Top stories on ONE News and 3 News tonight

ONE News:

1. Telecom admits overcharging (Live cross, Nadine Chalmers-Ross)
2. Post recession update (Live cross, Catherine Loft)
3. Diplomatic thawing with Fiji
4. Robin Brooke alleged assault update
5. Queen’s Wharf options

3 News:

1. Cameron Slater may be charged in contempt of court
2. Clinton to sign diplomatic deal with NZ
3. Diplomatic thawing with Fiji
4. Ady Gil skipper files complaint
5. Fire warnings in Australia (Live cross, Sam Ackerman)

Commentary:

Once again, a pretty different set of lead stories on the two bulletins.

A couple of the lead stories on ONE seemed fillers:

  • The post recession update seemed just to be based on a NZIER press release with a few soundbites from various industry people.
  • The Robin Brooke story was basically a re-hash of earlier items, the only “new” bit was saying a police decision on whether to charge him will be at least a week away.  Is that news?  There was also some very rough “re-enactment” footage by a pool.  Weird.
  • There wasn’t too much substance to the Queen’s Wharf options story – lots of talk but nothing definitive on what’s being done.

ONE led with Telecom’s historic overcharging.  3 News had this story placed just outside its top 5.

Over on 3 News, Cameron Slater led for the second night in a row, but with new developments not just a re-hash.  The Clinton story – albeit short – was interesting. They continued their coverage of the whaling saga and were there when the complaint was delivered, with an interview.  Of all the three live crosses tonight, the one over to Australia seemed the most applicable, sadly he was in a studio.

They both covered the diplomatic thawing with Fiji – which is important news.

Verdict: 3 News

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Co-founder of Throng. Favourite TV shows recently: Homeland and The Newsroom.
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  • Phillip

    Telecom’s “historic overcharging” affected hundreds of thousands of consumers.  The most recent affected 130,000 broadband customers.  For one of NZ’s largest public companies to show a consistent and repeated pattern of breaching the law, and for the Commerce Commission to publicly call for a change of culture in a report that came out yesterday ( the day of the bulletin) in a manner that I’ve never seen before, seems to me to be a much more valid lead story than one involving a man who has self-acknowledged problems and seems to be courting publicity for his website.  The story about slater seems to play directly into his hands, especially when it’s about something that “might” happen.

  • regan

    @Phillip this story wasn’t the most recent breach by Telecom.  This story was about Telecom ripping off 130,000 customers between 1999 and 2006 and then refunding them all from March 2007.  That’s nearly three years ago.  The most recent breach was the Go Large debacle.

    The real story here is that it has taken the Commerce Commission nearly three years to reach a settlement.  Making claims that there is a concerning trend may be well-founded but taking this long to deal with it should be of far greater concern.

     

  • regan

    @phillip it’s a bit rich using the line that Slater’s story is playing into his hand and is therefore not real news, or at least a lead item.  How much coverage has TVNZ given to other stories that, based on that assumption, are exactly the same thing?  Balloon boy springs to mind as one example.