Originally published on the Newsroom Pro website in 2018:
Increasingly, a big part of the media’s coverage of politics involves analysis and commentary, rather than straight news reporting. We see, listen, and read this pundit commentary in all the media – from the Sunday television politics shows, through to even this online column for Newsroom. And as always, there will be various degrees of quality, bias, and usefulness in this commentary. That’s to be expected.
But what if some of this commentary is simply PR? What if it’s being informed, not by any attempts to be objective or analytical, but simply because someone is being paid to impart a particular political line? And what if this fact is being deliberately disguised?
That’s a situation that many would find repugnant, unethical, or perhaps just boring. Yet there is the suspicion that such political commentary is increasing. There’s a fear that the various pundits and analysts we get explaining and debating politics in New Zealand are representing vested interests. And obviously they often are.
Of course, just because someone is financially linked to a certain institution or business – by way of employment or contractual relationship – doesn’t mean that they are representing those clients in their views being imparted, nor that their analysis isn’t robust or useful. It’s always going to be up to the audience to make decisions about that. What to one person might seem like an incisive observation, will be to another person simply a biased hackery.
The crucial factor here is disclosure. The audience needs to know of any conflicts of interest, or simply any significant financial arrangements that the commentator has. And sometimes if those disclosures are known, it might be inappropriate for that person to be commenting publicly on an issue.
But it’s not clear that this disclosure is always taken very seriously by commentators or the media that are hosting them. Some media seem rather lax about such ethics. And when disclosure isn’t made, then it’s hard to know whether the views and information being imparted is simply some kind of PR exercise for a vested interest.
That’s why the revelations yesterday about a lobbyist and political spin doctor appearing on the RNZ’s The Panel are worth examining and taking seriously. The minor scandal – or at least, what should be a scandal – was exposed during Parliamentary question time, by a number of questions to the Clare Curran the Minister of Communications. You can watch the five-minute video here.
It turns out that a communications adviser – i.e. a spin-doctor – working in the Prime Minister’s Office had been a participant on The Panel in February, under the guise of being an independent commentator. In fact, the person, Tracey Bridges, had been introduced to listeners as being from lobbying/PR firm Senate Communications. According to National’s Melissa Lee, this raised ethical questions for RNZ and the Prime Minister’s Office.
The allegations were then confirmed by RNZ – see RNZ’s own report by political editor Jane Patterson: National raises questions about RNZ commentator. According to this, RNZ were not aware the Bridges was now working for the Beehive, and the radio station, and programme manager David Allan is quoted saying “It is a timely reminder for RNZ that we need to be fully transparent about any potential conflicts of interest.”
Ethical questions arise from this, not just for RNZ, but also for the Prime Minister’s Office. The most obvious is: Was the Prime Minister aware that one of her spin doctors was appearing on RNZ to talk about government policies?
But a much more important question is about Tracey Bridges’ lobbyist status. After all, this story follows on from other revelations about the PM hiring lobbyist GJ Thompson as acting Chief of Staff, who has now gone straight back to his lobbying business. What the PM’s office should, therefore, be asked is: Has Bridges declared her other lobbying clients to Jacinda Ardern?
This is highly relevant because Bridges has told RNZ, ironically in her defence, that at the time of her involvement on The Panel, she was working for a number of clients of which the Beehive was only one. This, of course, makes the situation much worse. It appears that the lobbyist is working on the Ninth Floor, while also working for others, which raises obvious issues about potential conflicts of interest.
Of course, Bridges isn’t the only PR, lobbyist, or partisan communications flack doing political commentary. There’s plenty of others, offering various degrees of transparency about their work and potential conflicts of interest. The media, especially broadcast media, hosts plenty of such paid professionals as pundits. And on the political right, there’s the obvious example of Matthew Hooton on shows such as RNZ’s Nine-to-Noon. In his case, he seems to go out of his way to frequently declare conflicts of interest in terms of clients. And, his affiliations with National are known, and his lobbying firm, Exceltium is declared. But most importantly, unlikely Bridges, he’s not actually working for Beehive.
Nonetheless, surely, it’s time for a bigger conversation about the use of so many PR pundits in the media. Some of these pundits may well have, like Hooton, earned their place as respected political commentators in their own right. But is it good for democracy that punditry is so awash with people who are representing vested interests?
Tracey Bridges is simply the latest case study example of a lobbyist or spin doctor being used in our public political debates. What about all the other media trainers who advice politicians, and then turn up on radio or TV to evaluate their performance – there’s been quite a few of these recently. And normally there’s not even any sort of proper declaration of their conflicts of interests.
This might make for good TV or radio – after all these are often talented communications experts. And they obviously come to the broadcasters cheaply, but of course, this is simply because they’re being paid by someone else – which is the problem at the heart of all of this. Quite simply, the examination of politics is being taking over by political insiders.
It’s time for a clean-up of this practice. Or at least we should be having a transparent debate about it all.
