Bob McCoskrie: No, I won’t miss TVNZ’s Sunday programme

I have a confession to make. Despite the widespread wailing about the demise of TVNZ’s Sunday programme due to costs and restructures at the state broadcaster, I for one won’t miss it. Now to be clear, my sympathies are with the personnel who have lost their jobs. That’s always a major upheaval and stressful and I genuinely wish them the best in finding another job be it in the media sector or perhaps somewhere completely new.

But I won’t miss Sunday as a programme. For too long I have watched coverage of important social issues with a bias that has got my blood pressure boiling – which is part of the reason why I don’t watch it now. Let me give you some examples.

In 2022, the Sunday programme tried to link the severe shortage of medical staff in our strained and neglected health system in NZ with the long overdue overturning of Roe v Wade. Yep – a failing health system and… abortion. They travelled to the US to search out a few – because that’s all there are – a few pro-abortion Americans who just couldn’t wait to get to NZ – apparently because we have such a liberal abortion law.

It was a desperate and distorted misrepresentation of the facts. Sunday’s ideology, bias and propaganda became the real story. It’s definitely wasn’t quality balanced investigative journalism as we all want and expect.

Have a watch of this short excerpt that highlights the hypocrisy and confusion of an abortion supporter.

She tells us that she’s a pediatrician. Her favourite part is working with all the kids. Her oath is to do no harm. Why has the right to kill the unborn child been taken away?

And the whole story only pushed one narrative. The overturning of Roe v Wade being bad bad bad. But the exciting thing is that NZ can gain all these pro-abortion confused medical professionals who don’t understand biology and conception.

In that same year, there was an episode on drug testing.

Here’s what the programme showed

First the cop

Then the drug testers themselves connected to the Drug Foundation.

What Sunday programme didn’t do was allow the contrary view – the view opposing drug testing. The view which says that drug testing simply allows drug takers to play Russian roulette with their lives and that there is no such thing as a safe drug.

And then there was the programme in 2021 on puberty blockers. But this wasn’t an ‘investigation’. This was a further pushing of the media’s own narrative and bias on the transgender issue – sadly.

Two families. Two children who want to change. SUNDAY follows the brave, very personal journeys of two young people, and their parents, as they transition to become who they feel they are meant to be.

As predicted, they didn’t talk to pediatricians who are raising the red flag – and there are many of them – or refer to any of the research which is calling into question the current trend in treatment of children suffering gender dysphoria.

They spoke to a transgender affirming doctor who is part of WPATH World Professional Association for Transgender Health – the organisation that has just been exposed for the promotion of pseudoscientific surgical and hormonal experiments

Even the Ministry of Health has backed off the statement that they’re fully reversible. And some unknowns.

Sunday doesn’t talk to – for example – Dr William Malone

We watched the programme with a Professor in Pediatrics from Australia – Dr John Whitehall.

Watch his analysis – as we bring some much-needed balance to this issue.

Re puberty blockers – Dr Whitehall “I don’t know of any greater intervention in the brain and the body” –

And this truth is all starting to become undeniable – but Sunday didn’t want to go anywhere near it.

It wasn’t an investigation of the issue.

IN 2019 there was surrogacy – with a gay couple. A Labour MP at that. He is in a same-sex relationship. He uses an egg donor and then use a different gestational surrogate. The surrogate has had 3 children thru anonymous sperm donor. One of the men (not the politician) is the biological father.

Some interesting statements in the media story….
“While she loved and nurtured the baby in the womb like any mum would, Dalziel felt that both herself and the baby knew they would be parting ways.” She breastfed the baby for the first 48 hours, but unusually, after this, he would not feed again, and the family instead switched him to formula. “He just kind of weaned himself off me, it was like he was ready.” “We have become so close. It’s such an intimate process…

But the question that nobody including Sunday programme was – should we be making surrogacy and sperm donation “easier”? What is it like to find out that your true biological mother’s only involvement in your life was the donation of the egg? How do you deal with the feeling of loss and rejection from your carrying mother who is labelled as your ‘gestational carrier’? Is it normal that when you see someone who resembles you, you wonder if they are related? Can you be blamed for feeling disturbed that some money or a contract may have been involved in your conception? What if the biological parent or parents don’t want any contact?

Sunday didn’t want to talk about this. They certainly didn’t ask any questions like this. It was all about the rights of the parents. A puff piece for surrogacy for gay couples.

That’s not investigation. That’s pushing a narrative.

And then there was the programme on fertility. Sunday says

Making babies, it’s what many believe we were put on this Earth to do, but our Earth is hurting. In the face of climate change uncertainty, some young Kiwis are saying no to creating a new generation. A story that’ll make you think…

So it starts with a lesbian couple who are panicking about the environment

The next generation. There’s only one problem. Well, 2 actually. One is a biological reality which I’m sure you can figure out given the nature of the relationship. The second is that they don’t want to create the next generation.

And another example

The “energy” that a child will use

I’m not sure if there’s a father on the scene.

So much fear. So much climate alarm.

So nothing can be done to change things – despite constant conferences and changes and banning of things

Interesting.

Then they interviewed the “expert” – Sophie from Canberra – part of ACT government – Commissioner for Sustainability and the Environment

That messaging certainly fits the climate activist narrative doesn’t it. Worst thing you can do for the environment is have a child

But nek minnit, Sophie has 2 children

Now I say – good on her – but doesn’t that make her a hypocrite? A bit like world leaders gathering for a climate change panic conference – arriving in private jets.

And finally, Professor Bronwyn Hayward – NZ expert – Canterbury University

So once again Sunday programme has pushed a climate alarmism narrative – but a one sided one that we shouldn’t have children – and their own experts either counter that, or don’t follow their own advice!!! Hilarious.

And then last year it was THEYBIES

“A boy or a girl? It’s usually been quick and easy for parents to describe their newborn baby. But a growing group of mums and dads are embracing what is known as “gender creative parenting”. These parents are deliberately keeping the sex of their babies top secret because they say the children themselves should be free to decide – as they grow up – who they are. They’re a new generation being raised not as baby boys or baby girls, but as theybies.

“Theybies: letting young children choose their own gender” from 60 Minutes Australia

Let’s watch a few short clips

And then to our “expert” – a gender-studies academic from the University of Utah – the guru, apparently,

Kyl Myers says “The reproductive anatomy that my kiddo was born with, I didn’t want to assign too many labels, assumptions, and destinies.” And binary is more confusing because 8 billion people fit into 2 boxes – yep, male and female. Just as we were created.

Finally our Aussie couple again

“Parents who want their child to be a footballer but they want to dance. Wants to play with dolls.”
Um… that’s the parents’ issue. Nothing to do with non-binary or choosing gender.

So the investigation wasn’t about harms or problems for young people or whether this trend is driven by bonkers and not by biology. One sided coverage. Marketing of a phenomenon with no balance to the argument.

And then in 2022 there was coverage of the euthanasia issue.

Folllowing the programme they had an online discussion but it was with 2 proponents of the law.

Now one palliative care doctor I know who shall remain nameless said of the Sunday programme – “NZ society has to be fed the best heart warming stories for the license to kill they endorsed at the ballot box. All systems must positively reinforce the states sanctioning of killing. Because the state and the people are co dependent and enmeshed.” Sadly so true.

But Defend NZ put out this analysis raising a number of concerns including a weakness in the eligibility criteria around the measurement of “unbearable suffering”. When Esther first applied for the approval of assisted suicide or euthanasia she was denied as she didn’t meet the unbearable suffering eligibility. However, a trip to the doctor a few months later had that decision reversed.

They also highlight that the presenter had her own conscience pricked days before Esther’s death. The journalist recorded a conversation ensuring it was “on record” Esther didn’t feel pressured to follow through with assisted suicide or euthanasia due to the filming of the feature for the Sunday programme.

Unbelievably, that short question is the same method doctors will use to check that Esther, and anyone else considering assisted suicide or euthanasia, hasn’t been coerced by anyone to make the choice. A question that can very easily be deflected with a bit of humour, but can’t be tested with a simple passing comment. Coercion is subtle. It’s difficult to detect and sometimes a person doesn’t even realise they are under its influence. Protection provided against it in the legislation: a simple question from one doctor.

Could Esther have changed her mind and wrecked the whole premise of the programme?

With such weak safeguards to prevent the elderly and disabled being abused, it has meant the “rights” of a few have opened the door for manipulation to the vulnerable.

So once again, very one-sided coverage. No dissenting view. No experts on the panel afterwards. It simply pushed one narrative.

They also examined conversion therapy – in one of the worst examples of journalism involving hidden cameras, entrapment, and coming to a conclusion that most viewers would not have naturally come to.

What we saw was undercover reporters deliberately misleading counsellors and covert filming of the conversation in an attempt to show conversion therapy in action.

What we didn’t see was conversion therapy as they would define it. There was no coercion. No ice baths. No electric shocks. We saw counsellors simply working with people according to their stated need which the counsellors assumed were genuine – but they weren’t.

The BSA said that the public interest outweighed privacy, confidentiality and entrapment.

But it was all about a campaign and pushing a narrative. It was media at another low.

I’m sure there have been some very good stories on the Sunday programme. But when it has come to key social issues around the family, it has always worked hard to push a radical social engineering narrative – not presenting the debate – but generally pushing a one sided view – euthanasia, abortion, conversion therapy, surrogacy, transgendering children with puberty blockers, drug testing, saving the environment by not having babies – and Theybies.

Often an anti-family narrative. Little balance. Pro-abortion, pro euthanasia, pro ‘conversion therapy’ bans, pro child transgenderism, pro surrogacy, pro drug testing, pro don’t have babies for the sake of the environment – and always a one sided bias narrative being rammed down our throats

And those are just the ones I saw.

I’m sorry for the personnel. I wish them well – but no, I won’t miss TVNZ’s Sunday programme. I believe it’s part of the reason that trust in media is reaching new lows. As I’ve always said, we deserve better.

Bob McCoskrie is the National Director of Family First New Zealand, he has a Masters of Commerce with Honours from the University of Auckland and a Diploma of Teaching from the Auckland College of Education. He posts regularly on McBlog - Where this article was sourced.