Objectively Speaking
Former Dominion Editor and long-time blogger Karl du Fresne recently called for the sacking of TVNZ’s Chief Correspondent John Campbell for hijacking “the government’s most potent communication medium” for his own “highly political mission”. Jeremy Rose takes a look at the accusation and the long-running debate on whether “objectivity” is desirable or even possible.
By Jeremy Rose
Du Fresne’s latest piece criticising Campbell, “The John Campbell question”, posted on 23 January, takes his beef with the broadcaster to another level, claiming the government might be left with no choice but the “nuclear option”: “[A] brutal, decisive and very public sacking on the basis that Campbell has betrayed the fundamental duty of impartiality that the public is entitled to expect of journalists in a state-owned media organisation.”
The late Roger Kerr once described Karl du Fresne as “the sage of the Wairarapa”.
The long-time head of the Business Roundtable made the comment in a blog post following the publication, in 2010, of one of du Fresne’s weekly columns, in Wellington daily The Dominion, excoriating comedian Gary McCormack for describing himself as a socialist.
To me, the former Dominion editor and long- time columnist is more a provincial, New Zealand version of Hedda Hopper — the Hollywood gossip columnist infamous for outing reds under the bed — than sage.
Within weeks of my starting work on RNZ’s Mediawatch programme, in 2008, du Fresne published a blog post warning his readers that a known leftie had been employed by Mediawatch.
His evidence was that I had helped set up the worker-owned, openly left-wing Wellington newspaper City Voice in 1993.
And, as he suggested in the piece, I’m happy to admit to being of the left.
It’s self-evident that everyone — and every journalist — is somewhere on the left-right political spectrum and the relevant question is whether a journalist is fair, balanced, and accurate.
In 2013, du Fresne published two more blog posts pointing out what he saw as my left-wing bias.
“Whenever Radio New Zealand journalist Jeremy Rose comes on air, I mentally prepare for a detour into a parallel universe — a left-wing la-la land.”
Du Fresne went on to describe an item I’d done on an enterprising Massey University student who had developed a website to encourage students to ask questions of local- body candidates.
He took issue with two of the questions I highlighted — claiming that I implied the mainstream media should have asked them. One was on the high rate of homelessness among LGBTQ youth and the other on drilling for oil in the Pegasus Basin.
“The notion that the mayor of Wellington should be held responsible for the dysfunctional family relationships of sexually confused young people is plain batty. It simply demonstrated — again — that there are no limits to the demands of the aggrieved for special attention,” he wrote.
Then he took issue with the idea the Pegasus Basin was off the coast of Wellington.
“Last time I checked, Pegasus Bay was immediately north of Banks Peninsula. Somehow I can’t imagine even Celia Wade- Brown [then mayor of Wellington], conscientious greenie that she is, regarding this as part of her bailiwick.”
Possibly, he misheard “basin” for bay, or maybe the long-time wine columnist consulted his wine atlas, but Pegasus Basin runs from the south west of Wellington up past his own patch in the Wairarapa.
Just a couple months after that, du Fresne took a swipe at RNZ’s perceived left-wing bias, citing Kim Hill, Chris Laidlaw and me as examples.
The first iteration of the blog post lacked any examples of stories or interviews that he thought showed a bias, but after that was pointed out by people criticising his blog post he added this:
“Rose appears to be on a lifelong mission to convince people that there are humane alternatives to nasty, heartless capitalism, and assiduously trawls the world looking for examples (worker-owned cooperatives in Spain are a favourite).”
He wasn’t entirely wrong. During my time as producer of the hour-long Ideas programme, I made two or three shows looking at cooperatives and companies with worker representation.
However, none of them featured interviews on the famous Mondragon worker co- operatives. Interviewees included a Fonterra director, a Tait Electronics manager, the author of a book on the UK’s John Lewis department store, and Italian professor and advisor to the Pope Stefano Zamagni.
I’ve outlined the above to illustrate two points. The first is the obvious one that every journalist comes to a story with a point of view and history that will inevitably influence how they approach any given story (including this one). The second point is that du Fresne has made it his personal mission to out what he often calls “cultural Marxists” in the media and academia.
So my first reaction on hearing that du Fresne had called for TVNZ’s Chief \ Correspondent, John Campbell, to be sacked was to think, here he goes again.
But his latest column does raise a number of points that can’t be lightly dismissed.
Tainui haka at January’s 10,000 person hui at Tūrangawaewae Marae. Photo: Aaron Smale
First some background.
Du Fresne has written about Campbell’s supposed left-wing bias many times over the years and consistently taken issue with the long- time broadcaster and journalist over the desirability of objectivity in journalism.
As long ago as 2013, he penned a letter to The Dominion taking issue with Campbell’s position on the subject. Du Fresne went on to describe an item I’d done on an enterprising Massey University student who had developed a website to encourage students to ask questions of local- body candidates.
He took issue with two of the questions I highlighted — claiming that I implied the mainstream media should have asked them. One was on the high rate of homelessness among LGBTQ youth and the other on drilling for oil in the Pegasus Basin.
“The notion that the mayor of Wellington should be held responsible for the dysfunctional family relationships of sexually confused young people is plain batty. It simply demonstrated — again — that there are no limits to the demands of the aggrieved for special attention,” he wrote.
Then he took issue with the idea the Pegasus Basin was off the coast of Wellington.
“Last time I checked, Pegasus Bay was immediately north of Banks Peninsula. Somehow I can’t imagine even Celia Wade- Brown [then mayor of Wellington], conscientious greenie that she is, regarding this as part of her bailiwick.”
Possibly, he misheard “basin” for bay, or maybe the long-time wine columnist consulted his wine atlas, but Pegasus Basin runs from the south west of Wellington up past his own patch in the Wairarapa.