Watching Mediawatch

Massey University's Journalism school put out a survey of the nation's journalists. 

Mediawatch's story on it focuses on gender and ethnic diversity, as well as journalists' reports of taking abuse online, after an opening that casts things this way [updated to insert link that I forgot the first time round...]:

These days, there’s no shortage of the same sort of scepticism – and cynicism – among a group of New Zealanders convinced the media are biased and agenda-driven, even without any firm evidence.  

Cranky claims of pro-government media bias have been amplified by increased public funding of media and journalism under this government, twinned with declining trust in the media and journalists as captured by opinion polls and surveys.

... One startling finding from the latest survey was that when journalists were asked whether "supporting government policy" was part of the role of reporting,10 percent agreed. 

Does that not confirm the suspicions of critics who feel that the media isn't impartial and journalists are often biased?

“There's always going to be journalists that think their role is to change society and advocate for one thing or another," Hollings said. 

"It may be that sometimes that aligns with government policy. But there's a difference between journalists actively propagandising for a particular point of view and doing the ‘watchdog role’ of asking difficult questions about something that's going on.

"They can often be mistaken for having an agenda when their agenda is really to find out what's going on – and not necessarily to push a political party. I think one is sometimes mistaken for the other and it's easy to label a journalist as being an activist who is, in fact, just asking difficult questions which some people don't like."

With that kind of opening, you'd expect that the survey either found no evidence of ideological or partisan bias among journalists, or didn't ask about it. Surely the claims are only 'cranky' if they aren't borne up by the evidence right?

They helpfully link through to the study at least, so you can check for yourself. And here's an interesting chart.  

For some reason, RNZ's Mediawatch decided that this chart, showing that there are more self-identified extreme-left journalists as there are "Hard Right", "Right", and "Mild right" combined, and that "Hard left", all on its own, outnumbers everything to the right of "Middle leftish" by a massive margin, wasn't worth noting. 

Probably just an innocent oversight by the always politically and ideologically neutral team at Mediawatch. 

A Shill for Big Bacon

From such humble roots can a campaign be born.

When I heard about the Burger King Bacon Sundae a couple weeks ago, I sent a single tweet saying I'd hoped it would come to New Zealand. 

Bacon Sundae? Please tell me that this will come to NZ Burger Kings. I promise to buy one. Maybe more than one. j.mp/M4FbbP
— Eric Crampton (@EricCrampton) June 13, 2012

A week later, a reporter for the Herald on Sunday hit me on Twitter asking why I wanted to try the bacon sundae. I sent the reporter an email saying that maple syrup goes well with both bacon and ice cream, so it's not crazy to think bacon and ice cream could go well together. And, the bacon sundae had the added advantage of annoying the sorts of people who it's useful to annoy now.

So the Herald wrote:

Here, Eric Crampton from Christchurch has been campaigning on Twitter for its sale in New Zealand.

"I'd never thought of putting bacon and ice cream together but it makes sense - maple syrup makes bacon taste better and it goes really well with ice cream too," he told the Herald on Sunday.

"And a bacon ice cream sundae annoys all the sorts of people who really need to be annoyed from time to time."

I hadn't really thought I was campaigning. I hadn't sent pleading letters to BK, or stood outside BK with placards, or put out press releases, or put up a whole pile of blog posts with regression analyses purporting to demonstrate that the interaction effect of bacon and ice cream yields hedons* the likes of which would make all of Doug Sellman's nightmares of food addictions seem a pleasant daydream. But, the article was fun.

Then I saw Michele A'Court's piece in this weekend's Christchurch Press (not online).

Meanwhile, on the other side of the States, you can still get a fast-food chain bacon sundae – ice cream with bacon bits smeared with chocolate and caramel sauce, garnished with a strip of deep fried bacon. It’s been described by one appalled nutritionist as ‘‘15 teaspoons of sugar with some pig in it’’.

There’s a guy in Christchurch campaigning to bring it here. I admire his chutzpah – if that’s not an indelicate word to use when discussing bacon. He is quoted as saying not only does it sound like a great flavour combo, but its very existence will annoy ‘‘the sorts of people who really need to be annoyed from time to time’’. See comment from nutritionist above.

I may well try one. Or a small portion of one. And bring the rest home for this dude in my lunch box.

Hmm. While I want to try one, I think I'd prefer making my own to eating somebody else's leftovers. I don't even like eating stuff my kids have pecked at.

Then Colin Peacock at MediaWatch wondered how much of a campaign there really can be if it's just one guy from Christchurch and a student in Auckland. Indeed. Especially when the guy from Christchurch isn't even really campaigning.

But I still want a bacon sundae. If Burger King brings it to New Zealand, I'll even try one. But I fiercely defend my independence: if it doesn't taste as mindblowingly awesome as I expect, I'll tweet the appropriate meh.

* You can't actually count hedons. If I tried putting a t-statistic on that kind of thing, McCloskey should have me shot. Utility is ordinal!