SPCS

SOCIETY FOR PROMOTION OF COMMUNITY STANDARDS INC.

A close call on a questionable debate – Media Law – by Steven Price, barrister

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Eyebrows have been raised at a couple of Press Council decisions last month. The Council upheld complaints against newspaper columns by Paul Holmes (Case 2254) and Michael Laws (Case 2253) for inaccurately and gratuitously denigrating Maori as a race.

Holmes was attacking Waitangi Day. “Well, it’s a bullshit day,” he wrote. “It’s a day of lies. It is loony Maori fringe self-denial day. It’s a day when everything is addressed, except the real stuff. Never mind the child stats, never mind the national truancy stats, never mind the hopeless failure of Maori to educate their children and stop them bashing their babies. No, it’s all the Pakeha’s fault. It’s all about hating whitey.”

Along the way, Holmes slated the rudeness of Maori protesters, their sense of entitlement to “a perfect world of benefit provision”, and the way Maori extort millions of dollars from Pakeha by inventing bizarre breaches of “never-defined principles of the Treaty of Waitangi”.

Some of it was plainly aimed at specific “hate-fuelled weirdos” who protest at Waitangi. But most of it seemed to be about Maori as a whole, as the Press Council noted….

This is a close call, and I can see where the Press Council was coming from. But I’m inclined to think it’s better to debate these columns and scoff at them, rather than say they should never have been published.

Reference:

For full report go to: http://www.nzlawyermagazine.co.nz/CurrentIssue/Issue187/187C3/tabid/4416/Default.aspx

Steven Price is a barrister specialising in media law. He writes a blog at www.medialawjournal.co.nz.

NZLawyer.  issue 187. 29 June 2012

Complaint against Dominion Post cartoon rejected by Press Council

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A COMPLAINT about a Dominion Post cartoon depicting Social Development Minister Paula Bennett alongside a Nazi concentration camp doctor has not been upheld by the Press Council.

The Trace Hodgson cartoon, published on May 14, depicted Ms Bennett in a dress emblazoned with skulls and introduced her “new consultant”, Joseph Mengele. The minister had just announced Government plans to offer free long-term contraception to women beneficiaries and their teenage daughters.

Mengele was a doctor at Auschwitz, known as the Angel of Death. He was infamous for performing experiments on camp inmates. In the cartoon, Mengele was shown in Nazi uniform, saying he was looking forward to “cutting costs with some social development experiments”.

Richard Hall complained to The Dominion Post, saying the cartoon was unclever, unfair, distasteful and highly offensive.

Mr Hall then complained to the Press Council, saying no comparisons could legitimately be drawn between the minister’s policies and Mengele’s acts.

Editor Bernadette Courtney replied to the Press Council, saying cartoons were an important part of any newspaper. Not everyone agreed with them. The points made by letter writers about the Mengele cartoon were noted and the column reflected all views.

She was sorry Mr Hall and others were offended but said free speech incorporated the freedom to be cutting and unkind.

In its comment, the Press Council said it strongly supported the right of newspaper cartoonists to express their views, particularly when their work featured on a page clearly labeled “Opinion”. The majority of council members felt there were sufficient parallels in social and reproductive engineering to warrant the reference made in the cartoon .

The cartoon did not cross the threshold of going beyond what was acceptable as opinion, and the complaint was not upheld.

Source: The Dominion Post, Monday, 9 July 2012.

Truth Weekender – “objectionable” content – tabloid banned from Auckland Prison

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”The publication [Truth Weekender] is seen…as objectionable and detrimental to rehabilitation [of prisoners] and reducing reoffending. It does not encourage sentence compliance and normalises and supports criminal beliefs and attitudes, … 

The ban ”is due to the negative effect that the sensationalised, and often inaccurate, reporting has on the good order of the prison.”     Corrections Department media advisor  (c.f. ref. 1)

The country’s most dangerous prisoners have been told they are no longer entitled to read New Zealand’s oldest weekly newspaper – a decision which will now go to the high court.

The Department of Corrections’ ruling was last night called ”extraordinary” by a top media law academic and is to become subject of a costly taxpayer-funded judicial review as one of New Zealand’s most prominent and litigious inmates prepares to challenge the decision.

On Monday Corrections bosses notified the Auckland-based publishers of Truth Weekender that their tabloid paper was banned from the maximum security Auckland Prison east division.

The paper has an extensive advertising section for prostitutes with photographs of near-naked females, but this was not what sparked the decision, rather the paper’s journalism was what upset authorities.

Source: Truth Banned From Auckland Prison – Fairfax Media

Story by Jonathan Marshall. 29 June, 2011

http://www.stuff.co.nz/auckland/local-news/5203396/Truth-banned-from-Auckland-Prison [Read more…]

Porn research awarded $790,000 by Marsden Fund

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Auckland researchers have been awarded almost $800,000 to study pornography. The $790,000 study by Auckland University staff will look at how it affects viewers and its impact on society. The research will include studies on young men and women, an art exhibition, an interactive website and a public symposium. The project is one of 88 nationwide to receive a slice of $53.8 million handed out in Marsden Fund Grants last month. Marsden Fund Council chairman Professor Peter Hunter said a scientific study of the impact of pornography on vulnerable members of society “in the age of easy availability” was extremely important.

http://nz.news.yahoo.com/a/-/top-stories/12004926/porn-study-grant-worth-790-000/

Comment: One of the objects for which the Society for Promotion of Community Standards Inc., (“SPCS”) was established was to focus public attention on the harmful nature of pornography. For the purposes of section 3 of the Films, Videos, and Publications Classification Act 1993 (“the Act”), “a publication is objectionable if it descibes, depicts, expresses, or otherwise deals with matters of sex, horror, crime, cruelty, or violence in such a manner that the availabliity of the publication is likely to be injurious to the public good.”

The Act recognises that children and young persons, in particular, are vulnerable to the harmful effects of exposure to pornography – hence age restrictions are imposed by the censors on poronographic publications and others are banned. The “extent and degree to which, and the manner in which the publication depicts…  sexual conduct of a degrading or dehumanising or demeaning sexual conduct” is one criterion used to determine whether or not it is to be classified objectionable.

Family First NZ, a charity registered with the Charities Commission, has also been at the forefront of highlighting the offensive nature of hardcore pornograhy and documenting how it is injurious to the public good.

Denise Richie, director of Stop the Demand Foundation, another charity registered with the Charities Commission, put it this way, in her submission to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) , as part of  her complaint against a “mobile billboard” displayed prominently in a public place – promoting the Erotica Lifestyles Expo:

“The image is designed to simulate a woman with her fingers in her [******] It is standard Steve Crow fare, with its focus on dehumanising women and reducing them to their genitalia”. (ASA decision dated 14/09/2010 concerning complaint 10/448).

(Eden Digital Ltd, directed up until recently by John Malcolm Carr, which owned the license for Erotica Lifestyles Expo, was put into liquidation on 22 November 2011).

The Society (SPCS), as part of its objects, seeks “to support freedom of expression which does not injure the public good by degrading, dehumanising or demeaning individuals or classes of people.” Hardcore pornography has the effect degrading, dehumanising and demeaning women. Its negative impact on viewers of such material has been well-documented in the literature.

 

 

Video games linked with murders

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A UK sailor has been jailed for 25 years after a shooting spree inspired by a violent video game.

Able Seaman Ryan Donovan had been obsessed with the video game Grand Theft Auto – linked with murders in the US. After being disciplined for disobedience, Donovan told shipmates he was planning a killing frenzy based on the game. He later shot dead an officer and seriously wounded three others (The Guardian, 19/9/11).

Not long afterwards, UK and Swedish researchers identified evidence of “Game Transfer Phenomena”, where some gamers integrate video experiences into their real lives (Daily Mail, 21/9/11). The study involved 42 in-depth interviews with participants ages 15 to 21, all of whom were frequent video gamers.

Almost all had experienced some type of involuntary thoughts in relation to video games, and half sought to use something from a video game to resolve a real-life issue. [Read more…]