On Tuesday Professor Robert McCulloch in his Down to Earth Kiwi blog showed Wilson up once more, this time because of his attack on National’s tax figures. Wilson claimed Chris Luxon’s figures regarding the 15% levy on foreigners purchasing houses didn’t add up, when the real problem turned out to be Wilson’s own shaky sources. I hope Robert McCulloch doesn’t stop here: little of what Wilson thinks is journalism ever seems to pass muster. Several other Herald journalists also peddle their personal politics, although not as blatantly as Wilson. The others dress their stories up as reporting. Claire Trevett, Audrey Young, Michael Neilson and a couple of others slant their reporting towards the left. This isn’t surprising: a majority of reporters from time immemorial have been Labour supporters. Some, like Newsroom’s Jo Moir, just can’t help themselves. But they need to remember that in a tight campaign, slanted journalism can damage a perpetrator’s reputation for life.
The owners of the Herald, NZME, also need to exercise more care. They should have thought twice before letting the Council of Trade Unions, in the middle of a campaign, take over the front cover last Monday for a personal attack on a major political party’s leader. The Council of Trade Unions has a shady past, going back to the days of Fintan Patrick Walsh. Starting 83 years ago, the then FOL and its affiliates began playing games with the Labour Party, sending union bosses to its conferences armed with card votes and voting up or down on issues they’d never bothered to consult their membership about. The current Labour Government has over-empowered the unions once more, and until this is rectified the CTU are indulging in what resembles corrupt practices in defence of their newly-found privileges. The one thing we can be absolutely certain about is that the wider membership of trade unions, whom the CTU purports to represent, weren’t consulted before those front-page adverts. Shayne Currie and Murray Kirkness at the editorial level ought to have known that, and blown the whistle.
These days, of course, we get more of the news from television and radio than newspapers. Varying levels of professionalism are evident on the two main TV channels. Mike McRoberts and Simon Dallow are reliable performers, but TV3’s Amelia Wade shows her colours more than she should. Jack Tame does his job, but is more interested in avenues of attack than discovering the background to the issue. Despite its excessive, untranslated Maori verbiage, RNZ succeeds most of the time in straight reporting. Of course, blogs like this one, are a different matter. We don’t pretend to be unbiased, and nor do we charge for our stories. We don’t get money from the Public Interest Journalism Fund that Labour established in 2020, purportedly to assist media outlets adversely affected by Covid, but in reality, to exercise more control over the media. At the time the fund was created, many commentators smelled a rat and criticised newspapers for accepting what looked like a government bribe to journalists paid for by the taxpayer. The Herald’s editors haughtily dismissed those fears, but right now, in an election campaign, those assurances can be carefully scrutinised and, in several cases, have already been found wanting.
The owners of the Herald, NZME, also need to exercise more care. They should have thought twice before letting the Council of Trade Unions, in the middle of a campaign, take over the front cover last Monday for a personal attack on a major political party’s leader. The Council of Trade Unions has a shady past, going back to the days of Fintan Patrick Walsh. Starting 83 years ago, the then FOL and its affiliates began playing games with the Labour Party, sending union bosses to its conferences armed with card votes and voting up or down on issues they’d never bothered to consult their membership about. The current Labour Government has over-empowered the unions once more, and until this is rectified the CTU are indulging in what resembles corrupt practices in defence of their newly-found privileges. The one thing we can be absolutely certain about is that the wider membership of trade unions, whom the CTU purports to represent, weren’t consulted before those front-page adverts. Shayne Currie and Murray Kirkness at the editorial level ought to have known that, and blown the whistle.
These days, of course, we get more of the news from television and radio than newspapers. Varying levels of professionalism are evident on the two main TV channels. Mike McRoberts and Simon Dallow are reliable performers, but TV3’s Amelia Wade shows her colours more than she should. Jack Tame does his job, but is more interested in avenues of attack than discovering the background to the issue. Despite its excessive, untranslated Maori verbiage, RNZ succeeds most of the time in straight reporting. Of course, blogs like this one, are a different matter. We don’t pretend to be unbiased, and nor do we charge for our stories. We don’t get money from the Public Interest Journalism Fund that Labour established in 2020, purportedly to assist media outlets adversely affected by Covid, but in reality, to exercise more control over the media. At the time the fund was created, many commentators smelled a rat and criticised newspapers for accepting what looked like a government bribe to journalists paid for by the taxpayer. The Herald’s editors haughtily dismissed those fears, but right now, in an election campaign, those assurances can be carefully scrutinised and, in several cases, have already been found wanting.
In a free country, journalists and the media in general need to be trusted to “speak truth to power” on their readers’ and viewers’ behalf. Prostrating themselves before Mammon, in the form of the Public Interest Journalism Fund, should be beneath them. Television and radio editors and communicators have considerable influence. They should use that power honestly. When interviewing, it isn’t necessary always to find fault with the interviewee. Teasing out a policy, its origin and its possible effect can be revealing. Constant negativity is the way our media succeed in blighting all politicians, giving the triennial election process in our lives a bad name. Why not leave trolling to social media?
Historian Dr Michael Bassett, a Minister in the Fourth Labour Government, blogs HERE. - where this article was sourced.
6 comments:
This is not just a NZ problem. It's all of the West's problem as well.
Kind of like some sort of agenda is in play to control the narrative so as to bring in a dystopian NWO One World Government.
Stop being propagandized by false narratives delivered to you daily by the corporate media.
Unions are a dinosaur from the past only kept alive in NZ over the past 6 years by you know who. Their intimidation, corruption and bullying will eventually lead to their demise. Seems the media is headed in the same direction.
Any media that took money from government can never call themselves independent ever again.
The criteria in the PJIF were frankly quite clear as to how the media should proceed.
The fact that it was nothing more than a fomulated bribe styled blackmail loan speaks to its efficacy as 'funding'.
We live in an age where truth being held to power means nothing more than the truth the government or the 'journalists' want to espouse. Minister Jackson regularly meets with media to discuss 'things' particularly how to speak of the TOW and co-governance etc....
Recently the IPCC stated clearly many things that were incorrect in their climate change reporting including that there is 'no climate emergency'.
Yet even with that knowledge TV3 as of last night was still holding the line on climate change and emergency etc.
For them to now tell the truth about the IPCC reporting on methane, CO2, warming and sea level rise etc would destroy the governments narrative, the medias stance and all that it means to the global tax and deploy narrative that enfolds us and other western nations.
Unelected people from the UN, WEF and the WHO develop policy in conjunction with massive financial institutions like Blackrock, Vanguard and State Street (remember that Blackrock has the same value as the GDP of the China so their tentacles are buried deep). Look to the deal Ardern did with Blackrock on climate and look to the WHO World Pandemic Plan.....
Combine that with the weakest, most incompetent government sychophantically cowtowing to these people, allowing them to direct , determine and deploy it into New Zealand then we have a serious problem from top to bottom. The leader of the WEF Klaus Schwab has no problem stating in public that the WEF have "infiltrated" the cabinets of many governments in many countries.
We are New Zealanders and deserve to be better served by our elected officials, our media as the fourth estate and to retain a sovereign status in our liberal democracy without that interference, infiltration or infestation like rats.
Sadly we have government and media set to tear this down on the back of a narrative they seem to push and push even though they too will in the end come up against the blunt knife it is as it slides between ribs.
That is why we are kept in the dark and feed chicken poo like the mushrooms they want us to be.....however we are not all fooled because there are now way too many dots that have been joined that show a very unpleasant picture of control through contempt.
This government and our media have destroyed their own reputations grasping at something that they think the can control but actually they are puppets that are kept happy by money and having their egos stroked like children being blackmailed to behave.
Sad but true that this is a global issue.
Jacinda has a lot to answer for, more than she can bear to face up to the country for. And Chippy was right there beside her all the way. The current Labour government has been traitorous, divisive, sneaky and dictatorial. Taking over the media is not democratic. Tribal rule is not democratic.
MC
Balanced journalism, to the likes of Simon Wilson, means a bias in each hand.
Are the Government paid spin doctors still working on full pay or have they been sent home during the election campaign ?
It would be yet another travesty if they are still "working" creating even more unbalanced propaganda at this time.
I expect they need pills to get to sleep at night.
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