The news media claim that they act as watchdogs over those in power and to uphold the principles of the theory of social responsibility in order to claim legitimacy for their place in society. However, the content analysis findings of this thesis show that the newspapers did
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not meet the standards of social responsibility, especially when it came to representing the diversity of viewpoints present on the GM debate. Nor can they really claim to have exercised their watchdog role in a robust manner. Through their reporting of the GM debate in an event-led manner, newspapers’ selection of sources was unbalanced. This style of reporting favoured the pro-GM stance of the primary definers while limiting the space given to alternative voices. Moreover, by choosing to not report protests of anti-GM groups, newspapers exercised a form of censorship which is here argued to go against the democratic ideals of the theory of social responsibility. By exercising this type of censorship, the views of those in favour of GM were not challenged by alternative viewpoints, nor were the reading public made aware of, or given the opportunity to read these alternative views. This situation suggests that on this issue New Zealand newspapers did not act as facilitators of democratic debate on the GM issue, rather their reporting acted to support the pro-GM cause. Also, almost by default, it appears that the New Zealand press appear to accept that arguments based on environmental and ethical grounds are irrational and not worthy of serious consideration when it comes to reporting the differing viewpoints that exist on an issue. This mentality requires change if the news media is to retain any hope of being regarded as a credible source of information and an instrument for the furtherance of democratic debate about science in society. Given the current financial pressures on the news media it is imperative that they retain this credibility.
However, the lack of alternative viewpoints being reported is not entirely the fault of the news media. As illustrated by Tucker (2003), the structure of the Royal Commission also limited the number of alternative views, especially anti-GM views, represented in that forum. Given The Dominion’s decision to report the Royal Commission in the manner of a court case this meant that the reporting was limited to the viewpoints of those given “interested person” (IP) status at the Commission. While this decision may have been a logical one for the newspaper, the results of the content analysis suggest that in the future journalists may wish to cast a wider net to more fully represent the views available on a particular issue under investigation by a Royal Commission of Inquiry.
The decision not to report anti-GM protests leads to an imbalanced use of news sources and threatens the newspapers’ claims to being legitimate arbiters of information and instruments of democracy. To continue to make this claim, newspapers should in the future pursue a more balanced reporting of such issues. The balance being spoken of here is not the mere finding of an alternative voice to show a story is balanced but rather a more full investigation
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of the topic where alternative views can be read and judged by the audience. Here it is argued that more feature articles be written on such issues or that hard news stories are more carefully balanced, with alternative voices being given as much space and prominence to articulate their viewpoint. This may require editors to become better educated about science so that they can edit science stories in a manner that allows the multiple viewpoints to be heard (Reed, 2001). However, the inclusion of more voices should not come at the cost of those voices being given negative labels thus giving their associated views marginal status. If these changes are made more balanced stories will be made available to the audience and this will support the newspapers’ claims to be upholding the principles of social responsibility. In turn a greater diversity of views will be heard.
Furthermore, the interview analysis suggested that the journalists interviewed were in a difficult position to exercise their Fourth Estate role in holding their scientist sources to account. There were a number of reasons for this. First, was knowledge among some of the scientists that journalists were reliant on them for information and some were not reluctant to exercise their power to ensure that the journalists they talked with were going to report the issue in a manner which they favoured. Another reason was the lack of scientific training among some journalists, which meant they had to implicitly trust the information given to them. Even if journalists wished to exercise their watchdog role, their lack of knowledge may mean that they did not know which questions to ask to fulfil this role. While extra training in science may alleviate this problem, such training does not yet exist in New Zealand. Also, given the small size of the New Zealand market and the current pressures on the education system it is unlikely that such training will be established anytime soon. This does not bode well for the future of science journalism in New Zealand. Finally, the small number of scientists in New Zealand had also led to some journalists and scientists having close working relationships and if these relationships are to be maintained journalists may be reluctant to write stories that cast the scientists concerned in a negative light. The pro-GM stance found in the content analysis and the positive feelings amongst some of the scientists regarding their treatment as sources does suggest that some of these factors may have been at play in the reporting of this issue. The impacts of these factors and the news media’s apparent inability to report a larger diversity of views on the news sources are now discussed.