NZ Herald: The World Yesterday
By Katie Llanos-Small, August 13th, 2008
While New Zealand sleeps, most of the world is busy getting on with life.
Yet, it seems the New Zealand Herald’s foreign editor goes to bed at the same time as the rest of us.
How else could you explain the lack of acknowledgement in today’s world section that Russia had called a halt to the conflict with Georgia?
The cease-fire was first announced on the BBC shortly before 9pm New Zealand time on Tuesday night. That was early enough for three reporters kicking around in the Herald’s newsroom to throw themselves into covering the homicide unfolding in South Auckland, and early enough to lift a couple of hundred words about Georgia from the agency wires to slap on the front page. But it was too late to save the Midweek World from embarrassment.
The Herald really was reporting “yesterday’s news”, in the words of a Radio Journalism lecturer.
Printing a newspaper is a complicated task, but that’s no excuse for bringing forward the international news’ deadline to before 9pm, especially in New Zealand. At that hour Europeans are just starting work, people in the States are just thinking about getting out of bed, and Indians are working on their last moves for the day.
The Herald obviously thought the Russia-Georgia conflict was important because it made it the lead story on Monday’s front page. But that was sloppy too. The lead photo was the same as the Sunday Star-Times had used to illustrate its coverage the day before.
People interested in international affairs can get their news from so many sources apart from the Herald, and few aficionados would buy it to find out what’s going on in the world. It’s time the paper gave up pretending to be a well-rounded, respectable newspaper: go tabloid and put Sideswipe on the front page.
Other posts by Katie Llanos-Small
September 1st, 2008 at 6:30 pm
Hi Katie
While I agree that the world news in New Zealand as a whole leaves a lot to be desired I think it is a little unfair to single out the NZ Herald for criticism. It is after all a paper that has the same time and budgetary constraints of most papers serving a small population.
Most papers in the world (with the exception of a few powerhouses) rely on the wires for their world news these days and this is resulting (conversely in this day and age of media proliferation via the internet superhighway) in a narrowing of viewpoints on world issues.
The editorial mistake was pretty crap but unfortunately just not that surprising.
While media outlets in New Zealand would find it financially impossible to cover the world’s issues - they do have the opportunity to properly cover international issues in the near vicinity.
It would be great if the Pacific Islands and South East Asia were well covered by Australian and New Zealand newspapers and surely someone could come up with a business model to make it work?
James
September 4th, 2008 at 9:06 am
James,
you’re right, it was a little harsh to single out the Herald. I understand that budgetary constraints force it to rely on the wires for international coverage, but really it is a shame that the world section goes to print so early.
Better coverage of regional issues would be excellent…I wonder if big news companies couldn’t fund a couple of full time Asia-Pacific reporters?
Cheers,
Katie