Broadcasting Standards Authority
« Previous EntriesImproving accuracy
Wednesday, July 21st, 2010A funny thing happened on the way to loosening the Accuracy standard in the Broadcasting Codes of Practice. It got tightened up instead.
Let me explain. The old Radio code said broadcasters have to be truthful and accurate on points of fact. The TV code was the same. Broadcasters hated it. It meant that they were […]
The case against the case against Robin Bain
Thursday, July 8th, 2010So, now that TVNZ has broadcast its special edition of Bryan Bruce’s The Investigator: The case against Robin Bain, compellingly arguing that Robin Bain couldn’t have committed the Bain family murders, can David Bain and his team do anything about it? They argue that it’s “unadulterated rubbish”, contains “mischievous misrepresentations of facts”, “perpetuates a fraud”, […]
Off-Target
Friday, June 11th, 2010The BSA has just given TV3’s hidden-camera wielding consumer affairs show Target a spanking for wrongly claiming that Cafe Cezanne’s chicken was infested with faecal coliform. Turns out, Target had got its samples mixed up.
Worse than that, Top Shelf, the company that produces Target, initially provided wrong information to the cafe about when the sample was […]
BSA fucks up
Tuesday, February 23rd, 2010The Broadcasting Standards Authority has upheld a complaint against the radio broadcast of Lily Allen’s song “Fuck You”, broadcast on Sunday and Tuesday afternoons on The Edge. I think they were wrong to do so, and I think it demonstrates that they still don’t really understand the Bill of Rights Act.
If it were just a […]
Michael Laws breaches broadcasting standards again
Tuesday, February 23rd, 2010The BSA has pinged RadioLive talkback host Michael Laws yet again, this time for “blatant misrepresentation”. He had an exchange of emails with a health official concerned with Maori smoking that said:
Laws: Stick to trying to get Māori to quit smoking, will you? Not exactly a sparkling success story, is it?
Broughton: Not really. Not when […]
Mau about gay issues
Tuesday, February 23rd, 2010Well, recent events have given a certain piquancy to the broadcasting standards complaint about this exchange between Paul Henry and Alison Mau, on Breakfast last year:
Henry: …a little bit later in the morning I thought we might talk about the Acting Principal Family Court Judge’s call that it’s time the adoption laws were updated to […]
Chasing Ali
Monday, February 15th, 2010The latest development in the Alison Mau saga reads like a media law exam question.
On Breakfast TV she took a swipe at Woman’s Day, saying its “paparazzi photographer has been stalking me, my children and my friends for a month now, quite possibly more, following me to the supermarket, the kids’ tennis and touch rugby, […]
TVNZ upholds Paul Henry complaint
Monday, December 21st, 2009TVNZ’s complaints committee has found that Paul Henry breached the taste and decency standard with his comments on Susan Boyle on Breakfast last month. He giggled when reporting that she had been starved of oxygen at birth and said she was “retarded” and you could see it from her photograph. It’s worse when you see […]
Bad English
Thursday, October 29th, 2009Let me get this straight: TVNZ7 scripted this ad? What were they thinking?
I must say, my first response was the same as Graeme Edgeler’s: this might be an “election programme” under the Broadcasting Act. It’s an offence to broadcast a promo that “advocates support for a candidate or for a political party”. Interestingly, the other […]
Let Us Stray (from the facts)
Wednesday, August 19th, 2009Sigh. Let Us Spray producer Keith Slater has given an interview on MediaWatch, defending the documentary Let Us Spray after the BSA upheld complaints against it.
Well, that’s his right. And plainly, he still thinks the documentary was right. But he’s still making statements that strike me as just as misleading as the programme was. (Disclosure, […]