Maiki Sherman has good reason to feel she has never been given a fair shake. From the start she annoyed some viewers and commentators. The irritation peaked at a TVNZ poll she presented two years ago with too much enthusiasm for the fact the three coalition parties had all dropped in support.
A “nightmare” poll, she said. “Political turbulence ahead – buckle up, brace for impact.”
And then inserted into a sentence, “bang”.
The report generated hundreds of complaints to TVNZ.
I never understood the rage the audience felt. Sure, she exaggerated how big the drops really were but it wasn’t all that different from the kind of enthusiasm Paddy Gower had unleashed on the TV3 audience for years.
The hatred from then onwards wasn’t fair. Sherman’s analysis was often spot on. I always found her to be more balanced than I would have expected of a TV political editor trapped in the echo-chamber of Wellington.
But that poll was the inflection point, and from then Sherman never recovered with that audience and instead became part of the perceived bias problem at TVNZ.
Which her bosses will have to take into account when deciding her future.
It is hard to see how she can retain her position without damaging TVNZ’s credibility. She won’t be able to demand accountability from misbehaving MPs if she manages to dodge accountability for repeat transgressions herself.
But replacing a political editor so close to an election is hard when there is no obvious replacement. Benedict Collins should be next up for the job, but has just been through his own political sideshow over an indisputably biased report in which he contorted crime statistics that were excellent for the Government into stats that were terrible for the Government. It forced TVNZ to basically redo the story days later to tidy up.
What makes this more of a pickle for TVNZ is that you would have to be blind not to see that the media itself is being lined up for attacks by all three coalition parties this election.
That’s not new for Act or NZ First. David Seymour’s been filming and posting his exchanges with the press gallery for more than a year now. Winston Peters has been verbally abusing the media since before the turn of the century.
But it’s new for National.
It really started properly the day of the caucus leadership vote, when Christopher Luxon held only one short press conference, in which he blamed the media and its “soap opera” for what had happened to him.
Then National essentially revealed the Sherman door-knocking incident by making its complaint public.
Then the Finance Minister confirmed the rumour that Sherman had used offensive language in her office, which was somewhat surprising given that confirmation broke the Chatham House rule that descends on drinkipoos involving media and MPs in Parliament.
It’s not worth pitying the media over these coming attacks.
The media should be answerable if there is perceived bias or bad behaviour.
It is worth feeling a bit sorry for Maiki Sherman though.
She is a capable journalist tripped up by very human bad behaviour and the election-year amplification of that.
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