Scooped: The Politics and Power of Journalism in Aotearoa New Zealand is a difficult book to read and understand, not the least because the print is painfully small.
To be fair, some of the contributors to this book have been high-profile journalists in the past. Finlay Macdonald, the former editor of the New Zealand Listener still freelances as a writer, book editor and broadcaster.
Nicky Hager describes himself as an investigative journalist, but sadly the rest are now journalism scholars and lecturers.
Former broadcasting minister Steve Maharey, now vice-chancellor of Massey University, sums up the situation in his preface.
"The relationship between journalists and the academics choosing to study them has never been an easy one. Journalists have preferred to characterise themselves as practical people with a common-sense approach to the world. Their activities are guided by simple questions of What? Where? Who? When? and Why?" Mr Maharey missed How? but that is a small point.
He argues that something so straightforward does not need explanation, particularly in the sometimes obscure terms used by academics.
Academics, he says, have begged to disagree, arguing that behind the apparently simple questions used by journalists can be found a framework of interpretation that needs to be discussed. So who is correct?
The answer will not be found in this book.
Apparently, Scooped grew out of the difference of views between journalists and academics. I have lectured on the role of a political and business journalist to students at the University of Otago (not any more), and regularly talk to journalism students at Aoraki Polytechnic and SIT; there is a stark difference in their approach to what I do for a job.
University students are usually more interested in how the Otago Daily Times allegedly sensationalises things like Castle St riots and Hyde St keg parties. Otherwise, their lack of interest reflects a general disinterest in anything other than some secret agenda owners of media outlets have.
That is a constant theme in Scooped.
Polytechnic students are interested mainly in passing shorthand and put up with me because what I teach is part of compulsory papers.
I was pleased to find that I have been categorised as an "everyday intellectual labourer", something of a pale blue collar or a blue-tinged white collar worker.
We journalists are "working class in the terms of economic relations", a description I am sure will be welcomed.
The authors in Scooped analyse the profession to death and the book will provide good fodder for teaching. But nothing is better than actually getting your hands dirty (metaphorically) by doing the job and enjoying it for the sheer freedom it can provide.
• Dene Mackenzie is the business and political editor of the Otago Daily Times.
