Recently, there was a serious revelation that some wire service reports were edited, without attribution, by an individual employee of our national broadcaster, RNZ.

Now, let’s examine the way I composed the above sentence.

I included the word “serious” to signal to readers that this news is of significant importance. The reason is that I believe there is already extensive frustration at media coverage of news — and therefore anything that erodes trust in our major media should be taken seriously.

Later in the sentence, I used the word “edited”. Initially, I had used the word “altered” but I made a conscious decision to change it to “edited”. I did this because I thought the word “altered” might suggest a higher type of wrongdoing — one that could be linked to fraud and criminality, such as being paid by a foreign agent to alter documents.

There is no evidence that this was the case at RNZ. The word “edited” suggests the use of some sort of journalistic judgment which, in this particular case, regardless of the factuality or falsehood of the edits, were clearly unethical because they were unauthorised and undeclared.

The reference to “an individual employee” was to ensure that other journalists at RNZ, and the organisation as a whole, were not implicated in the revelation. If I had thought RNZ was systematically biased in its reporting, I probably would have just written that RNZ had been found to be altering wire service news.

So my choice of words to form the first sentence of this column was informed by my personal perspectives, as well as the impression I hoped to create in the minds of those reading it.

The subject of this column isn’t about what happened at RNZ. We will be informed of this, in time, when the result of the ongoing inquiry is made public.

Unbiased reporting?
The question I intend to explore here is if there is such a thing as unbiased reporting.

I went back to university later in life to study journalism because it was important to me to understand how the news was produced. My course placed a lot of emphasis on the importance of objectivity and impartiality as ideal standards of news reporting, without much discussion about the limits of achieving such unrealistic standards.

News is produced by reporters and shaped by editors who cannot help but inject their own perspectives and personal experiences into the final product. Even when reporting live from the scene, journalists often have to form a judgment as to what is newsworthy, and so depending on who is reporting the story, the information we receive may alter.

In general, the idea of “unbiased”, “objective” or “neutral” reporting cannot be entirely divorced from the editorial guides journalists use to determine what information to report, and also what they believe is the truth.

Omitting context or the decision to exclude some key words can, in some instances, produce a misleading report.

For instance, my interest in the Palestinian cause has meant that I notice the journalistic language used in reporting on Palestine. I consider that Gaza and the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) should always be referred to as “occupied Gaza” and “occupied West Bank” because this is their legal status under international law.

But in many articles about Palestine, the word “occupied” is often dropped even though its use matters because it gives relevant context to reporting of political and military events there.

#Mediawatch: Further #fallout as #RNZ takes out the ‘Kremlin garbage’ #CafePacific #AsiaPacificReport #rnznews #PacificMediaWatch #rnzinquiry #kremlingarbage #RussiaUkraineWar #media #mediacredibility #newsedits @USPWansolwara https://t.co/waIGzEUdwE pic.twitter.com/wfzDEFZjdi

— David Robie (@DavidRobie) June 18, 2023

Impartial presentation
Some journalistic codes refer to “balanced” and “fair” reporting. The idea here is that, where there is controversy, there should be an impartial presentation of all facts as well as all substantial opinions relating to it.

A fair report, it is said, should avoid giving equal footing to truths and mistruths and should provide factual context to any inaccurate or misleading public statement.

In recent years, The New York Times has used a series of articles known as Explainers to, as they describe it, “demystify thorny topics”.

Stuff’s Explained follows a similar format to help deconstruct topics that are complex and challenging to understand.

The notion of bias in news writing has become the most common criticism of the media.

Ultimately, the solution to increasing trust in journalism lies in transparency and disclosure of the standards, judgments and systems used to produce and edit news. It is therefore right that RNZ has announced an external review of its processes for the editing of online stories.

But there should also be a mind shift in our understanding of the notions of unbiased and objective reporting — namely that these notions have always existed and continue to operate within power dynamics that give privilege to certain perspectives.

The best approach, therefore, is to always allow for an element of doubt — and only believe something to be true just so long as our active efforts to disprove it have been unsuccessful.

Donna Miles-Mojab is an Iranian New Zealander interested in justice and human rights issues. She lives in Christchurch and works as a freelance journalist and a columnist for The Press. This article is republished with the author’s permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

RNZ has appointed a group of experts to carry out an investigation over how pro-Russian edits were inserted into international stories online.

An RNZ digital journalist has been placed on leave after it came to light he had changed news agency stories on the war in Ukraine.

RNZ has since been auditing hundreds of stories the journalist edited for its website over a five-year period.

Twenty-one stories from news agency Reuters and one BBC item have so far been found to be inappropriately edited, and have been corrected. Most relate to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but others relate to Israel, Syria and Taiwan.

Media law expert Willy Akel, will chair a three-person panel. The other members are public law expert and former journalist Linda Clark, and former director of editorial standards at the ABC, Alan Sunderland.

RNZ board chairman Dr Jim Mather told RNZ’s Morning Report the board had also agreed on the review’s terms of reference.

“The terms of reference are specific about reviewing the circumstances around the inappropriate editing of wire stories discovered in June 2023 identifying what went wrong and recommending areas for improvement.

Specific handling of Ukraine complaint
“We’re also going to look at the specific handling of the complaint to the broadcasting minister from the Ukrainian community in October 2022 and then it’s going to broaden out to review the overall editorial controls, systems and processes for the editing of online content at RNZ.”

The review would also look at total editorial policy and “most importantly” practice as well, Mather said.

No stone would be left unturned, he said.

“Policy is one thing but ensuring it’s put into practice is another.

“We have specifically and purposefully decided not to limit it in any way shape or form but to allow it to broaden as may be required to ensure we restore public confidence in RNZ.

“We’re prepared as a board to support the panel going where they need to, to give us all confidence that we are ensuring that robust editorial process are being followed.

“I’m making no pre-determinations whatsoever, I’m waiting for the review to be conducted.”

The investigation was expected to take about four weeks to complete.

Dr Mather said he retained confidence in RNZ chief executive and editor-in-chief Paul Thompson.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz