Curious? The Dominion Post, after weeks of persecuting prosecuting Winston Peters, when it finally scores a hit in the form of last night’s privileges committee report, today buries the story on page three.
Page one is taken up with two stories given equal lead story format, one on the news we are to begin free trade talks with the United States, the other alleging John Key is struggling to explain why he did not disclose a much bigger stake in Tranz Rail than earlier cited.
A conspiracy theorist might think the paper is feeling so guilty over its campaign against Peters that it decided to turn its front page over to pro-government news today.
The truth is likely to be far more prosaic. The DomPost holds an editorial conference every day at 2.30pm at which the editor and other news executives decide what will be on page one, often right down to the headlines and the photo.
So rigid is this process that if September 11 happened today (it was after midnight NZ time) it would not make the newspaper (on September 11, the old and much missed Dominion ran three editions during the early hours of the morning to bring readers the news and pictures).
Presumably when yesterday’s news conference took place, it was not realised the select committee report was coming out last night.
By way of contrast, the New Zealand Herald today led with the Peters story. Again. As did The Press, and Morning Report.
6 Comments
September 23, 2008 at 8:36 am
If when the news conference took place they didn’t know about the privileges committee report they don’t keep up with news on their own website.
September 23, 2008 at 11:07 am
You know the DP’s process better than I would, but it was not known about the JK issue until late afternoon as TVNZ were briefed by Labour to ambush him and the privileges report was being flagged for release that morning.
I wonder if it is that the DP was also given extra info by Labour or just that here was a ‘new’ story as opposed to a development of an old one. I think they made the right call, given the Peter’s story is flagged on the masthead
September 23, 2008 at 11:16 am
Hmmm…I wondered about the placement myself. I need to point out, though, that everyone in the gallery knew yesterday morning the report was coming out last night. Even I did, and family health issues have kept me physically away from the gallery for over a week.
I took it to be straightforward ‘what is new?’ decision. The privileges committee conclusions, important though they were, were not exactly a surprise. I also detect major Peters fatigue amongst a lot of people. Very few minds remain to be changed about Peters or NZ First.
The trade deal is a significant new development. So, although to a lesser extent, is the Key stuff. Both are being over-hyped by the government, but they are still important stories.
[Poneke says: I find the page three placement very odd given the paper's unswerving page one stance with the allegations. The two stories that were on page one led the television news bulletins so they would have been old news to many readers. The privileges committee report came out well after the 6pm news bulletins and would have been "new" to many readers. The Herald, the Press and Morning Report all led with the Peters story. I genuinely suspect the reason the DomPost didn't is because of the rigidity of its production processes.]
September 23, 2008 at 11:33 am
I agree with Rob. When I opened my paper I expected the Key story to be on the front page, as Labour had decreed. There was more to write on that story.
Yet dirt from Labour was not unexpected. The privileges committee decision was the expected one, and the Key story is only news because Labour held on to it to release it to the media in time for the committee report.
I guess the privileges committee story doesn’t meet the ” really!” test that the other two stories do. However had the Peters circus not been played out in the media., and this was the first story on it, you can be damn sure it would have been a front page lead unless production processes stopped it..
September 23, 2008 at 3:31 pm
Perhaps the fact the perception that Labour was trying to divert coverage from Peters influenced the relative placement of stories in other papers. I still think the DP went for key on the front because it was fresher
September 24, 2008 at 7:45 am
[...] Filed under: Politics, media — danylmc @ 7:45 am Tags: dom-post, peters Like Poneke I’m a bit confused as to why the Dom-Post has suddenly gone soft on its coverage of Winston [...]