A One News item on the National Party’s proposed asset sales policy stated that the government had refused to release information under the Official Information Act and that a subsequent complaint to the Ombudsman revealed that the government had received very little official advice regarding its claim about limiting foreign ownership. The Authority did not uphold the complaint that the item was in breach of the accuracy standard: it included comment from Prime Minister John Key and would not have misled viewers.
Not Upheld: Accuracy
All Decisions
A One News item about a dispute between two local councils stated that the regional council was taking the city council to court “because it says the city is polluting the Manawatu River with sewage”. An out-of-focus image of cattle grazing was displayed during the introduction to the item. The Authority declined to uphold the complaint that this breached the accuracy and discrimination and denigration standards: the image of the cattle was blurry and difficult to discern, the image was not related to the item but the item made it clear that the focus was on pollution from sewage, and farmers are not a section of the community to which the discrimination and denigration standard applies.
Not Upheld: Accuracy, Discrimination and Denigration
An item on Campbell Live featured two reporters dressed in full burqas using hidden cameras to film the public’s reaction. It included footage of a woman refusing the reporters entry to her shop and questioning their style of dress. The footage was rebroadcast on 3 News and The Jono Project. The programmes made negative comments about the woman’s behaviour. The woman in the footage complained that this breached the privacy, fairness and accuracy standards. The Authority upheld the fairness complaint: the footage was obtained through misrepresentation and the complainant was not informed of the nature of her participation, and the complainant should have been given an opportunity to respond to the negative portrayal of her in the programmes. The Authority did not uphold the privacy and accuracy complaints: the broadcasts did not disclose any private facts and the filming occurred in a public place; the 3 News and Campbell Live items would not have misled viewers into believing the reporters were genuine Muslims, while The Jono Project was not a factual programme to which the standard applied. The Authority ordered TVWorks Ltd to pay $2,000 costs to the Crown.
Upheld: Fairness
Not Upheld: Privacy, Accuracy
Order: $2,000 costs to Crown
A 3 News item reporting on an overnight series of aftershocks in Christchurch was introduced with the statement: “it’s just what Christchurch does not want to hear, warnings that a big one, seven on the Richter scale, is probably coming”. The item included extracts from an interview with a geologist interspersed with voiceover comments from the reporter. The Authority upheld the complaint that the item breached the standards relating to accuracy and responsible programming. The introductory statement inaccurately summarised the geologist’s opinion and overstated the prediction of a magnitude seven earthquake, and the statement was unnecessarily alarmist and was likely to have caused undue distress for Christchurch residents. The Authority made no order.
Upheld: Accuracy, Responsible Programming
No Order
A promo for Bad Santa, screened during the family Christmas movie The Santa Clause 2, contained brief shots of “Bad Santa” smoking and throwing a rock at a car windshield; he told a child sitting on his knee that he “loved a woman who wasn’t clean” and when asked if that was Mrs Santa replied, “No, it was her sister.” The Authority did not uphold the complaint that this breached standards relating to good taste and decency and children’s interests: most viewers would not have been offended by the promo when broadcast in this context, the sexual references were implied and would have gone over the heads of younger viewers, and the promo was correctly rated PGR.
Not Upheld: Good Taste and Decency, Children’s Interests
C4 broadcast a programme called LMFAO Video Hits at 7pm, which included the music video for LMFAO’s song “Shots”. A complaint was made that the video contained coarse and sexually explicit language and liquor promotion. Given the dominance of liquor promotion in the video and the sexual messages conveyed, and the screening of the video during children’s viewing times, the Authority upheld the complaints about liquor promotion and children’s interests. (The issues of good taste and decency and responsible programming were subsumed into consideration of liquor and children’s interests.) The Authority declined to uphold the complaint about discrimination and denigration: while the song did refer to women, it did not carry the invective necessary to encourage denigration of women as a section of the community. The Authority made no order.
Upheld: Children’s Interests, Liquor
Not Upheld: Discrimination and Denigration
Subsumed: Good Taste and Decency, Responsible Programming
No Order
A satirical item on Close Up featured a comedian reviewing the election campaign the night before the general election. The comedian used a whiteboard, on which the name of the Leader of the Opposition appeared and disappeared from time to time. The Authority declined to uphold the complaint that the broadcast breached the controversial issues and fairness standards: the item was a light-hearted review and did not require the presentation of alternative viewpoints, and the complainant did not identify who he thought had been treated unfairly.
Not Upheld: Controversial Issues, Fairness
An episode of the documentary series Inside New Zealand, entitled “Inside Child Poverty”, investigated the current state of child health among the poorest sections of New Zealand society; the documentary-maker gave his perspective on the role of successive government policy in contributing to the current situation. The Authority did not uphold the complaint that the episode breached the fairness and law and order standards: the proposals for policy reform were not specific to any one political party and the presenter took a generic and non-partisan approach, and the broadcast did not encourage viewers to break the law.
Not Upheld: Law and Order, Fairness
An item on 3 News, on the likely ban of guided heli-hunting on conservation land, contained file footage of commercial deer recovery that showed hunters shooting at deer from helicopters. The Authority upheld the complaint that this gave a misleading impression and breached the accuracy standard: commercial hunting is a completely different industry from guided heli-hunting and the footage should have been explained to ensure that viewers understood it related to commercial hunting. The Authority declined to uphold the fairness complaint on the grounds that the commercial hunting industry was not an “organisation” for the purposes of the standard. The Authority made no order.
Upheld: Accuracy
Not Upheld: Fairness
No Order
The Last House on the Left, the remake of a horror movie, contained a scene which showed the violent rape of a young teenage girl. The Authority did not uphold the complaint that the scene breached the good taste and decency and violence standards: the movie was screened at 10.50pm, the “narrative” context justified the rape scene, the rape scene was well signposted for viewers, and not gratuitous or designed to titillate, and there was an explicit warning for graphic and sexual violence.
Not Upheld: Good Taste and Decency, Violence