David @ Tokyo

TVNZ (Television New Zealand) is New Zealand's publicly owned television broadcaster. Of course, New Zealand is, generally speaking, a developed western nation with a democratically elected government, and so as one would expect TVNZ states that one of their "Strategic Goals" is to "Act with editorial independence" (TVNZ corporate brochure, page 2).

Thank goodness for that, right.

Perhaps you can imagine my surprise when I saw the following on TVNZ's national news homepage today:

New Greenpeace ship to dock in NZ

Jan 8, 2007

Greenpeace's newest ship, the Esperanza, will make a port of call in New Zealand for the first time on Tuesday before it heads south to campaign against the Japanese government's whaling programme in the Antarctic's Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary.

The 72.3m Esperanza is expected to arrive in Auckland late morning and will be greeted with a powhiri at Princes Wharf.

Greenpeace Executive Director Bunny McDiarmid says that the crew stopped many whales from being killed in the Antarctic last whaling season and that this year they will be carrying out activities designed by supporters that were posted on their website.

During her global expedition, the Esperanza has been the home, office and workshop for the crew in some of the most remote regions of the world and has confronted pirate fishers, promoted marine reserves and threats, and highlighted the overfishing of tuna.

The crew are from around 19 different countries, but up to 40 people can be on board including researchers, campaigners and scientists.

The Esperanza has been fitted with the latest in internet technology, with broadband on the ship 24 hours a day, in order to communicate with the world what she is up to, at any time of the day or night.

Greenpeace bought the ship in 2000 and she was re-named Esperanza (Spanish for "hope") through a competition for Greenpeace's hundreds of thousands of cyberactivists around the world.

Esperanza will be in New Zealand for two weeks before leaving to Antarctica.

Source: One News

Righto, so TVNZ's One News is the source, of this 244 word news item. Why then is the following posted on scoop.co.nz in their politics section?

Ship Arrives in Auckland Before Whaling Campaign
Monday, 8 January 2007, 11:38 am
Press Release: Greenpeace New Zealand

Greenpeace Ship Arrives in Auckland Before Whaling Campaign

Auckland, 8 January 2007-- Greenpeace ship The Esperanza will arrive in Auckland tomorrow morning, to prepare for the organisation's campaign against the Japanese Government's whaling programme in the Antarctic's Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary.

The 72.3m Esperanza is Greenpeace's newest ship and it will be the first time she has visited New Zealand. She and her crew will be greeted with a Powhiri at Princes Wharf around 11 a.m.

The Esperanza will be in New Zealand for two weeks, when she leaves for the Antarctic.

She will be open for public visits for the next two weekends – on 13/14 and 20/21 January from 10 am to 4 pm.

"We welcome the Esperanza to New Zealand. This voyage will be the last journey in her year-long global "Defending our Oceans" campaign to highlight threats to the oceans," said Greenpeace Executive Director Bunny McDiarmid.

"Last whaling season the Greenpeace crew stopped many whales from being killed in the Antarctic. This year they will be carrying out activities designed by supporters who have posted their ideas on http://www.greenpeace.org.nz/whales ," she said.

During her global expedition, the Esperanza has been the home, office and workshop for the crew in some of the most remote regions of the world. She has confronted pirate fishers off the coast of West Africa, promoted marine reserves and threats to the coastal marine systems in the Atlantic, the Red Sea and the coastlines of India, and highlighted the overfishing of tuna in both the
Mediterranean and the Pacific.

The crew are from around 19 different countries, but up to 40 people can be on board including researchers, campaigners and scientists.

The Esperanza has been fitted with the latest in internet technology, with broadband on the ship 24 hours a day, in order to communicate with the world what she is up to, at any time of the day or night.

Greenpeace bought the ship in 2000 and she was re-named Esperanza (Spanish for "hope") through a competition for Greenpeace's hundreds of thousands of cyberactivists around the world.

For fun, I've splashed with red most of the similarities between the TVNZ piece (apparently sourced from One News) and the PR article from Greenpeace New Zealand. The majority of the 244 words of the TVNZ piece can miraculously be found within the latter. How about that for "editorial independence"? Or does "editorial independence" simply entail cutting lengthy pre-canned media articles down to fit within 250 word limits?

We can but wonder about TVNZ, but as for why Greenpeace is spending two weeks in Auckland offering the public visits around the ship instead hurrying up and of heading down to the Antarctic straight away, no guesses are required - their lethargy indicates how effective they really think their "whale saving" was last year. Maybe the Pirate Watson will have a crack at them over this?

Labels: Greenpeace, JARPA II 2006/2007 Updates