Local Media Coverage

Since late 2014 there’s been a lot of local media coverage surrounding the proposed redesign of the New Zealand flag. So far it’s falling into four distinct types of stories:

1. Polls: Polling results and the number of New Zealanders for or against the change.
2. Money: Coverage of the cost and information surrounding the process / referendums.
3. Submissions: Design critiques and flag reviews.
4. Opinions: General coverage and opinions.

I’ll summarise a few articles and reflect on the impact the media is having throughout the process thus far.

Polls

Several media companies in New Zealand have been busy polling and have produced numerous headlines documenting how many people are against the flag change. TVNZ published these articles: “Three quarters of Kiwis against changing flag” and “Two-thirds against changing flag” in 2014 and most recently The New Zealand Herald published; “Flag poll message clear: Leave it alone”.

There’s clearly a lot of mileage in posting poll results and thus gaining page views (more advertising revenue) due to incensed New Zealanders clicking and commenting on these articles. These comments deserve an entire post documenting the wide range of opinions…

The last article by The Herald suggests from “750 eligible voters” only 25% of New Zealanders said yes and 75% said no to changing our flag. When asked about an alternative flag the results suggest a silver fern would be preferred:

The last article by The Herald suggests that of “750 eligible voters” only 25% said yes to changing the flag, compared to 75% that said no. When asked about an alternative flag the results suggest a silver fern would be preferred:

The silver fern was the front runner for an alternative flag in the Herald poll, preferred by 45 per cent. In second place was the Southern Cross with 18 per cent support.

The timing of the poll, and much of the media coverage surrounding it, aligned with the centennial ANZAC commemorations, as well as interviews with members of the RSA presenting their reasons for not wanting to change the flag.

Polls about changing our flag go way back and you can see a good overview on the New Zealand Flag Debate page on Wikipedia. In 2013 and 2014 polling saw the highest results voting for change. The Listener ran a poll on their site in March 2014 asking “Do you think the NZ flag design should be changed?” The poll was part of an article by Sally Blundell called, “A symbol solution” with live results suggesting 62% of people said “Yes, it’s time for a completely new look.” Information about how many people responded to the poll is unfortunately unavailable.

Despite that recent result from The Listener, you can easily make an informed guess that at this time the sentiment is very much “leave it alone”. What is unclear from all of the current polling is the makeup of the poll respondents. Would the results be different if it were just people under 30 responding? If we split the results by residents and citizens would there be a difference? Does a particular ethnicity in New Zealand want a new flag more than another?

Asking these additional questions (or having access to that data) would help to better determine who is represented in these polls and whether all of New Zealanders views are proportionally reflected in the results.

Money

It’s no surprise some of the first media coverage surrounding the process was dedicated to the cost of the referendums and the $640 per day payment the Flag Consideration Panel would be receiving.

That pales in comparison to the $25.7 million¹ estimated cost associated with the entire process. It’s hard to find an accurate break-down about how this cost will be allocated, although The New Zealand Herald article, ”Taxpayers’ $25m bill, even if flag stays”, does provide some detail:

The publicity blitz around selecting the new designs, which begins on Anzac Day next year, will cost $6.7 million, while the two referendums will cost $17.3 million. Other costs will take the overall bill to $25.7 million whether the flag is changed or not.

The cost of replacing existing flags, uniforms and government references to the existing New Zealand flag is estimated to be at least $2.69 million². For context (and this is not a criticism), that’s slightly less than making cycle trails in Northland.

TVNZ have several articles online about how the flag change is a “gross waste of money” and that it is “absolutely ridiculous”. This tone is representative of most of the coverage surrounding the cost of the flag process.

Responding to the debate about the cost, it has been interesting to see Sam Morgan tweeting his opinions:

Worried about spending $22m to change the flag? It is surely preferable to spending $22m and not changing the flag. #nzflag

— Sam Morgan (@samfromwgtn) May 12, 2015

Although he quotes a different amount (it is likely to be $25.7 million), it is worrying thought that spending this amount of money may indeed not see a change in flag. That shouldn’t be the reason for changing, however it a compelling one.

Morgan also puts the estimated cost into perspective with some rough sums on how the amount is only a fraction of what is spent in the New Zealand budget:

According to my calculations, the flag budget (~$22m) is about 9 hrs of our social security budget. #nzflag

— Sam Morgan (@samfromwgtn) May 20, 2015

Submissions

The New Zealand Herald ‘helpfully’ point out the flag will need to have “wow factor”. Surprisingly the first comment in response to the article nails it:

This is our national flag not some cheap advertising campaign, it needs dignity not wow factor. We look ridiculous enough on the world stage as it is.

I’ve yet to see a well articulated article from the major New Zealand news publications about design and the importance of it in the process. Let me know if I’ve missed something…

Many of the submissions need to be seriously critiqued, others easily disregarded. At this point none of the major media companies are reviewing specific concepts (other than the obvious parodies and child-like designs).

To be fair, The Listener and Radio New Zealand have stood out with more in-depth reporting on the process, but are yet to throughly review and critique the submissions. At the point of writing there are over 2000+ entries in the submission gallery which does make that hard work!

The majority of the local media coverage about the submissions has been similar to that of the international coverage with lists of flags, often those poorly designed.

You can see some of the local articles summarising submissions below:

TVNZ: One flag to rule them all: But which flag?

NZ Herald: Flag will change … but to this?

NZ Herald: Kiwis reveal their flag desires

Radio New Zealand: Best of flags, worst of flags

Radio Live: 20 Best and worst designs for new NZ flag

Opinions

One area of the media I’ve not touched on is Stuff Nation, a reader submitted “news” and community section of the stuff.co.nz site.

There have already been several posts about individual submissions and opinions on these designs. I’ll be reviewing designs separately, but most interesting is the platform this is providing for designs and entrepreneurial kiwis trying to promote their ideas.

One example of self-promotion is a post by Zolan Davis who writes about “Reimagining the New Zealand flag”. The post features two designs that have been submitted for consideration by the author, Union Tika, and Te Punga. For a more extensive list of Stuff Nation flag posts there’s an “Assignments” section of the site asking “What should be on New Zealand’s flag?” where many individuals are reviewing and promoting submissions.

Stuff is not alone in providing a media platform for people to promote their submissions. The New Zealand Herald has published an article by Michael Smythe entitled “A flag to stand out from the crowd” where he outlines his rationale and the background to his submission.

Ultimately anyone can promote their flag design, however I believe New Zealand media companies have a responsibility to remain impartial and fairly promote a wide range of options.

Finally, it will be interesting to see how the media coverage evolves as the Flag Consideration Panel starts to whittle the submissions down to four designs for the first referendum.