Of knuckleheads, long-running stories, media beat-ups and Judith Collins parting the waters

Referring to John Key’s current dissatisfaction with the ‘knuckleheads’ of the Fourth Estate, a prominent journalist, who shall remain nameless to protect the guilty, observed to me recently, ‘No Prime Minister who ever attacked the media got re-elected.’

He was evidently out of the country during both Rob Muldoon’s and Helen Clark’s three terms, but his remark was less than flattering to the members of his own profession. Journalists, it seems, will revenge themselves on politicians who criticise them, in the process abandoning their duty to report objectively and dispassionately.

Key’s response to media attacks on his credibility, and to the Press Gallery’s  dealings with him during ‘stand-ups’ in the corridors of Parliament, has been to suggest that he’ll either abandon the stand-ups altogether or at least greatly reduce the number of questions he will take.

I would suggest the former. It makes absolutely no sense to throw yourself into a pit of hungry bears who have been practising tag-team mauling while they waited for your arrival. It would be hard to think of a more uncontrolled, uncontrollable or  dangerous arena.  

The function of the stand-up is primarily to provide the media with (preferably incriminating) sound-bites. Indeed it has some of the characteristics of a police interview with a suspect: the wearying repetition of essentially the same question in the hope of getting ‘a confession’; the whole tag-team routine  including the occasional suggestion of a ‘good cop, bad cop’ collusion; the relentless negativity of the interrogation;  the unexpressed hope that the accused will break under pressure, lose his cool and say or do something damaging to his defence.

In media terms the stand-up is geared primarily, though not exclusively,  towards the needs of the broadcast media, in particular the essentially headline medium -television news. A detailed or expansive answer doesn’t fit the bill when the average sound bite has been reduced to around five seconds . This is clearly problematic for a Prime Minister attempting to explain his position on a complex issue or offer an extended narrative in his own defence.

And then there’s the problem of getting away. Most of the politicians I’ve worked with have found it difficult to call a halt to a stand-up session. They didn’t want to appear rude or look as though they were running away. But, just like the suspect in the police interview room, the more questions you answer, the more you explain, the more likely you are to get into trouble. This is John Key’s problem. He’s become far too accessible.

So Key’s options are to take a leaf out of Judith Collins’ book and part the journalistic waters without stopping or  limit his exchanges with journalists to formal press-conferences or pre-arranged set-piece interviews.

I’m for Option Two because I don’t think he can carry off Option One. Stopping and chatting is part of his genetic make-up and has held him in good stead for four years. But the media climate has changed. The bears can smell blood.

Referring on The Nation to Key’s background as a Wall Street trader, former Herald editor Gavin Ellis made this fascinating observation, ‘This is a guy who can control the level of icicles in his blood. He’s done that as a trader. Now suddenly he’s lost the ability to control the icicles.’

Brilliant!  And right. The Prime Minister looks increasingly uncomfortable in stand-ups. He conveys a sense of disappointment, perhaps even of betrayal. He looks annoyed and upset. And when he isn’t  being exactly straightforward, his face and tone betray it. He isn’t a good dissembler.

If I may extend the icicle analogy, what Key needs now is not to stop talking to journalists, but as far as possible to conduct those conversations in a controlled temperature environment.

As for my journalist friend’s comment about the dangers of offending the Fourth Estate, that danger, if it exists at all, is far less serious than the danger of looking weak in the face of journalistic intimidation. Kiwi voters prefer a bully to a wimp.

Will the GCSB affair do any permanent damage to John Key? I very much doubt it. This has been a saga of huge interest to the media but, so far as I can see, of precious little interest to anyone else. To test that theory, I conducted an entirely unscientific but quite interesting little survey of readers’ letters to the editor in the Herald over the last week. There were 109 letters in all, of which 2 were about the GCSB affair. I think the term for that would be ‘indicative’.

I could of course be totally wrong. On The Nation over the weekend my colleague Bill Ralston described  the GCSB saga as ‘one of the longest running stories I’ve ever seen.’ 

I suspect we may look back on it as one of the greatest media beat-ups.

Media trainer and commentator Dr Brian Edwards has retired from posting blogs at Brian Edwards Media.