Public Images and Private Lives: The Media and Politics in New Zealand

Abstract

This article reviews the New Zealand media context in relation to public images of politicians' private lives. Following a survey of the New Zealand media landscape, we note the absence of a ‘tabloid culture’ and sense of ‘fair play’ in matters of privacy; both have been maintained in the face of transformations in the country's commercial media. The article also makes clear that news media coverage of the political process have generally avoided excessive intrusion into the private lives of politicians—though we give examples where this is not the case. Finally, we suggest that New Zealand's political culture benefts from a sense of ‘fair play’ by the media but note the danger to the health of the media-politics relationship from more populist media imperatives.