Communications Line Issue # 45 20 April 2007

Smacking and personalities

The latest twist in the battle over the smacking law is to bring in personalities to sway our views on the Bradford Bill.

Using personalities is a frequent ploy in all kinds of marketing, and having high profile people supporting your cause does seem to work – at least as a publicity generator. Logically it shouldn’t do more than that. One may admire a person for the job that person does, for their achievements, personality, generosity of spirit, or for a variety of other reasons. But how does the status of a person in one field qualify them to advise people what to think, feel or do in a completely unrelated area?

Colin Meads may be fine telling me that I need to wear a life jacket, but when it comes to investment, his “solid as, I’d say” endorsement of Provincial Finance was just embarrassing after the company went into receivership. Does Stephen Fleming really know anything about home ventilation? At least Martin Crowe has had a hair transplant. Does endorsement even work where there is no logical connection between the person and the product? (Is Dan Carter just eye candy or does having good grunds help him kick the ball?)

One bit of firm evidence I can offer comes from a survey of PR and communications managers I conducted a couple of years ago. The respondents strongly agreed with the proposition that having one or more personalities involved in your cause significantly increased the likelihood of getting media coverage. Visibility is important; but is it mind changing?

I respect the personal views of Bull Allen, Simon Barnett, Linda Vagana and Wynton Rufer, (against the bill) and Judy Bailey, Linda Clarke, Richard Randerson and Keith Quinn, (for the bill). But why do their views on the smacking bill deserve more respect than those of any other person or personality? It’s assumed that the opinion of personalities is persuasive, but why this should be so is not at all clear to me.

Single, Repeatable and Memorable

When the phrase “the Bradford Bill will make criminals of ordinary parents” became common currency, the opinion polls also showed that a majority of the adult population were opposed to the bill. But the phrase had been used by opponents for as long as the bill has been about and only recently has it resonated with people and stuck in their consciousness.

It’s an easy phrase to use, (although its accuracy is debatable). It has several useful characteristics. First it is simple, repeatable and memorable, which all good slogans should be. Secondly it is emotional rather than rational, and therefore people can feel it as well as say it. And thirdly it is not easily disprovable.

Arguably if you remove the defence that made the action (smacking) legal in certain circumstances it must logically follow that the act of smacking is now (in effect) illegal because there is no legal defence to the carrying out of the act. Right? Well perhaps not but the difference is subtle, and subtlety (and rationality) rarely win against an emotional argument. Clever political strategy, but the numbers seem not to be there to defeat the bill.

My own view is that the Bradford Bill should pass, and I was persuaded by the remarks of Pita Sharples that we really should try to bring up our kids without hitting them. I do think Bradford has made her case poorly. The heavy handed ‘help’ from the Labour government hasn’t helped, and no doubt the bill has become something of a lightening rod for some pent up resentment about social engineering. All of that may be true, but none of that makes it right to hit kids, so to me the proper course is to support the bill. I acknowledge that for many, other considerations will be more important.

Simon Cowell rolls eyes

A contestant on American Idol expresses sympathy for the relatives of the dead at Virginia Tech and Mr Sensitive rolls his eyes. See it at http://www.ifilm.com/video/2845448

Brought to you by the Auckland DHB

Having the news, sports, weather, or traffic tagged as ‘brought to you by’, or ‘brought to you in association with’, or even, for example, just ‘(motor sport) with’, is a common practice in commercial radio, but my ears still pricked up when I heard the tag ‘brought to you by the Auckland District Health Board’ on NewsTalkZB in Wellington at 8.30am on Wednesday morning. What’s this I thought, an apology for the lab tests fiasco? No such humbleness; the back announce revealed the DHB is welcoming inquiries from nurses looking for work in Auckland.

News gatherers revolt, but in TV, it’s the brief that’s the problem

Two rows over the resources devoted to journalism in our daily media illustrate that the gathering, packaging and selling of news is a commercial business just like the gathering, packaging and selling of any other commodity for which there is a market.

TVNZ journos are upset at the cutbacks and some are outraged by Bill Ralston’s criticisms of the cuts. He, even more than those who took the decision, is the target. The second instance is at the APN Group which includes the NZ Herald. Here it is planned to outsource sub-editing work for all of the newspapers in the group to a specialist contracting company. Both examples are driven by the need to save money; in both cases the counter is that quality will suffer.

Can TVNZ with 60 fewer journalists produce programmes of equal standing to those produced now? (Just park the debate over whether the current programmes are of a reasonable quality for the moment.)

The three factors that determine quality in a news or current affairs programme are the resources, the programme brief and the judgments that the programme makers make along the way. Of these the greatest is the programme brief, because it reflects decisions about both resources and the editorial approach.

If the programme brief require reporters to turn around a story in two weeks, then the show’s producer will go after only those stories that can be done in that time. That rules out the stories that require more investigation, or call for a longer treatment because they are more complex. As Rod Vaughan, formerly of TVNZ's Assignment programme now with TV3’s 60 Minutes, put it on The Panel on RNZ National on Monday, you end up doing crime of the week, disease of the week and interviewing personalities. That’s not current affairs, except in the most trivial sense of the term.

I used to think that the viewers would instinctively watch the best of what was available (even if they wanted better than what was available), but the falling viewership for free to air television suggests that viewers will take their eyeballs elsewhere – if that “elsewhere” gives them something better. That might be YouTube, Trademe, UKTV, the documentary channel, a movie or a video. It’s not just an argument about “dumbing down”. The business driver is getting costs down; and regrettably the counter argument of keeping quality up is equated with more costs in the minds of those who determine what we can see, hear and read.

Abolish curbs on electioneering

One of the ultimate forms of discretionary spending is charitable giving. The rewards are much less certain or tangible than for any other good or service A study by a group of economists in the UK some years ago concluded that charitable giving was one of the most intensely competitive markets in existence. Giving to a political party is also a very discretionary act of spending, even for large donors, because getting a return of any kind is very uncertain (other than the warm feeling of having helped democracy function). In all the discussions that have gone on since the leaks about the government’s intentions began, very little attention has been paid to first principles. Here’s my shot at setting out some of those principles.

First, everyone has a right to put their money and time behind a cause they support. (And I say cause not party deliberately). If that is accepted, limits on donations are offensive to freedom of action, speech and conscience. Sure there is a need to be open and honest about who is backing whom, and I support disclosure, but why would you impose a limit on the time or money a person can give? It doesn’t happen with charities.

Secondly, it’s not about the parties. The right to speak out and to seek to persuade others is an inherent tenet of a free society. Any person should be free to spend their money to campaign on whatever issue they want. And the political parties should not be able to prevent that. They may neither want nor welcome the support of some groups, but that’s part of the inherent risk of managing a party. A party’s own members may be embarrassing too. The parties can disown embarrassing members and unwelcome supporters. Happens in the USA all the time. It therefore also follows that the current requirement that advertisements supporting a party have to have the party’s approval is nonsense. And then it follows that the counting third party endorsement against a spending cap is also nonsense.

Thirdly, we should trust the voters. We trust the voters to make judgments about parties and their leaders. Why can’t we trust them to make judgments about who is supporting whom and why? These matters become part of the democratic conversation before an election. National used to say that Labour MPs were just stooges for the trade unions, and Labour used to say that National put framers and the rich first. We managed to cope with that, and we will cope with the sometime confused conversations we have about issues too. Of course we can require disclosure – so we know who is spending money attacking party A, and urging us to support party B. Will that colour our judgment about parties A and B, that they are being respectively attacked and endorsed by a particular group? Of course it will, and so it should. That’s why disclosure is important, but requiring disclosure of the backers is not a reason to prevent publication of the backers’ views.

Fourthly, the political process is public property. It belongs to all of us, not just the political parties. The more rules that we have about what ordinary citizens can do in elections and the tighter we draw the rules about funding and spending of political parties, the more rigid the system becomes, and the more it looks like the only way to get change is through a political party.

As an independent who has never been a member of any political party, I think that having to work through a political party to achieve change is a revolting prospect. If I feel passionate about an issue, surely I ought to be able to use any legal means to campaign about it? Kiwis know that setting up an action committee or a campaign on a specific issue is the way to go; it focuses people on the immediate problem, it is non partisan, and is inclusive. If we have to join a political party to get change (as one, in practice, has to do in Singapore, for example) then we have had our freedom constrained.

Finally, everyone has the right to campaign. If I wish to spend my money pointing out the stand the various parties take on an issue, and recommending that my fellow voters take this into account, what is wrong with that? Perhaps I’ll want to go further and say don’t vote for this party, vote for that one instead, At present negative recommendations are allowed, but positive ones are not. That’s illogical, and contrary to common sense.

Finally, there should be no restrictions (beyond the usual legal ones) on the nature and type of the communications or on which media can be used, or on the timing of such communications. I see no need for any state funding of political parties (and I am sceptical about the use of parliamentary monies through the leaders’ funds). So I favour an end to the present system where the Electoral Commission allocates time on radio and television to political parties. Let anyone who wants buy paid media messages do so. These are radical changes, but they would put an end to the idea that politics is some sort of special case, where voters cannot be trusted to decide either on how to spend their own money, or to make judgments about the significance of which groups in the community are supporting which political parties.

Inflammentary

Larry Charles, the director of that epic "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan." has teamed up with political satirist and talk show host, Bill Maher, to create an inflammentary, An inflammentary is a documentary sure to inflame whoever sees it. In this case “a scathing, searing, stabbing attack on religion. Anybody's. Everybody's. Hysterically funny, it is the most sacrilegious movie ever made,” Levene Breaking News reports. I can hardly wait, so taut with excitement I am.

Manglish in Whangamata

The town is a rich source of ‘manglish’ or mangled English.

There was the sandwich board outside a cafe on the main street advertising ‘toasties, pizza’s (sic), paninis, nacho’s (sic), antipastos. Now that looks like a bob each way on the apostrophe. Neither consistently right nor consistently wrong.

A printed sign on a church ‘invities’ guest worshippers over Easter, but the New World supermarket got it right with its checkout sign “Ten items of fewer”, but lost it again with another sign at the same checkout, “ten items or less.”

In Taihape there is the Al Centro Restauant (sic). It’s on the main street just past the corner with the Brown Sugar Cafe. It’s for sale and the printed sales poster from Harcourts advises that it “hold’s (sic) a tavern licence.”

Meanwhile Katie Baylis in the sports segment of ONE News (23 March) reported “Dean Kent who also medaled at the Commonwealth Games…” Medalled? Since when was there a verb “to medal”?

One of the delights of the countryside is the reports of local activity. Here are some extracts from a report on the monthly meeting of the Country Women’s Institute. “President Pauline Dorn opened the meeting with her cheery smile. Apologies were received. ….Barbara Collett gave helpful hints on showing dahlias for competitions….. It was decided that the wall hanging the craft circle members had made would be raffled at the Institute’s 55th birthday….. Craft circle members made hangings out of beads attached to fishing lines. At the next meeting they’ll be making other items from beads. The meeting closed for a late lunch, which was followed by the AGM.” (Coastal News 6 April 2007)

Spotted in the West Indies - England v Australia, a banner….

Captain. Vice Captain. Pedal boat Captain. Captain Morgan.

Opting in

To continue to receive this newsletter, I am asking readers to opt in by clicking on this link and putting a dot in the relevant box. It’ll help me to comply with the new anti-spam legislation. Thank you to the hundreds of subscribers who have already opted in. For others wishing to continue to receive, please click here: http://johnbishop.co.nz/opt-in.php

Why do monopolies advertise?

The case for reaffirming the value of the ACC seems overwhelming. Low reputation and standing compared to other institutions. Not a lot of knowledge about how the various schemes are funded, and confusion over entitlements, and the long standing differential between payments for time off as a result of an accident compared with illness. Of course you’d want to reaffirm your brand? I’m not at all sure I’d have done the TV ad the way it came out, but the rationale for a campaign seems sound. Bodies that don’t constantly show the value of their existence can have shortened lives. Ask the Ministry of Works, or the Electricity Corporation. It’s not enough to prove that you are doing your job well; as a public institution you have to prove your job is worth doing at all.

Preferred PM – who leads?

Helen Clark still leads John Key as preferred Prime Minister, but the incumbent PM normally, almost invariably, does regardless of which party is in power. And becoming PM has a magical effect on one’s standing in this poll. John Key is edging closer to Helen Clark, so has a leader of the opposition ever overtaken a sitting PM? Yes, pollster David Farrar tells me, but not often. “Clark led both Bolger and Shipley at various times after the coalition with NZ First. (That’s in the 1996-99 period) Of course she went on to win! Prior to that, Peters beat Bolger in June 1996.” So it’s rare, but it does happen.

Vonnegut gone

Another darling of the 60s counter culture has curled up his toes. Kurt Vonnegut was a hero of the anti war movement, and more recently was an environmentalist (but who isn’t these days?). His last work “A Man without a Country” was a best seller. It includes a poem called “Requiem,” which has these closing lines:

When the last living thing
has died on account of us,
how poetical it would be,
if Earth could say,
in a voice floating up,
perhaps from the floor
of the Grand Canyon,
“It is done.
People did not like it here.”

I found the sentiments quite touching.

John Bishop is a commentator, professional speaker, communications consultant, writer and trainer who publishes a free electronic newsletter on media, marketing and management matters. This can be found at www.johnbishop.co.nz. Feedback to saymoretojb@yahoo.com

© Scoop Media