A.E. Thompson: Radio New Zealand - Woke but never Broke

There was an interesting article in the Herald on 30 August about Radio New Zealand's nose-diving ratings and audience numbers. Its title in part was "Media Insider: RNZ’s radio ratings drop ‘a cause for soul-searching’ says CEO".

RNZ is fully funded through our taxes so doesn't have irritating advertisements, yet listeners are fast moving to commercial stations. RNZ's chief executive and others were reported offering various unlikely explanations such as the location of their operation and how large their office space is. No mention of one of the most likely explanations, that RNZ's constant use of te reo and focus on all things Maori are not what most people want to hear. The elephant in the room.

In the numerous readers' comments below the article there were almost no references to te reo. Most referred only to the RNZ's left-wing bias. I would place a small bet that comments referring to matters Maori were censored.

I know I'm not alone in experiencing some grief. RNZ's National Radio was previously my go to, playing much of the time at home and in the car, providing interesting programs, news, interviews and music. When I was alone RNZ was my companion, my connection with other humans. Since the time of the last (Ardern) Labour governments, RNZ announcers started using frequent Maori phrases, mostly incessant reminders of the te reo name of RNZ and whatever program was playing. They increasingly spoke Manglish, always replacing certain English words with Maori versions. Apparently, 'work', 'family', 'good morning', 'good evening', 'children', 'grandchildren', 'patients', 'meeting', 'walk', 'discussion', 'purpose' 'status', 'protocol', 'islands' and 'New Zealand' are no longer valid English vocabulary and must be replaced by Maori terms that often have slightly different meanings. Whereas previously I had no problem with some announcers using a Maori greeting or with Maori announcers or interviewees using some Maori language, I experienced the station's widespread use of te reo even by its European announcers as patronising and virtue signalling. I didn't listen to RNZ to be force-fed Maori language like a school child at a kura. I continued to turn on RNZ as I always had, hoping the woke nonsense would be a fading fad, but the bursts of te reo continued and each time I swore loudly (when nobody else was around, usually) and my hand went to the off button or the station-change dial. I genuinely felt sad at losing what had been such valued part of my life.

Especially irritating were the falsehoods. These included references to 'Treaty partners' and to distorted versions of the Waitangi Tribunal's retrospectively invented 'principles' of Te Tiriti as if they were true, uncontentious or even adequately defined. Also, the use of false Maori names for cities such as Hamilton, Christchurch and Dunedin. For a time, RNZ added Maori terms after the actual names for those and other towns but recently the English names have been totally discarded in favour of the Maori substitutes. Those bodies were originally established as townships based on European municipal models. They did not exist as entities before English and European settlers founded and named them. I see it as disrespectful to the founders to change the names they gave to the towns. The alleged Maori names may well have existed for certain Maori settlements, places or landmarks somewhere within the areas later subsumed by those towns but there were no Maori names for entities that did not exist in Maori times. One might argue that it's perfectly valid to make up and use Maori terms for European concepts and inventions. However, RNZ has never used a replacement English name for any of the much more numerous towns that were given Maori names. Even long-established English versions of the Maori names were no longer permissible.

Days of the week were another artifice. Maori did not have the Gregorian calendar or any of its predecessors. They did not categorise days into weeks but into lunar months with 30 or so differently named days. Sure, that was impressive Maori science albeit replete with superstitious astrological predictions for people's lives and activities. However, it means that Maori terms for days of the week are post-colonial inventions (as is the case for the majority of modern reo). By routinely giving the Maori term before the English term RNZ implies that the Maori names for days were traditional equivalents that should be shown respect. They are not and don't deserve such respect beyond being used when modern reo is spoken. As far as I'm aware, RNZ has never provided clarification about the origin of the Maori terms for English towns and days of the week and is happy for the public to keep being hoodwinked by the implication that the terms arose from traditional Maori culture.

Interviewers allowing Maori activists to make outlandish or incorrect claims without challenge also became intolerable. Such as the claim that the punishment of children for speaking te reo at school was part of a plot by the colonisers to suppress Maori language and culture, when in fact it was done at the behest of numerous kaumatua who wanted their children to become proficient in English in order to deal successfully with the larger world. There was never any rule prohibiting Maori language use in homes or community, only whilst attending school. With the wisdom of hindsight, the discouragement of te reo use at school may have had harmful consequences for children's pride in their culture etc but there is no evidence it was motivated by anything except good intentions. It seemed very unacceptable for the taxpayer-funded RNZ to be spreading untruths or distorted pictures of history likely only to increase division, resentment and instability in our country.

RNZ's content also lurched more generally towards Maori matters. It previously aired a lot of BBC and other international documentaries and focused on important world news. I don't think it's racist to find little interest in long reminiscences about somebody's deceased grandparents or the new paint job for a marae's kitchen.

One might have been heartened to learn that RNZ managers were considering ratings and audience numbers. However, RNZ does not need to be responsive to customer preference or audience numbers and it doesn't need to care about providing proportionally for all groups of the listening public, because we are all forced to fund it regardless. The blinkered views and blatantly silly explanations regarding RNZ's plummeting popularity suggested that there was no genuine interest in providing what most taxpayers want from a public broadcaster.

A.E. Thompson is a working, tax-paying New Zealander who speaks up about threats to our hard-fought rights, liberties, egalitarian values, rational thinking and fair treatment by the state.