Mike's Minute: To the media - a bit of balance please

I feel there should be a rule, and the rule is around balance. 

Part of the media's demise is its unfairness in coverage, the latest example of which is the school lunch programme. 

We have a smattering of coverage. When I say smattering, I have found two things. 

One is by Radio NZ, who have the same stats as story number two by the Herald. 

Radio NZ, once they produced the stats, clearly couldn't help themselves, given it was good news, so they went and found a miserable principal to moan some more about the lunch programme. 

Their moan was, given the previous moaning didn’t work and things aren't going back to the way they were, they must have given up. 

By the way these are the numbers: 99%+ delivered each day, complaints down by 92% and students positive feedback through the roof. 

The Herald's story contained the term 3 testing news: new meals, with students in the trial posting 73% positive feedback. 

By any standards these numbers are a success story. Where there was trouble at the start, the trouble has been fixed. 

So, to fairness. Very little the Government did this year got more media spotlight than school lunches. The TV news in particular went to town on it, night after night, after night, melting plastic, burnt kids, shots of mush, finger pointing, union representatives and delivery delays. It was a feeding frenzy, and the media were in, boots and all. 

So where are they now? 

Apart from two stories, where are they now? We have stats and detail, we have a fix, we have happy kids and, do remember, the reason for it all in the first place, we have money saved and a lot of it. 

And not just money saved, but more kids actually getting fed. 

So as an exercise we are doing more with less and the recipients are happy. 

So where are the stories? Where is the balance? Where is the fairness? 

The rule should be minute for minute, column inch for column inch. If you loved the pile on, you have to be back to present the end result. 

You have to do the right thing. You have to provide the other side, the balance and the outcome. If you don’t then the charge of bias sticks. 

You look like an attention seeking, clickbait warrior and your pleas for the value of journalism fall flat. 

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