Sunday Breakfast

Playlist from 24/3/2008

• Summary of resolutions by participants at the Journalism Matters Conference run by the EPMU:
• 1. The EPMU will lead a review of journalism in NZ over the next six months, inviting public submissions on the effects of growing commercial pressures on journalism, journalists' pay rates and the resulting loss of talent to PR, freelance pay rates, union membership, public interest broadcasting and the growing pressure on journalists to serve multiple media at once.
• 2. The EPMU will also review the Journalists' Code of Ethics, available as Rule 42 of the EPMU Rules
• Public submissions will be sought for this review too. The code needs to be updated to take account of new technology.
• 3. We want taxpayer funding of TVNZ to be increased to a level that allows it to be a true public service broadcaster.
• 4. We urge everyone concerned about democratic media to take every opportunity to create new media outlets committed to providing people with information about public issues in a coherent form, facilitating an exchange of ideas about those issues and building a sense of social cohesion as a foundation for social action.
• 5. We support the work of the Bruce Jesson Foundation and urge other funders to fund independent investigative journalism on important public issues.
• 6. We will establish a Movement for Democratic Media, with membership open to all New Zealanders as well as the union, to create, support and link local websites and other media outlets reporting on public issues, and to campaign for publicly funded broadcasting.