Throng

January results: 3 News is the winner
3 News: 10
ONE News: 8
(Tie: 13)

Biggest News Stories on ONE News:
Haiti earthquake (opening story 5 times)
Whaling clash (opening story 2 times)
SAS photo / credit card fees / road toll (opening story 2 times)

Biggest News Stories on 3 News:
Haiti earthquake (opening story 8 times)
Whaling clash (opening story 4 times)
SAS photo / Camerson Slate case (opening story 2 times)

Number of Live Crosses (in their five leading stories):
ONE News: 47
3 News: 21

Number of “Breaking News” Stories:
ONE News: 2
3 News: 3

Number of bulletins with no lead stories in common:   
3

ONE News Mistakes:
Jan 6: John Minto labelled as Shahar Peer.
Jan 17: Rescued Haitian baby said to be four months old but is 16 months old.   
Jan 21: CCTV footage shown from original Haiti earthquake eight days earlier but told it is from that day’s 6.1 aftershock.  

3 News Mistakes:
Jan 14: French flag shown for Spain 
Jan 27: Incorrectly calculated tax on $10 for minimum wage earners to be about $4
Jan 31: SH5 “not known when it will re-open” but was re-opened at 4:48pm that day
Jan 31: story title says four deaths; story itself says six deaths

ONE News Items of Note
Jan 13: Seven hours after the Haiti earthquake struck, ONE News has no video footage from Haiti at all.  
Jan 17 and 18: ONE News’ live crosses to reporter in Haiti difficult to hear over jet engines.

ONE News Controversial
Jan 3: Shows man being unsuccessfully revived after drowning, including showing his face even though he is not named.  (Warning preceded.)
Jan 5: Doesn’t thoroughly blur the named suppressed comedian, identifying his ethnicity and some facial features.  
Jan 11: Opens with a “growing list of companies” now charging credit card fees.  However, at least two of the three companies mentioned have been doing so for quite some time.  
Jan 27: Segued straight from a story about high country dairy sites straight into a US undercover dairy farm video without explanation, potentially subliminally biasing New Zealanders about the proposal. 
Jan 29: Hadda beetle infestation deemed “breaking news” when they were found the previous week and there is a pre-recorded interview with Auckland City councillor Greg Moyle.  The story opens with “In the last hour, ONE News has learnt..." however Moyle’s office told us the interview took place at 4:30pm.

3 News Controversial
Jan 7: Airs uncensored “f” word.  
Jan 11: 3 News uses the unnecessary hook "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."
Jan 21: 3 News doesn’t blur face of other SAS solider seen with Willie Apiata but does on Jan 26.  

Excellent reporting
Bill Neely – rescue of Haitian woman (ITV, 3 News), Jan 19
Mike McRoberts, NZ family reunited with wife who lost husband and child in Haiti (3 News) Jan 16
Kim Chisnall – bad weather in England (3 News), Jan 6

Silly reporting
Haydn Jones’ weather story on Whakatane/Nelson, complete with live cross outside TVNZ and flash cards (ONE News), Jan 13
Emma Joliff: minimum wage story including dropping coins on the sidewalk, talking about a $10 boutique beer (who on the minimum wage would buy one?), and saying they could always buy a Lotto ticket to solve their money problems. (3 News), Jan 27

Old stories dressed up as new:
Jan 6: ONE News leads with ACC levy rises and the reporter saying:
"We already know workers will have to find around $148 each to cover the cost of accidents outside of the workplace but now it's been revealed how much employers will have to fork out... [Employers] knew the increased ACC levies were coming, they just didn't know by how much and now they do, some industries have been hit harder than others."

However, the levies were announced on December 22.  

Jan 22: ONE News covers Jordanian New Zealander sentenced in Lebanon with no new details from other media stories back on January 12.  
Jan 29: ONE News covers family who may lose their home due to the arson attack on Jason Somerville's flat but there are no new details since other media covered this on January 5.

The challenge:
Watch the five lead stories of both ONE News and 3 News each night for a year and critique and compare their coverage. We hold no particular loyalty to either news bulletin, no agenda to prove one better than the other.

No-one seems to be publicly critiquing the news bulletins on a daily basis and we want to change that. There's the occasional complaint to the Broadcasting Standards Authority, the unseen complaints to the networks themselves and the comments on Throng, other sites and in our conversations with friends, family and workmates.

People lament how the standard of news has gone downhill, but it's usually without specific examples of what is deemed good or poor reporting.  We want to change that too.

We're look for examples of balanced reporting, a lack of sensationalism, good use of data (not just anecdotes) and first-hand accounts.  

Instead of being loyal to a news bulletin (or indeed a newsreader), join us in 2010 and try watching both on different nights and see how they compare.  
Tell us your thoughts at www.throng.co.nz