Media Matters: Hoaxes, coaches and mea culpas

In this instalment of Media Matters, NBR Radio’s Andrew Patterson chats with Campbell Gibson and Nick Grant about the inner workings of New Zealand’s media industrial complex.

Mr Gibson kicks off proceedings by recounting how a number of media outlets around the world carried a story this week about a French tourist returning to the Gold Coast in search of the bloke who had knocked her up weeks earlier.

The story – which was the lead on Fairfax’s Stuff website on Wednesday morning – included a video plea the young woman had posted online in the hope the interweb would help find him.

Only problem is, the story wasn’t true – it was a stealth corporate promotion. Stuff’s response? To post a story later that same day titled ‘Top hoaxes: did you fall for these?’ that contained no admission whatsoever that the site itself had fallen for it.

As Mr Grant comments (and earlier tweeted along the same lines), a headline that added the word "why" and changed "you" to "we" would have been better.

After which the boorish Mr Grant barely lets Mr Gibson get a word in edgewise, as he speculates Stuff is perhaps hoping to avoid such errors in future by employing ‘journalism coaches,’ who are intended to “to facilitate, coach, mentor and develop our people, ensuring that every journalist has the essential skills that our new environment and audiences demand.”

“I’m assuming,” he says, “the subtext of the ad is: ‘We’ve replaced a lot of experienced journalists with cheaper ‘digital natives’ and gotten rid of our subeditors, because we expect journalists to be able to produce work that can be published when it leaves their hands. Then last week someone in senior management actually looked at Stuff and realised the inevitable – if unintended – consequence of those decisions ...’”

Mr Grant then goes on something of a tear, mocking – among other things – NZME for a spelling mistake in the press release announcing the appointment of a new digital editor.

He does show a glimmer of self-awareness, however, by admitting that NBR is not immune to errors either, noting how the publication copped some valid criticism earlier in the week for an article URL that appeared to be editorialising (it wasn’t) and posting an opinion piece that initially referred to ‘Mr’ rather than ‘Ms’ Jacinda Ardern.

Mr Grant also admits to posting the occasional piece of click bait himself, confessing he still feels periodic pangs of guilt about one that conflated Nicky Hager with his sister Mandy as a way of trolling NBR’s readers (something he promises to never, ever do again).

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