Media and Te Tiriti o Waitangi
If your campaign includes Treaty issues, then the Media and Te Tiriti o Waitangi reports by research group Kupu Taea are useful publications that look at how the media covers Maori and Treaty issues.
Kupu Taea has published two reports about how news media represent te Tiriti and Maori issues, one released in May 2008 about news from 2007; and one released in 2005 about news from 2004.
The reports have found that "rather than taking a neutral position, a significant minority of newspaper and television items framed items to support themes which undermined Maori".
For example, Maori control over resources was framed "as a threat to non-Maori, who were implicitly defined as synonymous with the public".
Media and Te Tiriti o Waitangi can be downloaded from the Treaty Resource Centre in PDF format.
The reports are also available from:
Kupu Taea: Media and Te Tiriti Project
c/- PO Box 78 338, Tamaki Makaurau/Auckland.
The reports identified some possible indicators that could be used to continue to assess the levels of balance and fair reporting of Treaty issues. It also makes recommendations for ongoing training of journalists, in particular the need to investigate the background context of Maori news stories.