Vote! Kean for Columbia

11:46 Jul 13, 2010 23

By David Farrar, Keith Ng, Rob Salmond, and Tim Watkin.

Many people are concerned about the quality of public affairs journalism in New Zealand. Being concerned is a good start, but how can you take the next step? How can you help make it better? Yes, you.

Here is one way. Follow this link and vote for Nicola Kean in the AMP “Do Your Thing” Scholarship competition.

It is an online popularity contest, and the winner gets $10,000 to help them pursue their dreams. Voting is quick, easy, free, and for a good cause. Of course, there are many, many fantastic applicants for this award, and we are not opposed to any one of them winning the money. We’re just especially in favour of Nicola winning, because of the value that her dream holds for all of us.

Nicola’s dream is to go to the US for postgraduate study in journalism. She’s already done the hard part and got accepted to Columbia University, one of the best and most selective programs in the world. Now she just needs a lot of cash.

Nicola, 24, is already a prize-winning journalist, winning an ASPA award in her second year as a Salient staffer and being selected for a global student journalism award handed out by the UN. She is also a prize-winning student, winning a Fulbright scholarship this year and earlier winning three of the big prizes offered in Victoria’s political science department (best first year student, best BA, best Honours student).

She is going to go far (when you start in Upper Hutt that is sometimes a good idea), and could well become one of New Zealand’s very best public affairs journalists. That is what motivates her:

In one of my research papers…, I described the impacts of political journalism becoming increasingly leader-focussed at the expense of policy. In the paper, I found that the increasing focus on leaders and leadership, and the reporting of the ''game'' of politics, in the media was one of many contributing factors in the ''trivialisation'' of New Zealand politics. My medium-term goal is to help counteract this trend in my own reporting…”

How good could she be? That depends partly on whether she gets to learn the state of the art from the world’s best in New York. And that is where you can help by voting for her.

And if you want to help even more, go to her website and give her some money.

This post is going up simultaneously on Kiwiblog, Public Address, Pundit, and The Standard. It is a non-partisan effort. We’re all backing Nicola’s campaign because we, left and right, partisans and non-partisans, all want what you want. We want top quality journalists in New Zealand holding the people in charge, whoever they are, to account for their actions and the consequences.

So let’s all club together and help Nicola get to Columbia.

23 responses to this post

Lucy Stewart, 17:22 Jul 13, 2010

And may I add: I had the privilege of getting to know Nicola a few weeks back, and she is a bright, kickass, and wonderful person. She really, really deserves this. Go vote.

Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 2105 posts Report
Pete, 19:44 Jul 13, 2010

P 49
There's a lot of them..

Since Apr 2008 • 106 posts Report
Sacha, 23:59 Jul 13, 2010

Voted. Alarming number of musos and athletes with more votes.

Ak • Since May 2008 • 19745 posts Report
richard, 08:02 Jul 14, 2010

I voted.

Not looking for New Engla… • Since Nov 2006 • 268 posts Report
giovanni tiso, 09:11 Jul 14, 2010

I remember when people started asking people to vote for her - was it on Facebook? I'm pretty sure it was on Facebook - and I duly went to Nicola's page and there wasn't a single explanation of why we should vote for her except she obviously wanted to go to Columbia. The reason given now strikes me as somewhat patronising, and kind of thin to be honest given that the outcome is to decide a fairly important competition. Is there a single New Zealand journalist who left school with the intention of writing story after story about process and petty sideshows, and not focus on the issues? Of course they all want to do good reporting. Who's the editor who's going to allow them and in fact encourage them to do that, seems to me to be the issue. The problem has never been that we lack able journalists.
This is sort of by the by. I applaud Nicola's obvious mad networking skillz, I'm sure she has this thing sown up now. And maybe she'll come back, become an editor and change the way we do journalism. In the meantime, this exercise strikes me as a little icky.

Wellington • Since Jun 2007 • 7473 posts Report
Russell Brown, 10:33 Jul 14, 2010

This is sort of by the by. I applaud Nicola's obvious mad networking skillz,
I think it's more that quite a few people with such skills have met Nicola and decided she's bright, motivated and deserving.

Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 22850 posts Report
giovanni tiso, 10:45 Jul 14, 2010

In other words: she's got great networking skills! Nothing wrong with that, I presume it's how you win these things - it is, as the post points out, a popularity contest.
I find some of the stories of the people with under ten votes extraordinary. Can't they all get a bit of money?
Okay, shutting up now.

Wellington • Since Jun 2007 • 7473 posts Report
Sacha, 11:04 Jul 14, 2010

From what I've seen, Giovanni, Nicola has taken a leap of faith by signing up for that course and is now trying to fund it. I guess the same might be said of the various sportspeople and performers who are competing for this particular prize. They will probably find it simpler to get people to vote for them (without questioning why "I want to hit a ball around overseas" adds value to this country), so I wouldn't say "sown up" by any means.
I do respect your suspicion of this as well - it's not how we expect things to be done. I remember film-maker Reina Webster teling me she had to call on significant iwi money to pay her way through film school in New York, on the understanding that her skills would enrich her people when she returned. I imagine it would have been just as hard to raise the six figure sum needed for that endeavour this way.

Ak • Since May 2008 • 19745 posts Report
Dave Ferguson, 15:44 Jul 14, 2010

Got to agree with Giovanni on this one. I’m a bit bemused by the excitable talking up of this reporter as someone who “could well become one of New Zealand’s very best public affairs journalists”. It’s hard to see any evidence in her work to support this claim. Keith makes mention of her good grades at university and her work on a student newspaper some years back – but as anyone with the faintest experience in media can tell you, success on campus, and in the real world of journalism are two very distinct things. Academic smarts are crucial, but it takes something more than that – stickability, hard-headedness, writing ability, contacts, an appetite for hard slog. There’s no shortage of examples of bright students who never cut it as journalists.
Nicola is not a promising student though, but a working journalist of a couple of years’ standing, who is yet to make good on this supposed potential despite, one would think, having had ample time to do so. In the intervening years, she’s yet to have demonstrated the ability to hold down a regular job in the local media, let alone produce journalism of consequence. Aside from the panhandling efforts, very few have ever heard of her. Where are the stories she has broken, the incisive features she has written in recent years to bear out this supposed passion for high-minded, issues-focused journalism? It wouldn’t appear that a lack of time in the classroom is responsible for her career failing to fire so far.
Sorry to make my first post so negative in tone, or if I sound meanspirited: I wish Nicola well in her endeavours. But, after years of reading PA, this post provoked me to comment because it so neatly encapsulates an issue around this site’s ability to credibly pass comment on and evaluate the media, a favourite pastime around here.
It’s Keith’s prerogative to talk up his Salient mate on his own blog, although I wouldn’t regard it as a particularly authoritative or persuasive take on matters. Unfortunately, experience suggests many PA readers do exactly that, taking direction fairly uncritically, and without much by way of insight or context, as to who are the “goodies” and the “baddies” in print and on their screens. Media discussion and criticism on the site seems often heavily coloured by personal allegiances and affiliations to those emanating from the same clubby student media/blogosphere nexus. Yet there seems to be virtually no awareness or acknowledgment around these parts that this is the case. And it’s a shame.
As Giovanni points out, the problem has never been a lack of able young journalists – there are a lot of them out there, doing the hard work of reporting, writing, investigating and breaking stories every day, most of them attempting to reform from within the imperfect system of the MSM (one of them, a Kiwi broadcast journalist whose accomplishments in political and public affairs reporting far eclipse Nicola’s own, will also be in the Columbia intake this year, without fanfare from the local blognoscenti). These reporters are the ones doing a lot of hard work that often deserves more serious consideration by thinking, concerned people who purport to take an interest in things, the types who frequent these pages. Yet from what I’ve witnessed, if they’re MSMers without a PA seal of approval, they’re more likely to have have their efforts subjected to what can often be snide and fairly uninformed ridicule.
Oh, boo hoo, you say. And fair enough. Reporters are by necessity pretty thick skinned, used to getting it from all quarters and certainly aren’t on the lookout for gold stars from the blogosphere. God knows there’s an awful lot to ridicule the MSM about. To my eyes, though, this blind spot compromises PA as a useful and increasingly influential forum on the local media landscape, at least when it comes to matters of media criticism. It makes discussion on this site slightly less constructive and enlightening on matters pertaining to journalism than it is on other topics. I'd suggest that could easily change, if contributors took more of an interest in constructive discussion around contemporary journalism, rather than heaping contempt on that favourite whipping boy, the dread MSM.
Just one man’s perspective. Apologies for the freaking novel, I’ll keep it brief next time.

Auckland, New Zealand • Since Jul 2010 • 2 posts Report
Lucy Stewart, 17:25 Jul 14, 2010

In other words: she's got great networking skills! Nothing wrong with that, I presume it's how you win these things - it is, as the post points out, a popularity contest.
She's also done a *lot* to raise most of the rest of the money, got into an extremely prestigious university, won a Fulbright scholarship...I think that moves it a bit beyond great networking skills.
one of them, a Kiwi broadcast journalist whose accomplishments in political and public affairs reporting far eclipse Nicola’s own, will also be in the Columbia intake this year, without fanfare from the local blognoscenti)
Possibly because he's got all his funding sorted, and doesn't need the help? Making this fact sort of irrelevant in a post about someone else fundraising?

Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 2105 posts Report
giovanni tiso, 17:36 Jul 14, 2010

She's also done a *lot* to raise most of the rest of the money, got into an extremely prestigious university, won a Fulbright scholarship...I think that moves it a bit beyond great networking skills.
Yes, but presumably other people vying for that money also worked hard, right?
But mostly I'm mystified by the idea that we need to send our young promising journalists to Columbia university. That seems like such a superficial technocratic recipe to get us out of our troubles, without even having to point to the fact that the US media aren't exactly a paragon of Socratic discourse, in spite of being lousy with Columbia graduates.

Wellington • Since Jun 2007 • 7473 posts Report
Islander, 19:28 Jul 14, 2010

There are pretty good journo schools here...and best of all, a working environment for someone to learn the additional necessary skills for working *here*- (they've already been mentioned)
and, I am not at all convinced that a foreign degree in *journalism* is going to enhance her skills for working *here* all that much: a better degree would be in some really different area - Pol. Sci? Psychology?
yada yada : this is a youngish person who seeks validation overseas for what she has already done, to enhance her profile here. Good on her. May all go well for her.
Didnt vote.

Big O, Mahitahi, Te Wahi … • Since Feb 2007 • 5643 posts Report
peter mclennan, 21:34 Jul 14, 2010

I read the comments on Kiwblog after David Farrar posted this and guess what? You lot are every bit as bitter and mean spirited as their commenters. Impressed with yourselves? You should be!

AK Central • Since Nov 2006 • 159 posts Report
Sofie Bribiesca, 21:43 Jul 14, 2010

You lot
Careful what you wish for, or were you just generalising?At this point I consider the comments rather varied here.

here and there. • Since Nov 2007 • 6796 posts Report
Sean Gillespie, 18:51 Jul 16, 2010

But mostly I'm mystified by the idea that we need to send our young promising journalists to Columbia university.
New Zealand journalism schools are funded about $10,000 per student and are often staffed by people out of touch with the media environment. Columbia is around $70,000 and is staffed by some of the brightest minds in journalism. The sort of people Nicola will be studying (and "networking") with are likely to become industry leaders. These benefits warrant the effort to get there. It's not about foreign being better - it's about resources and quality.
I’m a bit bemused by the excitable talking up of this reporter as someone who “could well become one of New Zealand’s very best public affairs journalists”. It’s hard to see any evidence in her work to support this claim.
My gosh Dave, what a condescending diatribe. I think you're perhaps a little naive about how the media industry works. Nicola is one of the top students to have come out of Vic Uni's politics school. However, she doesn't have a journalism qualification and the days of rocking up to a major publication and getting a job are gone.
Nicola's chances of writing on politics without at least a couple of years experience in the MSM are about the same as Russell Brown calling Cameron Slater brilliant. It doesn't matter that she has good contacts in Parliament or that she did her time in the provinces (The Southland Times). However, when she returns from Columbia she should be able to put her political smarts to the test.
Btw Duncan Wilson's has been around a while. You can't really compare.

Auckland • Since Jul 2010 • 5 posts Report
Islander, 19:08 Jul 16, 2010

"However, when she returns from Columbia..."
any definite promise on that?
I've seen quite a few ANZ writers funded to go overseas on the understanding they'll return and grant us all the benefit of their overseas experience.Or, writing from overseas for Literary Fund grants on the understanding they'll return home with the goods. Quite often, they find the overseas pastures more to their taste, permanantly.
Sean Gillespie - you dont have a special interest do you?
Just wondering...

Big O, Mahitahi, Te Wahi … • Since Feb 2007 • 5643 posts Report
Sean Gillespie, 19:49 Jul 16, 2010

Yes, I have a special interest. She's my wife.
Being a Fulbright fellow, Nicola is required to return to New Zealand for a minimum of two years. Regardless of that -- and how tasty the grass on the other side of the fence surely is -- her education is in New Zealand politics.

Auckland • Since Jul 2010 • 5 posts Report
giovanni tiso, 20:20 Jul 16, 2010

New Zealand journalism schools are funded about $10,000 per student and are often staffed by people out of touch with the media environment. Columbia is around $70,000 and is staffed by some of the brightest minds in journalism. The sort of people Nicola will be studying (and "networking") with are likely to become industry leaders. These benefits warrant the effort to get there. It's not about foreign being better - it's about resources and quality.
See, if that is true than I must assume that the industry is being currently led by these bright minds. And if it's Columbia graduates that made the American media what they are today, shouldn't we be a little wary of making the equation good school = better journalism? As many have argued on this blog MANY times, the problem with New Zealand journalism is not the lack of good journalists. It's its relentless corporatisation, it's the systematic sacrifice of good reporting and commentary for the (occasionally misguided) sake of commercial imperatives. You won't change it by going to study in the country that came up with this brilliant system.

Wellington • Since Jun 2007 • 7473 posts Report
Islander, 20:23 Jul 16, 2010

Thank you Sean - that is what I had learned. And, all power to you for supporting whanau-

Big O, Mahitahi, Te Wahi … • Since Feb 2007 • 5643 posts Report
Sean Gillespie, 21:09 Jul 16, 2010

Giovanni, I share your concern about the corporatisation of New Zealand's media but I don't agree with your logic.
I'm not sure how much influence Columbia has over the media environment in the United States, but you're drawing a long bow if you want to suggest the school is responsible for the country's media issues. There are many factors. Anyway, there's also some excellent journalism in the United States.
As far as analysis of media issues goes, I consider Columbia to be world leading. http://www.cjr.org/
But if you know of somewhere better, please point me in that direction.

Auckland • Since Jul 2010 • 5 posts Report
George Darroch, 21:17 Jul 16, 2010

I've met her once, in the Salient offices a few years ago, and she seems like a good sort. Lots of people I know think she's good value.
I've taken the leap in order to do a masters in a foreign country (Australia, and I got it for free), and I applaud her for her effort. I hope she gets in. Anyone putting that much into an effort like this deserves some praise. Matt Nippert followed the same path a few years ago, and I was pretty impressed with what he put into it.
But despite all of this, I'm with Giovanni. Unconvinced. As a writer, she has more ability than most to tell us a story of why her.

WLG • Since Nov 2006 • 2264 posts Report
giovanni tiso, 21:21 Jul 16, 2010

you're drawing a long bow if you want to suggest the school is responsible for the country's media issues.
Well, they're either industry leaders or they're not, are they?
But look, I don't want to being endlessly painful - I've even voted for Nicola way back then, and wish her all the best. I was just taking issue with Keith's post because he's accustomed us to slightly more astute media commentary then "train this journalist so she will do better political reporting than the ones we're stuck with".

Wellington • Since Jun 2007 • 7473 posts Report
Islander, 21:27 Jul 16, 2010

And, George, she hasnt-
I am not trying to pick on Nicola in any way: she has worked to get funding (so do we all) but so have her peers going after the same funding prize. I am rather surprised that 4 very credible people are openly supporting one person in the prize pool for- ur yes, for what?
She's a congenial social networker? Please: do the real thing that used to suade me when I was an evil judge of these matters on the Literary fund-
put some of her WORK out there so we can see why it'd be a good idea to support her in future endeavours OUTSIDE ANZ-

Big O, Mahitahi, Te Wahi … • Since Feb 2007 • 5643 posts Report