REVIEW: Little light shed on a dark and restrictive era of media criticism

Review of Can we talk about the news? A discussion of media criticism in New Zealand, by Jane Dunbar

Abstract

Review of Can we talk about the news? A discussion of media criticism in New Zealand, by Jane Dunbar. NZ Journalism Monographs, No3, Department of Mass Communication and Journalism, University of Canterbury.

In this monograph, Jane Dunbar interviews news journalists and media commentators about the quality of media criticism in New Zealand. This is certainly a pertinent theme for research. Dunbar's interviewees point out that local scrutiny of the news media is difficult to sustain. Thus, journalists within coporate media are unlikely to comment upon ownership patterns, within all media organisations unbiquitous advertising contracts available news space.