Feature
Talk this way
by Matt Nippert
Continued from page 2...
So, who is the employer of Edwards’ $10,000 mystery man or woman? The potential pool appears small. A spokesperson for the Prime Minister says Callingham & Edwards is the only organisation that has provided media training to Helen Clark. Labour’s Mike Williams says that during his eight years as party president, no working journalists have ever been employed by the party to do such work.
A National Party spokesperson issued the following statement: “National has a policy of not naming consultants and advisers.”
Large lobby and representative groups the Business Roundtable, the Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union, the Sensible Sentencing Trust, Federated Farmers, Fonterra and Telecom were also approached, and all except Telecom said no working journalists were involved in training spokespeople in how to deal with the media.
The Telecom spokesperson stressed that “very occasionally” working journalists were used, but refused to name them.
Whether a conflict-of-interest register will ever be set up in the Press Gallery remains uncertain. Most journalists approached for this story said they wouldn’t have a problem with it.
The Herald’s Young plans to raise the subject at a future gallery meeting. Her plan isn’t to write a prescriptive list of permitted and prohibited extra-curricular activities, but rather to encourage more openness. “Disclosure is the key. Then people can make up their own minds.”
Despite moves in this direction, Tully says such a register would not be a cure-all: “What’s disclosure going to achieve? Are you wanting to stop the practice, or do you want people to know that some people are doing quite nicely on the side?”
An inherent risk will remain if messengers help to shape the message. As Tully says, credibility is at risk if tricks of the trade are passed on.
“If it’s how to deal with interviewers, how to handle tricky questions and how to take advantage of the interview situation, then it would not be a good look from the outside.”
