Kelly Dennett is a Sunday Star-Times news director.
OPINION: Local body elections have never quite had the sex appeal of a general election.
Not because they are any less important but because, as a reporter working for a community newspaper, the contests appeared monotonous.
On a bingo card you’d be looking out for the much respected incumbent, the retiring stalwart creating a vacancy for a fresh face, the wild card newcomer with outspoken views and unusual ideas, and the give-it-a-go types with a couple of niche interests and some sad looking billboards.
But this year’s vote has a tinge of cloak and dagger tactics.
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For many weeks my tenacious colleagues have been dogmatically de-masking Voices for Freedom candidates – purveyors of disinformation – who have been attempting to gain seats, incognito, on councils, boards and groups controlling millions of dollars; whose decisions affect the livelihood of many.
The act of spotlighting these bad actors is in direct contrast to what feels like a necessary and unfortunate part of being a reporter these days: instead of pinning my own colours to the wall, like I once did, I suddenly became acutely aware of my employer’s logo shining brightly off my computer screen as I wrote this column on a flight on Friday.
Earlier in the day we’d been planning for contingencies should a planned protest outside our offices go awry, and at a day-long hui to wrap up Stuff’s fact checking project, The Whole Truth, I’d heard from colleagues and peers about the measures they’d had to resort to, to ensure their safety following threats.
It’s because I’ve always been so stridently proud of my profession that it took me a long time to clock that not everybody else felt the same way I did about journalism.
My realisation was coloured by occasionally sarcastic and frankly mystifying comments about whether I was recording conversations, to very general complaints about the monolithic-like ‘media’. I’ve rowed with partners, family, friends and flatmates.
I remember my face growing red and my heartbeat racing at a yoga retreat, a respite from a stressful job that had taken a lot from me, upon hearing fellow yogis sighing at ‘the media’ blowing something all out of proportion.
I think that thing might have been Covid.
Sometimes I wonder if I have been too reactive. Perhaps I could have had calmer, more fulfilling conversations with people about the realities of reporting, and how it can be improved. Perhaps I could have invited feedback, and really listened.
Because, it may surprise many, we do care.
As someone who grew up creating her own newspapers, pretending to host radio and TV bulletins; who interned at the local paper when she was 16; who devoured this very newspaper as a student, my whole life has been about storytelling. It simply never occurred to me that reporting on events, investigating issues, documenting life, as it were, could be the subject of such scorn.
Of course, the criticism is not all glib. Most people would say they do value good journalism and knowing about current affairs. Most, I think, would agree that an effective media is crucial to a functioning democracy.
But what good journalism is, is clearly the crucial point here. What does good journalism look like? Think like? What does it affect, how do we consume it, how do we make it accessible? How do we teach others to identify it? Let’s invite and encourage those kinds of discussions.
Right now, the country faces a disinformation catastrophe. We need good journalism and to do it we need good journalists. Experts fear the rising threat against local reporters will have a chilling effect; that voters won’t have all the right information when it comes time to cast their ballots.
Time will tell – and so, too, will the candidates chosen for local governance on October 8.
What do you think? Email sundayletters@stuff.co.nz.
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