Whitireia Journalism school has been covering the election all week, operating like real journos in a newsroom. It’s been a real buzz, it’s been frustrating as hell, it’s been surprising, it’s been depressingly as predicted. We’re covering the New Zealand election.
Amazing stories, some very different from how mainstream media have approached it, some very similar. Every single student producing three stories during the week about election related issues.
And my contribution has been an action-packed, huge learning curve of six stories. One about the reasons why I find not-voting problematic, one about the reasons why I find voting problematic.
My favourite experience of the week? National Party press secretary Jason Ede saying to me: “Clearly you haven’t followed politics very much, have you, Sandra?” when I called him to ask about National Party candidates telling me they’d been muzzled by the National Party leadership and stopped from going to the national media with stories. They didn’t actually get back to me on it.
Patronising press secretaries was a theme for the week. Fellow student Sarah Coddington got scolded by the PM’s press secretary as she prepared our research for a story about politicians reaction to Fairfax possibly buying APN.
I also spent an amazing afternoon taking to Kelburn resident Barbara Mitcalfe talk about billboards, and being filmed by Carl Suurmond before editing it into something that did her no justice but supposedly looked like a “News on TV” piece. Blech, at least I know where I don’t belong – had been thinking about being the next Paul Holmes before now.
Lastly a story about the Rimutaka electorate – where it looks like Ron Mark will probably not win based on a poll we did yesterday. Which may mean no New Zealand First…..
May the computing begin. We’ll be covering the election all night tomorrow – check us out if parliamentary politics in Aotearoa is your thing.
