Media 7 Wednesday 8th July

Media 7 Wednesday 8th July

Media7 this week examines a range of taboos and discusses how one of the most basic journalistic ethics – keeping the names of sources confidential –is being threatened by court action and by legislative changes now before Parliament.

When dealing with informants who seek to reveal confidential and sensitive matters, journalists often make an important but unwritten compact that they will protect the name or names of the people who give them the information.

When Governments and big corporations try to hide unpalatable truths, this is the way that the story can be got out of the shadows and discussed as a matter of public interest.

The current case before the courts involving TV3’s “Campbell Live”programme is a case where this principle is at stake.

The police want John Campbell and his producers to reveal the names of the Waiouru Museum Medal thieves to assist them with the prosecution of a number of people charged with the crime.

This matter goes to the very heart of the journalists’ role as the fourth estate of the democratic process.

Likewise the new “Search and Surveillance Bill” foreshadowed by the Key Government promises to change the law to compel people to answer questions from the police under certain conditions.

Wearing his new “hat” as Chief Executive of the Newspapers’ Association, former “Dominion Post” Editor, Tim Pankhurst joins host Russell Brown to discuss this major issue for both journalism and for a healthy democracy.

Media7 is also tackling the subject of the media’s treatment of people with disabilities.

Disability strategist, Sacha Dylan, journalist Sally Wenley and Attitude TV presenter and producer Curtis Palmer will be looking at how mainstream media ghettoizes the disabled and seems genuinely incapable of treating them as “normal” people.

“The Great F-Divide” is the topic for Media7’s other panel of broadcaster, Pam Corkery, “Outrageous Fortune” writer and producer, James Griffin and NZ’s Chief Censor, Bill Hastings.

This group will be looking at the rise of the “F-word”, the canonization of “Bugger” and the fact that words previously considered less than polite, now assail our sensibilities many times each and every day.

How much dirty talk can we take from the media before they get punished? Are standards bound to slip ever lower? Who cares? They’re just some of the questions we’ll be asking.

Media7 is recorded before a live audience at Auckland’s Classic Comedy Theatre on Wednesday at 6.00pm.

The show goes to air on TVNZ 7 at 9.10 on Thursdays and is replayed several times as well as being available on demand, as a podcast and on You Tube and now available on Sky Channel 97.

ENDS

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