Table of Contents
JD
Excitement mounted in the quaintly named ‘News Room’ of the state broadcaster. Not because any actual news had been discovered, given TVNZ stopped reporting any of that following the 2005 retirement of ‘The Mother of the Nation’ (You remember her. The comfortable one, not the controversial one who, as you may recall, caused a furor by showing off her credentials in a TV drama.)
No. What was sending a tremor through TVNZ in their Victoria Street Vatican (aka, ‘The Tower of Truth’, or ‘The Tower of Babel’, depending on your political predilections), was the disclosure that one of their own had been defenestrated, forsaken, betrayed and/or abandoned to their fate (choose your own hyperbole) by the powers that be and the weight of public opinion.
“Serves her right, silly gal,” said an old hack who had been marinating in the corner for 30 years. “She should have known it’s journalistic suicide to misname anyone by using the f-word these days.”
The politically correct term, as even I know, is a ‘member of the LGBTXYZ+ community’ (which admittedly doesn’t have the same cut-through as f*##@t when shouted across a crowded room, but still). Whatever was she thinking?
But something positive could still be made of it, surely?
‘Come on team,’ urged, in unison, TVNZ’s political editor, business editor, digital news editor, national news editor, investigations editor and 1News bulletin editor and chief producer (hereinafter referred to as the media management committee or MMC*).
‘We understand Nicola Willis was there when it happened, so we must be able to find a way to spin this so it’s the fault of the National Party – and if we can’t, go interview Winston Peters, who most likely can.’
And so the journalistic puppy-pack, all clutching their newly minted bachelors of communication from Massey and their even newer parliamentary press passes, set off for the Beehive to smoke out their prey – except for the aforementioned hack, who went back to the bar instead – ‘Where most real copy used to get written,’ he intoned wistfully.
And in any case, given that the bar he went back to was the Backbencher in Thorndon, the hack was pretty sure Winston would be there sooner or later, willing to give him a scoop for the usual tribute of a couple of top shelf scotches. (But only two. Any more than that – with the, inflation-driven prices of Winnie’s preferred Macallan Red Series Whisky being what they are – he would have had to declare it on the ‘Parliamentary Register of Pecuniary and other Specified Interests’ – a limiting factor to anyone’s generosity, much to Mr P’s chagrin.)
Meanwhile, as the hack was scooping the scoop on why Maiki’s outburst was absolutely the fault of National’s finance minister for hosting a soiree where (unusually for the parliamentary press gallery) tempers flared as strong drink was taken, the other ‘news’ roiling the ‘News Room’ was the departure of TV’s pre-eminent autocue reader. The one able to articulate with dignity and gravitas pretty much every opinion fed through to the ’cue.
Whether those opinions came from the left, the far left or the gallimaufry of the Green Party, it didn’t matter, Simon could ensure every word had the sincerity required to make it all seem real and unbiased.
What’s more, now Sherman had tanked, the breathless hunt for coalition cock-ups was dialling down a notch, which should have made Mr D’s job a little easier, but he’d thrown in the towel!
Why? WelI I guess there’s only so many years you can pretend you’re reading news that isn’t before it gets you down.
Plus how much te reo can you fit into one bulletin without sounding like a prat? That isn’t good for anyone’s self-esteem – especially when the majority of your audience can’t understand what you’re saying.
And so, with the Dallow spot fallow, the hunt was on for a replacement.
As an aside here, because this new opportunity had unexpectedly arisen, one media high-flyer said to be rueing his recent decision to contract himself to RNZ’s Morning Report was that ‘Exemplar of Effusiveness’ himself, Mr JC.
(No, not the bloke from the New Testament, although the name of that biblical character is quite often uttered as an expletive by listeners to the opinions our boy Campbell usually expressed).
So, if not the panting Hierophant** from Hamilton, who was Mr D’s replacement to be?
With the field, according to the groupthink of the MMC, narrowed to two main contenders – the warm professionalism of Melissa Stokes, fitting the classic autocue reader mould, or the boyish charm of Jack Tame, with his current affairs/opinion show moderation and long-form interviewing experience, how should this be decided?
“Simple choice since you surely can’t think of putting a gel into a man’s job,” said the hack – for which audacity he was rewarded with a three-week course on ‘DEI and the Importance of Standardised Outcomes’ and his opinion was, quite rightly, disregarded.
Eventually the MMC consensus was consensed and it was decided there would be a run-off between the two contenders. Each would be given the same five minute items of recent news, and the one who could introduce the most opinion masquerading as fact, whilst keeping a straight face, would get the job. So, let battle commence.
First up was the proposed public service job cuts. A read-off Tame won by including four minutes and 45 seconds of discussion with the PSA and the parliamentary opposition commenting on the way the whole of NZ would be laid waste if 8,900 backroom civil servants were no more.
This was counterbalanced, but only by one 15-second soundbite from a taxpayer, who thought maybe his contributions to the government coffers might be better spent on frontline health, policing and education. (Ha! Bloody reactionary fossil. What would he know?)
The second item on which the contestants opined was the budget proposal to increase defence spending by six per cent whilst – Shock! Horror! – only increasing the budget spend on arts, culture and heritage by 14.4 per cent.
(Hang on that can’t be right? But yes, the numbers are correct in percentage terms. In dollar terms the Defence Budget gets more – as it always has done since so many people depend on it for their livelihood – compared to ‘The Yarts’ where the dilettanti just do it for fun).
Melissa won this one by running four minutes of anti-government defence-spending rhetoric from a Topp Twin, together with a Zoom-call and anti-war message of support from Jane Fonda.
This was set against just 30 seconds from an aircraft technician’s wife, and mother of four, based the Whenuapai airbase, who thought maybe it wasn’t a bad idea to have a few people around the country who could, in case of an attack, possibly defend us for a wee bit – until the Yanks come to the rescue again, that is. (Did someone say nuclear submarines? Maybe not such a bad idea after all.)
Moving on. With one score apiece, for the all-important decider the item chosen concerned the one question that keeps us all awake at night (after we’ve done worrying about paying the mortgage, the power and grocery bills of course), viz: The treasury’s verdict on the possibility that the government won’t meet its obligations under the Paris Agreement.
This was the subject that brought out the best in both protagonists.
Tame kicked off with two minutes from Chloë Swarbrick on why the Climate Change Commission should have more powers to force the government to divert taxpayer money from health and education to the buying of overseas carbon credits supplied by Russia.
Following that was two minutes from academics, whose research was majority funded by the climate catastrophists of the Climateworks Foundation.
Then he finished with a video interview starring Jacinda Ardern speaking from Australia and revisiting the reason why banning oil and gas exploration in NZ, so we can buy it from overseas instead, is still a good idea (for a country she no longer lives in).
Not to be outdone, Melissa ran a different interview with Chloë – this time with her commenting on how totally closing down the NZ economy would cut enough emissions to reduce world temperatures by 0.00004°C per year, thus immediately saving the planet.
Following that was opinion from Mike Smith – celebrated litigant against all things CO2 related, who is currently suffering from an existential crisis over whether to sue himself for breathing out – or not.
Finally she ended by interviewing John Key and James Shaw, NZ’s primary drivers of NZ’s sign-up to the Paris Agreement and the Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Act 2019. Both of whom, naturally enough, still thought these were good ideas.
(‘And in any case, no one believes the targets so what harm can signing up to them do? Apart from giving the usual climate hystericals a big stick to beat us with of course – but let’s not dwell on that,’ said JK).
It should also be noted, with this final read-off, that the MMC panel gave special commendations to both Tame and Stokes for their decisions to include no dissenting voices. After all, the science of climate is settled – isn’t it.
And so, to the end result. In a sheer anticlimax, sadly not at all newsworthy, the contest was declared a draw, after which much thought was given to the idea of dual presenters who could riff off each other as the autocues rolled – a novel idea that hasn’t been tried since 2020.
However, sanity prevailed and the MMC went instead for an AI generated, somewhat androgenous, composite-female hologram, which, happily for TVNZ – (new logo below) – was a hell of a lot cheaper than the $800,000 per year they’d been known to pay female newsreaders when they were real.
A no brainer really, and the logic was simple. If AI writes most of the stuff we feed to the autocue, why not let AI read it as well? Voila! Layers of staff expenses cut, with sufficient savings thereto attached to ensure the MMC could all keep their jobs.
And the irony, that they were, simultaneously, revealing themselves as the next layers of staff that AI would probably replace, was lost on them. (But not on Board Chair Andrew Barclay and Jodi O’Donnell, CEO of TVNZ, so watch this space).
1. Note from TVNZ management. This logo only cost $100,000 to design (including GST) because we farmed it out to a really low-cost boutique design agency, so it was a bargain really.
2. Note from Ripoff, Ripoff and Bullstrode (the boutique design agency in question). We actually produced it using Chat GPT at a cost of $2.73, but don’t tell TVNZ. And in any case, as we always say, you don’t pay us for what we do for you, you pay us for knowing how to do it to you. And ain’t that the truth.
*NB: TVNZ’s MMC is not to be confused with the Russian Roskomnadzor or the Central Propaganda Department of China. These are real Media ‘Management’ Committees, wielding powers that TVNZ’s team can only dream of. (Until Labour gets back in next time of course.)
**Look it up.
