Reiki

Mark Honeychurch recently covered a Newshub story by Sarah Templeton in our newsletter (Reiki is Here To Save Us All) about a visit to a Reiki person by the reporter. (Practitioner, in my humble opinion, is probably the wrong word).

Committee member Russell and I contacted Newshub expressing our obvious concerns about it being a free promotion that omitted to tell readers what Reiki is, and the lack of evidence for efficacy. As a result, they decided to add a mention that the writer had not paid for the session she reported on.

I received a reply from Dianne Martin who is the Broadcasting Standards manager at Discovery NZ (US owned) which recently bought Mediaworks, the owner of Newshub. She said:

“The article was based on one person's experience of a Reiki treatment and it was not intended to be a discussion of the two sides of the debate about its efficacy. Once the disclaimer was added to the Article, the Committee maintains readers could judge the merits of Reiki treatments and the Article for themselves, taking into consideration that the treatment was gifted for the purpose of review.”

This could be a breach of the principle of accuracy, but we may be best to consider the change they did make as a win, and leave it at that.

I was disappointed to learn from Ms Martin that:

“The Media Council has previously determined that 'the debate over alternative remedies is sufficiently well known not to require balancing comment in every story about them. The subject falls within the exception to the principle of balance for issues of enduring public discussion.' The Committee is satisfied that balance was not required in this Article.”

Unfortunately that seems to be the reality of the situation. The media are likely to continue to publish such pieces, which seem to fall into the category of “advertorial content”. But it's great to point out when it's not apparent from the article that journalistic integrity might be at stake!