TVNZ partisan promos: National broadcasting [UPDATED]
[UPDATE--9:10AM: Interest.co.nz has captured this image of Bill English's TVNZ7 promo - now running as ad banner on the NZ Herald website.

When I talked to Eric Kearley, the head of digital at their launch he described this scenario (now come to pass) of losing the content to Sky as a "slow suicide" for the two channels; but what he's done in commissioning this partisan promo for his master is to swallow another handful of pills and hope it will counteract whatever poison they've been forced to swallow by the Nats. It's not going to work, it's just made it worse because the one thing a state broadcaster must trade on is its integrity and political neutrality - and that's gone now.
The arrogance and contempt spewing out of TVNZ is an insult to viewers. Try not to gag when you read this miserable, risible, defence from their resident spin doctor:

Tonight the Bill English promos were playing on all the bloody TVNZ channels - not just the digital ones. It is an outrage and every hour that goes by without it being pulled is further damaging the credibility of TVNZ.
The management and staff are so degraded now in their editorial sensibilities that they don't understand that having the Deputy PM speak direct to camera (uninterrupted by narration) in the form of a promotional video for himself and the government is wrong. It is totally contrary to the normal standards of impartiality that are expected of a State broadcaster.

I can understand that the TVNZ staff responsible may have produced something they thought was stylish and slick without thinking about the partisanship, but now it's been running for a few days I would have thought that at least the guy who is getting paid close to a million a year to run the show would have realised the problem. This is such poor leadership and such poor editorial judgement. The promo must be pulled immediately.

2 Comments:
And look at this screen shot of what was in the Herald this morning
http://www.interest.co.nz/images/plainEnglish.jpg
Their story on the English-promo saga, and guess what was in the advertising space above...
Left a tel. message for Eric Kearley asking what Russell Brown and Wallace Chapman - the "stars" of TVNZ7 -think about promoting Bill English.
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