Trust is hard to win and easy to lose. That is especially true for journalists. Today I got an email from Joanna Norris, the Stuff website’s Chief Content Officer. Norris hammers the importance of trust. For example, she says,

“It is an important we focus on the commitments we have made to ensure our journalism is trusted and supports a better Aotearoa.”

and
“To ensure we drive always towards courageous, relevant, relatable and trusted journalism”

Norris has set herself no small task. In the story of the boy who cried wolf – could the boy be trusted? No, because his cries of distress were fake news. Stuff and other news outlets could learn from that example. Day after day they have reported how New Zealand is about to be consumed by a COVID surge. Two weeks ago, Stuff and others were reporting “expert” predictions of 40,000 daily COVID cases. Doom was going to strike, “before Waitangi Day”.

Well, we’ve arrived at Waitangi Day and the case count today is 205. The total cases in over a year of testing is 16,901. Contrary to Stuff’s reported predictions the actual numbers of COVID cases is 0.5% of what Stuff predicted. The two-year total number of cases is still only 42% of what Stuff told us would now be our daily count. The gulf between Stuff’s reporting and the truth is 99.5%. Hardly an auspicious beginning to the Norris drive for trust. Stuff simply cannot be believed. That is not the way to earn our trust.

Stuff has gone to self-appointed COVID “experts” and reported, without analysis or accountability, every gem. Thanks to Stuff, for months we have lived through a mindless era of expert opinion. Michael Baker, Nick Wilson, Jennifer Summers, Amanda Kvalsvig, Matire Harwood, Siouxsie Wiles, Shaun Hendy, Dion O’Neale, Arindam Basu, and even Australian Global Health professor, Tony Blakely have become Stuff’s go-to source of COVID wisdom. The result is that Stuff ended up reporting 99.5% rubbish.

To be trusted Norris and her Stuff team need to be better than that. Trust requires critical analysis. Trust requires accuracy. Trust does not mean exaggeration. Trust must not cause panic. And trust does not involve crying wolf because some university tutors saw a shadow and wanted to enhance their academic status. In this case Norris and her Stuff team have earned a D- in their quest for trust. Perhaps better next time.     

This post is an impossible dream. It could never happen. Its place is in the fiction section of your library. It is as far removed from reality as those nut-jobs who tell us Bill Gates has installed a locator chip in COVID vaccinations. This is my “Brian Tamaki” moment.

And so, if factual reports are your thing, try the Swimming New Zealand (SNZ) webpage. These days SNZ is a reliable source of swimming news. But anyway, here is my dream.

Just imagine the money Bruce Cotterill wasted on his catastrophic centralisation plan for SNZ. We know thatover 20 years it was about $25million. And what did we get? We certainly did not swim any faster. Before Cotterill got his hands on all that money swimmers like Hurring, Moss, Kingsman, Winter, van Wellie, Loader, Jeffs, Langrell and Simcic were winning medals at all sorts of world events. Cotterill spent most of the money on foreign coaches and administrators. A pile of our cash ended up in Australia, Spain, Singapore and the USA.

When finally, Tongue, Johns and Francis pulled the plug on the whole sad affair, there was nothing to show for the $25million – just a big empty hole. Even worse swimming administration and performance throughout New Zealand had been decimated. Good clubs and coaches lost their best swimmers lured to Auckland’s bright lights by SNZ. Whether SNZ knew the destruction of their policy we will never know. If they didn’t, they were morons. If they did, they were sporting terrorists.  

And so, we know what Cotterill did. He wasted money like a drunken sailor. But was there a better way? That question brings me to my dream. Here is what I would have done.

First, I would have abandoned the centralisation policy. That was never the way to build a strong sport. The only benefits of that policy were the boost it gave Cotterill’s ego and to several foreign bank accounts. A strong sport is built from the bottom up. What that means is establishing a strong infrastructure of clubs. Last weekend Hamilton Aquatics showed us what a well-run, strong club can achieve. That is where investment in swimming is needed. And that is how the Loaders, Jeffs, Simcics are found and nurtured to international success.

Second, I would have invested the $25million into an interest earning account. Instead of having nothing now, swimming would have the $25million earning interest of $1million each year.

Third, Sport New Zealand is still handing out about $1million a year to SNZ. This should not be fritted away as it is now but should be added to the $25million investment fund. The effect of this over five years is shown in the table below.

Year	Opening Capital Sum	Sport NZ Grant	New Capital Sum	Interest Earned	Closing Capital Sum
2022	25,000,000	1,000,000	26,000,000	1,040,000	27,040,000
2023	27,040,000	1,000,000	28,040,000	1,121,600	29,161,600
2024	29,161,600	1,000,000	30,161,600	1,206,464	31,368,064
2025	31,368,064	1,000,000	32,368,064	1,294,722	33,662,786
2026	33,662,786	1,000,000	34,662,786	1,386,511	36,049,297

Fourth I would invite New Zealand’s 159 clubs to apply for funding from the reserves. Projects would have to be directly swimming related – for example, coaching wages, pool equipment and swimmer’s costs such as travel, food, rent, car expenses, uniforms and swimsuits. It’s called paying the worker’s wages. Administration and office costs would not qualify. Applications would be administered by trustees such as Gary Hurring, Lauren Boyle, Antony Moss and Sophia Batchelor. The amount available for distribution could never exceed the annual interest earned.

If that plan had happened in the twenty years Cotterill wasted $25million the sport would still have its capital asset. My bet is we would have also won a heap more international swimming medals. Why? Because the money would have been spent on those who win the medals and because clubs are run by people who know what they are doing.

Anyway, that’s my dream.