The media may be making a similar error in their attacks on Christopher Luxon, which many voters will see as going well beyond reasonable political criticism. In fact, some media outlets are making themselves look recklessly partisan in what appears to be an attempt to unseat the Prime Minister and reduce the chances of a National-led government returning to power in November.
That has certainly become a common opinion after 1News ignored the news that there were 49,000 fewer victims of violent crime in the year to October 2025 than two years prior. Instead, on the same day Luxon had fronted a press conference to announce the sharp fall, TVNZ’s evening bulletin focused on gang membership rising to slightly exceed the number of police officers.
Even after an outcry from senior government ministers and critics excoriating the apparent bias, 1News only pretended to care. It produced a follow-up story that manipulated the axes of the graph so that the fall-off in victims of violent crime looked less dramatic under the Coalition government than it had been in reality.
The apparent attempt to deny Luxon’s government publicity for its wins in an election year is so brazen it beggars belief. And the media’s enthusiasm for seizing on his fumbled answer about the Iran conflict and a poor result in one Taxpayers’ Union-Curia poll as a harbinger of doom for National at November’s election has also seemed overcooked.
Last week, 1News’ political editor, Maiki Sherman, gave a masterclass in disingenuousness. She said the Curia poll result of 28.4 per cent was “damaging” but claimed, “We are waiting to see the trend… to see if National consistently appears in the 20s when it comes to those poll results.”
Of course, few will believe the media is “waiting” to see a trend develop; rather, many will see journalists as having seized on one poll in the hope of creating a continuing trend — downwards. As David Seymour put it: “The media are doing their best to manufacture a crisis for Chris Luxon.”
The hits keep coming. Stuff, for instance, reported comments by the Samoan Prime Minister that before Luxon went to Samoa this weekend he had asked for a matai (chiefly) honour to be bestowed on him.
Luxon’s office, which denied the claim, was not contacted until after the story had been published. The original allegation has turned out to be untrue but Stuff’s correction has not prevented the damaging assertion from circulating widely, completely undermining any positive publicity Luxon might expect to have received from his visit.
Unfortunately, journalists seeking the Prime Minister’s scalp have made a major misstep. It is a fundamental rule in fomenting a leadership coup that there needs to be someone in the party who is jockeying to take over and has enough support — both within the caucus and among voters — for it to have any chance of success. Luxon’s tormentors have so far failed to flush out a successor from within National’s ranks, which means their campaign is already fizzling out.
And no doubt to their surprise, Luxon has remained calm under the onslaught of critical coverage, including ignoring a posse of reporters hurrying to keep up with him as he strode through Wellington Airport while they belligerently demanded to know whether he had considered resigning.
His staunchness seems to have disconcerted his critics — not least a columnist in The Post who described his attitude as “cocksureness”. In fact, Luxon’s composure under pressure will be seen by some voters as an admirable steeliness, and an attractive attribute in a Prime Minister.
The NZ Herald’s editorial writers also seemed chagrined by Luxon’s survival, warning last week that although he had “weathered the weekend storm” he “faces many more polls before November”. To many readers it would have sounded like: “Don’t worry — there will be plenty more chances to bayonet the Prime Minister before November.”
The editorial came after Herald columnists had indulged in a paroxysm of hyperbole in the days after Luxon had suggested “any action” to stop Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon would be a “good thing” and then felt obliged to make a correction.
One senior commentator compared Luxon to former Broadcasting minister Clare Curran fumbling an answer in Parliament — as if a Prime Minister who makes the occasional faux pas is as disposable as a junior minister outside Cabinet.
Another presented the preposterous claim that Luxon’s awkward assessment of the Iran conflict made him a threat to national security.
The newspaper’s political editor even compared the Prime Minister’s communication skills unfavourably with Jacinda Ardern’s abilities, describing her as “famously a very good communicator of difficult issues”.
Why the media continues to promote this extravagant myth remains baffling. Ardern was one of the silliest prime ministers New Zealand has had. She couldn’t articulate the articles of the Treaty when asked at Waitangi in 2019; couldn’t understand the difference between consensus and majority rule in a democracy; confused GDP with the Crown’s financial statements; and she routinely dismissed difficult questions in Parliament with “I reject the premise of that question.”
She was also completely out of her depth in defining hate speech despite having campaigned in 2020 to include religion as a protected category in law. Under pressure, she resorted to the asinine “You know it when you see it.”
She was mocked by The Australian’s foreign editor, Greg Sheridan, as being “as silly as a two-bob watch” when she claimed China’s push for hegemony in the Pacific shouldn’t be seen as a clash between “authoritarianism and democracy”.
He said there is no political leader in the world who “talks so much nonsense so consistently” and “gets such lavish, wonderful praise for it”.
Luxon obliquely referred to Ardern in his post-Cabinet press conference: “We’ve had prime ministers in the past who are fantastic communicators who don’t deliver, and New Zealanders are over that, and they just want me to get on with the job and that’s what I'm doing.”
Some observers will think he was being far too generous in his assessment of her skills. And there is an obvious contrast with how journalists often passed off Ardern’s stumbles as minor gaffes rather than career-ending mistakes — and how much more harshly Luxon is treated.
Ardern’s inability in 2019 to summarise the articles of the Treaty, for instance, was excused by a 1News report as her being “caught off guard”. This despite the fact she emphasised in the same interview that her government was committed to fulfilling the principles of the Treaty “not just in legislation but in the policies and programmes that we roll out”.
The legacy media risk being badly burned in the public’s estimation if they are seen to be unfairly hostile to the Prime Minister. Surveys have shown they are already deeply distrusted by a majority of voters, not least because of perceptions of bias. And they are hardly going to win it back by a half-baked campaign to unseat him. As former National MP Simon O’Connor told Platform host Michael Laws, the attacks have been “media driven” and don’t “reflect political reality”.
In fact, they are inadvertently fuelling what might have been once dismissed by many as a wild conspiracy theory. That is, legacy media organisations want a Labour-led government to win the election because there’s a good chance it might again hand out millions in cash to them as the Ardern-Hipkins administration did.
Such speculation — no matter how flimsily based — is immensely damaging to what remains of their credibility and trustworthiness.
Labour, of course, has already proposed a “levy” on international organisations streaming content — such as Netflix, Disney+ and Amazon Prime Video — with the money being funnelled to the local TV and screen industry. Broadcasters and streaming platforms would benefit.
And mainstream media can hardly claim to have the moral high ground. Their willingness to accept the $55 million offered by the Ardern-Hipkins government via the Public Interest Journalism Fund on the condition they presented the Treaty as a “partnership” — which was essential to Ardern’s push for co-governance — leaves them in a very weak position to dismiss such speculation as a fringe theory.
Last week, Nicola Willis told Newstalk ZB’s Heather du Plessis-Allan that media were “mischief-making” in trying to undermine Luxon’s leadership. And the radio host didn’t come off at all well in the comments on her programme’s Facebook page.
One commenter said: “There is a left-leaning agenda by the media at large. It has to do with funding from the left versus less funding from the right. It’s a disgrace across the board, and it has to stop!”
Some will say, of course, that the attacks on Luxon’s leadership are nothing more than an example of the media hunting as a pack. Most will go in for the kill if they smell even a trace of blood.
No matter how their motivation is explained, however, they are certainly doing their reputation a serious injury by recklessly boosting the widespread suspicion they are not the honest brokers of information they pretend to be.
Graham Adams is an Auckland-based freelance editor, journalist and columnist. This article was originally published by ThePlatform.kiwi and is published here with kind permission.
Even after an outcry from senior government ministers and critics excoriating the apparent bias, 1News only pretended to care. It produced a follow-up story that manipulated the axes of the graph so that the fall-off in victims of violent crime looked less dramatic under the Coalition government than it had been in reality.
The apparent attempt to deny Luxon’s government publicity for its wins in an election year is so brazen it beggars belief. And the media’s enthusiasm for seizing on his fumbled answer about the Iran conflict and a poor result in one Taxpayers’ Union-Curia poll as a harbinger of doom for National at November’s election has also seemed overcooked.
Last week, 1News’ political editor, Maiki Sherman, gave a masterclass in disingenuousness. She said the Curia poll result of 28.4 per cent was “damaging” but claimed, “We are waiting to see the trend… to see if National consistently appears in the 20s when it comes to those poll results.”
Of course, few will believe the media is “waiting” to see a trend develop; rather, many will see journalists as having seized on one poll in the hope of creating a continuing trend — downwards. As David Seymour put it: “The media are doing their best to manufacture a crisis for Chris Luxon.”
The hits keep coming. Stuff, for instance, reported comments by the Samoan Prime Minister that before Luxon went to Samoa this weekend he had asked for a matai (chiefly) honour to be bestowed on him.
Luxon’s office, which denied the claim, was not contacted until after the story had been published. The original allegation has turned out to be untrue but Stuff’s correction has not prevented the damaging assertion from circulating widely, completely undermining any positive publicity Luxon might expect to have received from his visit.
Unfortunately, journalists seeking the Prime Minister’s scalp have made a major misstep. It is a fundamental rule in fomenting a leadership coup that there needs to be someone in the party who is jockeying to take over and has enough support — both within the caucus and among voters — for it to have any chance of success. Luxon’s tormentors have so far failed to flush out a successor from within National’s ranks, which means their campaign is already fizzling out.
And no doubt to their surprise, Luxon has remained calm under the onslaught of critical coverage, including ignoring a posse of reporters hurrying to keep up with him as he strode through Wellington Airport while they belligerently demanded to know whether he had considered resigning.
His staunchness seems to have disconcerted his critics — not least a columnist in The Post who described his attitude as “cocksureness”. In fact, Luxon’s composure under pressure will be seen by some voters as an admirable steeliness, and an attractive attribute in a Prime Minister.
The NZ Herald’s editorial writers also seemed chagrined by Luxon’s survival, warning last week that although he had “weathered the weekend storm” he “faces many more polls before November”. To many readers it would have sounded like: “Don’t worry — there will be plenty more chances to bayonet the Prime Minister before November.”
The editorial came after Herald columnists had indulged in a paroxysm of hyperbole in the days after Luxon had suggested “any action” to stop Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon would be a “good thing” and then felt obliged to make a correction.
One senior commentator compared Luxon to former Broadcasting minister Clare Curran fumbling an answer in Parliament — as if a Prime Minister who makes the occasional faux pas is as disposable as a junior minister outside Cabinet.
Another presented the preposterous claim that Luxon’s awkward assessment of the Iran conflict made him a threat to national security.
The newspaper’s political editor even compared the Prime Minister’s communication skills unfavourably with Jacinda Ardern’s abilities, describing her as “famously a very good communicator of difficult issues”.
Why the media continues to promote this extravagant myth remains baffling. Ardern was one of the silliest prime ministers New Zealand has had. She couldn’t articulate the articles of the Treaty when asked at Waitangi in 2019; couldn’t understand the difference between consensus and majority rule in a democracy; confused GDP with the Crown’s financial statements; and she routinely dismissed difficult questions in Parliament with “I reject the premise of that question.”
She was also completely out of her depth in defining hate speech despite having campaigned in 2020 to include religion as a protected category in law. Under pressure, she resorted to the asinine “You know it when you see it.”
She was mocked by The Australian’s foreign editor, Greg Sheridan, as being “as silly as a two-bob watch” when she claimed China’s push for hegemony in the Pacific shouldn’t be seen as a clash between “authoritarianism and democracy”.
He said there is no political leader in the world who “talks so much nonsense so consistently” and “gets such lavish, wonderful praise for it”.
Luxon obliquely referred to Ardern in his post-Cabinet press conference: “We’ve had prime ministers in the past who are fantastic communicators who don’t deliver, and New Zealanders are over that, and they just want me to get on with the job and that’s what I'm doing.”
Some observers will think he was being far too generous in his assessment of her skills. And there is an obvious contrast with how journalists often passed off Ardern’s stumbles as minor gaffes rather than career-ending mistakes — and how much more harshly Luxon is treated.
Ardern’s inability in 2019 to summarise the articles of the Treaty, for instance, was excused by a 1News report as her being “caught off guard”. This despite the fact she emphasised in the same interview that her government was committed to fulfilling the principles of the Treaty “not just in legislation but in the policies and programmes that we roll out”.
The legacy media risk being badly burned in the public’s estimation if they are seen to be unfairly hostile to the Prime Minister. Surveys have shown they are already deeply distrusted by a majority of voters, not least because of perceptions of bias. And they are hardly going to win it back by a half-baked campaign to unseat him. As former National MP Simon O’Connor told Platform host Michael Laws, the attacks have been “media driven” and don’t “reflect political reality”.
In fact, they are inadvertently fuelling what might have been once dismissed by many as a wild conspiracy theory. That is, legacy media organisations want a Labour-led government to win the election because there’s a good chance it might again hand out millions in cash to them as the Ardern-Hipkins administration did.
Such speculation — no matter how flimsily based — is immensely damaging to what remains of their credibility and trustworthiness.
Labour, of course, has already proposed a “levy” on international organisations streaming content — such as Netflix, Disney+ and Amazon Prime Video — with the money being funnelled to the local TV and screen industry. Broadcasters and streaming platforms would benefit.
And mainstream media can hardly claim to have the moral high ground. Their willingness to accept the $55 million offered by the Ardern-Hipkins government via the Public Interest Journalism Fund on the condition they presented the Treaty as a “partnership” — which was essential to Ardern’s push for co-governance — leaves them in a very weak position to dismiss such speculation as a fringe theory.
Last week, Nicola Willis told Newstalk ZB’s Heather du Plessis-Allan that media were “mischief-making” in trying to undermine Luxon’s leadership. And the radio host didn’t come off at all well in the comments on her programme’s Facebook page.
One commenter said: “There is a left-leaning agenda by the media at large. It has to do with funding from the left versus less funding from the right. It’s a disgrace across the board, and it has to stop!”
Some will say, of course, that the attacks on Luxon’s leadership are nothing more than an example of the media hunting as a pack. Most will go in for the kill if they smell even a trace of blood.
No matter how their motivation is explained, however, they are certainly doing their reputation a serious injury by recklessly boosting the widespread suspicion they are not the honest brokers of information they pretend to be.
Graham Adams is an Auckland-based freelance editor, journalist and columnist. This article was originally published by ThePlatform.kiwi and is published here with kind permission.
10 comments:
Back in the day, we called this “holding politicians to account”. I dunno who this guy is, but he seems confused about that. Don’t waste time sticking up for politicians mate, it looks weak.
"Back in the day we called this holding politicians to account"
I don't seem to remember them holding Jacinda to account, for anything, ever.
Couldn't agree more anon@7.59 .You don't appear to have any idea how crap NZ media is however. Our Journalists are generally poorly read and racist and all worship at the altar of History in NZ began in 1840. While I think Luxon's ignorance over the Iran war is inexcusable and indicative of his arrogance and inability to take advice from those less ignorant of world affairs criticism of NZ media needs to be forthcoming and relentless at all times . A profession happy to be paid by government to lie is not deserving of anything but contempt.
Good article Graham, we don't hate the media enough. I was shown a clip of 1news Benedict Collins gently asking question of Hipkins about his ex wife's comments.
Talk about soft and sympathetic, if it was Seymour or Luxon being asked then the gloves would be off.
Even then Hipkins still started blubbering.
Glad I dont watch that stuff usually, way too biased towards the "left"
Anaru
Anon 7.59 He’s not sticking up for politicians. He’s illustrating the way the media has manipulated the narrative and suggested that they may actually be the ones who need to be held accountable. The 4th Estate has historically been the pillar in a democracy that keeps the game honest, sure, by holding politicians accountable, but the current crop of media have shown themselves to be untrustworthy on numerous occasions. The public response is to tune out, which they are doing in significant numbers, all the while being expected to fund the charade along the way. The net result is that democracy gets weaker by the day.
Ardern refusing to articulate to Hosking and the world the Three Articles of the Treaty are an enduring memory.
From that moment, she refused to be interviewed by Hosking, or ever appear on his show again.
However, Ardern did go on to bribe the media with the PIJF which required them to perjure themselves by denying the fact that Maori in 1840 did not demand co-governance, and that the Treaty was about a Partnership.
Even now, while the PIJFunding is still being paid by Luxon to the media, Hosking, or any of the ZB hosts will not ask Luxon any questions regarding his refusal to address the Maorification of NZ.
NZME is complicit in the corruption of the values of proper journalism and democracy.
MfK
Since 'the Hipkin' saga, across several articles on this website, there have been the same approach to the 'failings of Hipkins' and the NZ MSM approach to fair & unbiased or biased reporting on same - you decide.
I go back to the days when the general election was due, and Labour put forward Andrew Little to be the "Leader" going into that election, Ardern as Hid deputy - then suddenly - Ardern becomes 'leader'.
Who when she became PM, had Helen Clarks' former Chief of Staff, become Ardern's Chief of Staff - an interesting action & why ?
Little was interviewed by Jack Tame and his comments at the time - "I am going to be replaced" was telling.
Many a time I have asked - "who in the background decided Little was not wanted (probably because he could not be manipulated) and that Ardern - could, thus the promotion.
If anyone had followed the 9 years of the Key Govt, and the sittings within the House you would have seen just how 'ineffective' Ardern was a List MP, a position arranged for her by Helen Clark.
I would be interested to know, what Ardern did to promote Labour across those years.
Go back and re-read Graham Adams comments -
[quote] - " The newspaper’s political editor even compared the Prime Minister’s communication skills unfavourably with Jacinda Ardern’s abilities, "- [end quote]
and then review any Media presentation she made up till she 'resigned' (or was pushed).
Who 'stage managed her ' across that time and who was actually behind the PJIF - which was a definitive move to engage the NZMSM - by cash - to become the 'source of truth' for Labour - and still is.
There is an article within the Breaking Views domain, the Author relates to the Russian Media group Pravda (Truth) - a Moscow based paper that prints exactly what the Kremlin wants placed in front of the Russian People, izvestia news is the other paper (Stuff & NZ Herald) Russian TV (RNZ/TVNZ).
I believe that the NZ PIJF was not - not, a thought by Ardern, but from "people within the shadows", and Ardern was told and had to comply - no doubt with the notion - "We are the source of all truth"
This article is interesting, I suggest Graham you "keep your nose to the grind stone" for more in depth matters of interest on the subject NZ MSM and their openly biased approach to the current Govt.
If Chipster gains the "seat" on the 9th Floor, me thinks that "those same, silent, shadows behind the silk screens (during Ardern's time) will re-appear to ensure Chipster follows "orders" on what you will do, not what you think you should do.
Isn’t Luxon doing great can’t we just give him credit for 10-15 year record unemployment, 13 year record business failures, cost of living crisis, record beneficiaries, surging homelessness, and ~3% of Kiwi citizens leaving shores in just 2 years.
Media is rigged against him, the man is doing great things.
Anon @ 11.58pm: I suggest you go back to school and take economics classes. All of the things you blame on Luxon are hangovers from the previous Labour government and its profligate spending under the guise of the Covid 'emergency.' Fiscal reforms take years to filter through the economy, not days, weeks, or even months, so what you're seeing now is the natural working out of Labour's fiscal destruction. Likewise, the benefits of National's (admittedly slow) economic reforms will likely not be felt until well after the 2026 election.
The previous Labour government left the incoming coalition a fiscal 'time bomb' in the form of structural deficits. Not only will they require some very hard (and painful for some) choices to ultimately be addressed, which will probably be political suicide for whichever government is in power at the time, but they have left Nicola Willis absolutely zero 'wriggle room' to deal with the impacts of the current fuel crisis and coming fertiliser crisis.
It just goes to show what a toothless dog the Public Finance Act is, as its fiscal responsibility provisions are utterly unenforceable.
Anon 1123: this sounds interesting but I still need to wrap my head around it. How far does the hangover extend? Does it cover violent crime statistics, hospital wait times, and inflation rates? How long until National starts providing outcomes for New Zealand- is it only a year away or is it as far as another one or two terms?
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