AUCKLAND (Radio New Zealand / Pacific Media Watch / NZ Herald / Dominion Post): New Zealand's Māori Television channel looks set to cut its highly acclaimed news programmes to the bone - but is allegedly keeping its controversial plans under wraps to please the government until after next Saturday's national elections.
The channel gets most of its funding from the government and its programming is funded by the public Māori Broadcasting Commission, Te Mangai Paho.
Māori Television's hard-hitting current affairs show, Native Affairs, has won numerous international and local awards for its investigative journalism but - due to reported National Party government's cutbacks - might be turned into a "soft magazine-style" show, Mana Party leader Hone Harawira claimed recently.
Other changes to the TV channel reportedly include staff cuts across the news and current affairs division and the possible "dumping" of the Te Kaea programme, a daily 30-minute news programme featuring local, national and international stories from a Māori perspective.
Changes on hold
Last week, Minister of Māori Affairs Pita Sharples denied that jobs would be cut at the channel, but the New Zealand Herald later reported that "a change was to have been announced ... but it is understood Māori TV delayed it because the government warned it off risking any controversy before the election".
Harawira last week accused the channel's management of political bias saying the chairperson of the Māori Television board (a former National Party MP), Georgina Te Heuheu and the chief executive officer, and the CEO, Paora Maxwell had failed to "come clean" because they "might be trying to exert editorial control over both Te Kaea and Native Affairs, to get more favourable treatment of government policies."
Te Heuheu then appeared on the Te Kaea programme refuting all Harawira's claims, saying that the programmes were "not under threat at all".
Secret strategic review
It then emerged that a review of the channel had been conducted but staff were told that it had been put on hold so that key stakeholders could be briefed
Radio New Zealand's specialist media programme, Media Watch, said yesterday that the mainstream media had failed to delve into the reported cutbacks.
"Sadly, members of the public hoping for answers didn't get them from the media this week," said presenter Colin Peacock.
Media Watch also questioned why "stakeholders" were not briefed any earlier about what has been called "a significant review of its strategic direction", and asked why "potentially significant changes" would be kept secret from Māori Television staff even while ministers and stakeholders were being briefed.
Māori Television declined to be interviewed by Media Watch.
Potential blow
Māori Television has won praise ahead of the elections for its deliberative journalism style.
The Dominion Post wrote last weekend that Native Affairs presenter Mihirangi Forbes and her colleague Jodi Ihaka had filed "illuminating reports" on the seven Māori electorates, which were normally ignored by the mainstream media.
The reports, for electorates "as vast as Te Tai Tonga - which is all of the South Island, Stewart Island, the Chatham Islands and part of Wellington" were "the closest many will get to a town hall meeting", the newspaper said.
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Pacific Media Watch
