The mainstream media showed bias in reporting issues relating to the General Election held on November 26, 2011, says an academic.
Massey University Associate Professor Claire Robison accused the New Zealand Herald, Herald on Sunday, the Dominion Post and the Sunday Star-Times of having ‘exhibited substantial bias’ in their selection and use of images during the election campaign.
“Most of these were in favour of Prime Minister John Key. Labour and Phil Goff (then Leader of the Opposition) have real grounds to feel that they were unfairly treated in print during the last election campaign,” she said.
Her research findings were released on November 26, 2012.
Detailed analysis
She is reported to have assessed every image of Mr Key and Mr Goff published by the four major newspapers during the election campaign.
According to her research, Mr Key was featured 138 times compared to Mr Goff (80 times) and that Mr Key dominated the column centimetres, at an almost two to one ratio.
“Mr Key and Mr Goff received much more positive and neutral coverage than negative coverage from all four papers, but the New Zealand Herald and Herald on Sunday were generally more positive in their treatment of Mr Key, whilst the Dominion Post and Sunday Star-Times were kinder to Mr Goff.
“My research suggests there could be grounds for a complaint to the New Zealand Press Council that the newspapers breached the principle of fairness and balance in their campaign coverage,” Professor Robinson said.
Visual impact
According to her, newspaper editors have traditionally judged whether their coverage is balanced based, on the number, tone and position of words. But we live in an image-saturated world. In reality, readers absorb headlines, images, graphics and captions, and rarely study every column inch. News media render the world visually as well as verbally. It is time they paid serious attention to the ethics of which images they publish, when and how,” she said.
Professor Robinson said that for politicians, image selection and positioning is likely to become even more important with newspapers such as the new-look compact-format of the New Zealand Herald becoming more visually-driven.”
Dr Robinson’s analysis also found a dramatic shift in image selection at the height of the teapot tape saga.
“When the news media itself becomes an actor in a political controversy, things get ugly. Picture editors dusted off their most unflattering shots of Mr Key.
In the final days of the campaign none of the papers published a negative image of Mr Goff,” she said.
Editor’s Note: Indian Newslink is a non-partisan newspaper, offering equal opportunities for all political parties to use our columns to express their views. However, only National and Labour have traditionally done so. This newspaper also launches its Electionlink pages on two separate occasions by the Leaders of the two Parties at their offices about 18 months prior to the General Election. The picture appearing here is a morphed version of Mr Key and Mr Goff who were at our offices respectively on June 10 and June 25, 2010 to launch Electionlink.
