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Friday, April 25, 2025

Bob Edlin: Peters rails against journalists as does Trump......


Peters rails against journalists as does Trump – but when it comes to defunding, the US President can do something about it

The “mainstream media” were aflutter yet again after Winston Peters (as Acting Prime Minister) made plain his disdain for one of their number and – outrageous! – brought the matter of RNZ funding into considerations.

Defunding is the sort of media-hostile bullying which has characterised the first few weeks of Donald Trump’s second term as President, reinforcing impressions that democracy is fast being eroded in the USA.

Is the populist Peters up to the same autocratic tricks in this country?

The difference is that Trump can carry out his threats, subject to whatever he does being judged lawful in the courts (although – fair to say – he might simply ignore court orders).

Peters cannot sign executive orders and does not hold the broadcasting portfolio.

Whether he can persuade the Cabinet to cut RNZ’s funding is arguable.

But the media are shrieking about what he said, ignoring the limits on his authority, after a heated encounter with Morning Report presenter Corin Dann.

According to RNZ, the acting prime minister accused the public broadcaster of being biased and seemingly threatened to cut its funding.

Peters objected to questioning over his party’s proposal to define the term “woman” as “an adult human biological female” and “man” as an “adult human biological male” across all laws.

Towards the end of the interview, he accused the broadcaster of running the line of his opponents: “You’re paid for by the taxpayer and sooner or later we’re going to cut that water off too, because you’re an abuse on the taxpayer”.

Labour leader Chris Hipkins called for Luxon to step in, saying the comments were unacceptable.

But Luxon said he had no intention of doing so.

“Probably words that I wouldn’t use, but frankly, I think Winston Peters, after 40 years in public service, and his mode of communication is well understood.

“I just don’t think it would be any surprise … he has a rather Winston way of communicating with media where he’s going to push back on journalists, as is his right to do so.

“With respect to the funding of RNZ, that is a decision taken by Cabinet as part of a Budget process each and every year and it’s the same process here.”


On the Integrity Project website, Bryce Edwards has recorded these reports:



Heather du Plessis-Allan (Newstalk ZB): Winston’s attacks on RNZ aren’t that shocking





Tom Pullar-Strecker (Post): Winston Peters issues RNZ funding warning


The Herald’s Thomas Coughlan judged the bellicose Peters to have stepped over some sort of acceptable-behaviour line.

Newstalk ZB’s Heather du Plessis-Allan was not so shocked.

She said:

He’s in trouble with the opposition – yet again, someone in the opposition’s gone crying to daddy, calling on the Prime Minister to sort Winston Peters out.

I mean, last time this happened, it was because he was mean to old ‘Bussy Galore’. This time, it’s because he’s threatened to defund Radio New Zealand.

Now he did this this morning in what I consider to be a highly entertaining tantrum, actually, because he got cross at RNZ for getting cross at him because he wants to define what a woman is in law.


But calling on the PM to discipline his deputy was “utterly pointless”, firstly because Christopher Luxon needs Peters more than Peters needs Luxon right now.

And number two, Winston is not wrong.

Radio New Zealand looks like it is going to lose funding in the upcoming budget – or at least that’s the rumour doing the rounds at the moment.

And if RNZ doesn’t lose funding, it should lose funding – because it got a funding boost that was enormous under Labour.

It got a $25 million a year injection under Labour. That was a boost of 60 percent. That’s huge.


Du Plessis-Allan said she knew of no other major media organization in this country that had had a revenue increase during the prolonged recession.

Moreover, she questioned their performance,

because have a look at what’s going on with their audience numbers. They have had an enormous decline in the people listening to them in the last 5 years.

And:

When Winston accused Radio New Zealand of having a woke left bias, there will be plenty of people around this country who perhaps used to listen and don’t anymore or don’t listen for whatever reason, but there’ll be plenty of people who would have been nodding their head in agreement with Winston once they heard that he’d said that.

Du Plessis-Allan suggested Labour might have seen an opportunity to play the hero for those in the Radio New Zealand audience who were horrified at what Winston said.

They can do what they want, it’s politics.

But I doubt this is going to be a big vote winner, because frankly, the number of voters who now nowadays care very deeply about protecting the media seems to be at an all-time low.

And also, don’t forget this – it’s hardly a shock, is it?

Winston Peters attacks the media. I mean, that could have been a headline every year for the last 40 years, couldn’t it?


If Radio New Zealand’s budget is about to be cut, it is unlikely to be the result of Peters carrying out a threat. The decisions will have been made long before now.

On the other hand, the Trump administration has drafted a memo to Congress outlining its intent to end nearly all federal funding for public media, which includes National Public Radio (NPR) and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS).

The memo, which the administration plans to send to Congress when it reconvenes from recess on April 28, will open a 45-day window in which the House and Senate can either approve the rescission or allow the money to be restored.

In a statement on Monday that did not refer to the memo, the White House said:

“For years, American taxpayers have been on the hook for subsidizing National Public Radio (NPR) and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), which spread radical, woke propaganda disguised as ‘news.'” The statement includes examples of what the White House said is “trash that passes as ‘news'” and “intolerance of non-leftist viewpoints.”

NPR produces the award-winning news programs Morning Edition and All Things Considered, while PBS is best known for its nightly PBS News Hour and its high-quality children’s programming, such as Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood.

This month, on social media platforms, President Trump blasted the two primary public broadcasting networks, posting in all caps:

“REPUBLICANS MUST DEFUND AND TOTALLY DISASSOCIATE THEMSELVES FROM NPR & PBS, THE RADICAL LEFT ‘MONSTERS’ THAT SO BADLY HURT OUR COUNTRY!”

Trump is expected to propose rescinding $1.1 billion — two years’ worth of funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), a congressionally chartered independent nonprofit organization that in turn partially funds NPR and PBS.

Bob Edlin is a veteran journalist and editor for the Point of Order blog HERE. - where this article was sourced.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh we love to use bullying.
Forget about the abuse that has been thrown at Trump for years with a gleeful media cheering the abuse on .
Sorry a major correction is overdue.

Anonymous said...

Peter's approach comes more from Mildoon than Trump. But he's right and that should also apply to all the other media that receives taxpayer's hard earned money. If the government pays them, why can't it pay me?

David said...

Peters is right. Why should the NZ taxpayer fund ANY media organisation? The content they produce should be able to stand on its own merit, funded through advertising.

Rodger said...

A fair and balanced 4th estate has a vital role to play in the furtherance of a healthy democracy. So the question is, are the current media lot fulfilling this vital role? The answer is undeniably NO! Defunding is therefore totally appropriate. Go Winston.