Top stories on ONE News and 3 News tonight

ONE News:

1. Growing list of companies adding credit card transaction fees (Live cross, Catherine Loft)
2. Road rule education call for tourists
3. Chris Jordan sets up adventure tourism lobby group
4. Robin Brooke unlikely to be charged
5. Road worker injured

3 News:

1. Cameron Slater reveals another accused with name supression
2. River tragedy
3. Police dragged under car is a transexual
4. Flight diversion
5. Auckland airport buys shares in Australian airports

Commentary:

There were a few annoying things in tonight’s news bulletins.

Firstly, the “growing list of companies” weren’t revealed on ONE News until right at the end of the item after everyone had had their whinge.  They listed Telecom (3%), NZ Police (3%) and Wellington Combined Taxis (fee not mentioned).

ONE News could have re-framed their entire story about Robin Brooke into something far more interesting – almost all of the story was a re-hash of last night’s item, updating it to say, basically, there were no updates – except – and this is the bit they left right until the end: it is reported the ONE News’ item last night was censored from Fijian TV (they screen the show there).  While censorship of the news there isn’t new, it is fascinating.  Can’t believe ONE News replayed Robin Brooke’s (boring) answerphone message.

Ok, now onto what bothered me with 3 News.  Can’t believe they started an item saying the following:

“It’s been revealed that the police officer dragged under a stolen patrol car in Christchurch was the country’s first officer to undergo a sex change.”

Basically, there was no real news to add to last night’s item about the stolen police car, except oh let’s get people’s attention by talking about a transexual.  This is news, how?  Are they implying that this fact motivated the alleged offender somehow?  ONE News also mentioned this in the middle of their item but didn’t try to hook you in with it.

Cameron Slater’s tweets tonight in response to the lead item on 3 News are quite interesting:

“Chris Comesky is an idiot, I’m not even on bail.”

“Wish the media would describe me as allegedly having done something, they do for everyone else, right now they are wrecking the crown case”

His site is currently down, guess the news sent lots of people over to his site trying to find out who he named today.

Verdict: tie

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

    The NZ Police have been charging a 3% “convenience fee” for paying fines online for ages (as in well over a year), certainly not a new thing like yesterday’s lead story on the independent BP stations.  (I think they blame their bank Westpac for the fee).   Can’t comment on Telecom tho as ditched them years ago.

  • bobscoffee

    So I guess neither won tonight? That transexual story sounds like typical 3 News while I’m not surprised at the poor quality of the report on Robin Brooke on ONE News, as it was done by none other than the utterly annoying Haydn Jones who should’ve been ahead of others in the redundancy line.

    Credit card transaction fees is nothing new either. It certainly doesn’t warrant its place as the number one story.

    One News also reported on the acid attack in Hong Kong. This happened a couple days ago or so.

  • Rachel

    Thanks Dave – I wondered if it actually was something new.  I’m realising how often news stores don’t answer the basic questions such as in this case, how long has the fee been in place for.  It’s almost all commentary.

    bobscoffee – thanks for reminding me about Haydn Jones.  He wasn’t expecting to find Robin Brooke at his home for an interview – he was wearing very casual shorts and a what looked like a t-shirt when knocking on the door.  It was a really annoying piece.  Neither bulletin impressed me tonight.

  • Christopher

    Telecom have had a conveniance fee for a number of years its actually charged to customers statements by Eftpos New Zealand and appears as a seperate line on your statement, Telecom doesnt receive any part of this fee it goes directly to EFTPOS NZ

  • richard568

    re w combined taxis & surcharge on eftpos and credit card transactions, one news would have had a better led in story if they had fully investigated the large amounts of revenue collected by taxi companies. their surcharge does not go directly to eftpos.drives will tell you when asked how much they collect for the taxi company in service fees. is a story worthy of investigation -

  • Rachel

    Thanks Christopher.

    richard568 – I have found some other blog posts where people complained about the WCT fees but no-one has actually listed them.  Can’t find the info on their website either.

    So in summary, it sounds like there were no new fees introduced recently, so the news item was all fluff, no substance.