimposed on a photo of National Party Leader, Chris Luxon.

Does the Herald think its being clever? Did its website layout people have a big giggle putting the word “lie” on top of Luxon’s face. The theme of the article is that although Luxon says his housing numbers don’t lie, they don’t tell the truth.

National and Labour politicians are expected to disagree on unemployment trends – but not newspaper colleagues

A bewildering array of seemingly contradictory headlines was generated by the latest Household Labour Force Survey results.

Stats NZ summed up the data in a press statement headed Unemployment rate up to 4.3 percent

The press statement from the Minister of Employment was headed Labour Market continues positive trend whereas a statement from National’s Amy Adams was headed NZ unemployment jumps to 4.3% as job creation slows.

The confusion was compounded by Granny Herald, perhaps struggling with dementia, which published a report on February 7 headed Wage growth ‘failing to fire’ as unemployment rises  whereas an editorial on February 8 was headed Unemployment down yet dole numbers are up.

Let’s leave dear old granny snoozing while we turn our attention to the government statisticians’ press statement:

The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate rose to 4.3 percent in the December 2018 quarter, up from 4.0 percent (revised) last quarter, Stats NZ said today.