M.P.s turn tables on journalists

Press, 8 September 1989, Page 4

M.P.s turn tables on journalists

By

OLIVER RIDDELL

in Wellington Members of Parliament are conducting a poll about the standard of political journalism in New Zealand. This follows the preoccupation of the news media with public opinion polls and the rating individual politicians achieve in them. Mr Murray McCully (Nat., East Coast Bays) said all M.P.s were

being invited to participate and he expected the collated results to be published. But M.P.s would not be required to put their names to their opinions, as he conceded parliamentary press gallery journalists were. He has invited M.P.s to rate each journalist on a scale of one to 10, and has listed 49 journalists by name, with space for comments. “M.P.s are uniquely placed to

assess the performance of press gallery journalists,” Mr McCully said. When asked if he thought the journalists would welcome the assessment, he said, “I am sure a very charitable and generous assessment is likely. “I am sure M.P.s will set aside any personal grievances relating to poor or inaccurate coverage in the past and restrict themselves to purely objective assessments of performance,” he said.