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Patrick Gower recently wrote on the TV3 website,
“The Labour Party has been putting voters wrong about its baby bonus.
Labour has been deliberately misleading, and in my view dishonest by omission.
On Monday night I told 3 News viewers that under Labour’s $60 a week baby bonus policy, families would get $3120 a year for their baby’s first year.
A simple calculation you might think, of $60 mutiplied by 52 weeks, given David Cunliffe announced in his State of the Nation speech: “That’s why today, I am announcing that for 59,000 families with new-born babies, they will all receive a Best Start payment of $60 per week, for the first year of their child’s life.“
Now most normal people would think that means “all” those parents will get the payment “for the first year of their child’s life”.
But it wasn’t true – not that you would know that from Cunliffe’s speech, media stand-up, the MPs who were there to “help” and all the glossy material handed out to us.
Because buried in the material was a website link that takes you to a more detailed explanation policy.
And on page six of that policy document, in paragraph 3, it revealed the payment would commence at the “end of the household’s time of using Paid Parental Leave, ie. after 26 weeks in most cases.”
So translated, in most cases, the $60 a week payment is not for the first year, but for the second six months.”
Gower then went on with this eye-brow raising bit,
“Most journalists, like our office, only had time to find this overnight on Monday.”
So. Gower was obviously miffed. He had reported Cunliffe’s speech – and got it embarrassingly wrong.
So, it was all Cunliffe’s fault, right?
Well, yes. Partially.
But Three News team and especially Patrick Gower also need to take a measure of responsibility for incorrectly reporting this story. In fact, Gower is the one who took time to ask the wrong questions, when interviewing Cunliffe on 27 January,
@ 7:05
Gower: [voice over] And no controls on how the money is spent!
To Cunliffe: Some parents will just end up spending this on themselves on alcohol and cigarettes, though [unintelligible]?
Now aside from the obvious; what the hell kind of question was that?!?! Why did Gower automatically assume that, with an extra $60 a week, parents would spend it on “alcohol and cigarettes” ?
Does Gower have friends and family who regularly spend up large on “alcohol and cigarettes“?
Is there excessive alcohol and tobacco consumption in Gower’s own home, and he believes it to be the norm for other Kiwi households?!
No?
Then why assume the worst for other households, some of which could be his friends, family members, work colleagues, neighbours, etc.
It beggars belief that, when a government transfers funds, that journos automatically assume that it will be spent on vices.
I hope Gower asked the same question of Gerry Brownlee when it was revealed that former National Prime Minister, Jenny Shipley,was one of several Government appointees being paid $1,000 (per day!) to “monitor” the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority (Cera). Was that money spent on alcohol and cigarettes by the CERA Review Panel? (Who knows – maybe it was.)
Perhaps if Gower had not been so lazy as to resort to posing such a vapid and inane question, and instead spent an extra hour or so researching the the matter more in-depth – by simply checking the website links he referred to in his opinion piece! – he and TV3 would not have been embarrassed at mis-reporting Labour’s sloppy policy release. (And by the gods, it was sloppy!)
After all, Cunliffe’s speech was released at 1pm on the day, giving Gower and his production team, five hours before the 6PM News Bulletin that evening. What was Gower doing during all that time? Having a fag down at the local pub?
So please, Patrick – don’t get all toey, mate. Writing pissy little “opinion pieces” does not excuse your sloppiness.
Maybe next time, try a little less of the sensationalising, moralistic “booze’n’baccy” questions, and do your job properly with real analysis.
Blaming others because you chose to trivialise a major news story with a superficial, cliched question is your responsibility.
Just as David Cunliffe’s right-royal screw-up with Labour’s “Best Start” policy launch was his.
Any questions? (Make them good.)
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References
Dominion Post: Govt spent $500,000 on boozy functions
The Press: Jenny Shipley on Cera review panel
TV3: Opinion: Labour dishonest on ‘baby bonus‘
TV3 News: January 27 6PM Bulletin
Previous related blogposts
The GCSB law – Oh FFS!!!
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Above image acknowledgment: Francis Owen
This blogpost was first published on The Daily Blog on 1 February 2014.
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= fs =
Frankly Speaking... 
Gower is clearly lazy and did no basic research on the Labour policy release.
Gower’s lack of curiosity when it came to actually reading Labour’s press release goes to show how much of the legwork of a story is expected to be done by the politicians and their press officers. That also tells us how much of Gower’s “journalism” is just churnalism of various spinmeisters talking points of the day.
On the nail, Sanctuary.
Gower paid the price for his sloppiness, and throwing a petulant ‘tanty’ at Cunliffe is in poor taste and shows an inability to do a “mea culpa”.
Funnily, journos expect politicians to own up to their mistakes when they’re uncovered.
Is Gower suggesting that his profession doesn’t do “mistakes” – and if they do, they’re someone elses’ fault?
Poor form, Paddy (if you’re reading this).
Patrick Gaaaaaaaiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiir (as he pronounces his own name) shows his anti-Labour bias again. No surprises there then!
He used to appear to want to be Duncan Garner jnr, losing weight when Duncan did – now he’s just a lazy so-and-so. With nasty views. 😦
Poor Patrick, hoisted by his own petard! LOL!!