- Ele Ludemann writes –
Winston Peters reckons media outlets were bribed by the $55 million Public Interest Journalism Fund.
He is not the first to make such an accusation.
Last year, the Platform outlined conditions media signed up to in return for funds from the PJIF:
. . . That is essentially how the Public Interest Journalism Fund is set up – like a loan. Not only do applicants have to thoroughly explain how they will adhere to the particular co-governance model of understanding the Treaty in order to get the funding in the first place, they have to agree that should they deviate from presenting this perspective NZ On Air can say that they have defaulted on the agreement and demand the funding be repaid…
What are the odds that a funding application that included a ‘Te Tiriti response’ that disputed modern ideas of co-governance – even criticised it – would get funded? Slim to none would be my expectation.
Instead, Kiwis wanting to produce and create their content will need to leaf through the provided Framework, tick the boxes, and fall in line. That means, among other things, promoting ideas laid out in He Puapua, agreeing that due to colonialism we live in a society that perpetuates racism, supporting a vision for constitutional reform of New Zealand, and restructuring of “non-Government organisations…according to te Tiriti o Waitangi”. . .
If you click on the link above you’ll find the general terms of the agreement include default if you breach the agreement or if we reasonably believe you are likely to breach this agreement.
That would have made the media very, very cautious and very, very unlikely to cover dissenting views.
Karl du Fresne called it Project Pravda:
. . . The government has done its best to ensure continued media support for this ideological project by creating a $55 million slush fund supposedly created to support “public interest journalism” but available only to news organisations that commit themselves to the promotion of the so-called principles (never satisfactorily defined) of the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi.
What has been framed as an idealistic commitment to the survival of journalism is, in other words, a cynical and opportunistic bid for control over the news media at a time when the industry is floundering. This is a government so shameless, or perhaps so convinced of its own untouchability, that it’s brazenly buying the media’s compliance. . .
Was the PJIF bribery?
Definitions of bribe include:
dishonestly persuade (someone) to act in one’s favour by a gift of money or other inducement; to try to make someone do something for you, often something dishonest, by giving them money, gifts, or something else that they want; and to give money or a favour in order to influence the judgment or conduct of a person in a position of trust.
It’s going too far to say there was dishonesty but the fund required the media to adhere to the previous government’s Treaty-centric views and influenced the way Māori issues were covered.
Ben Espiner shows it wasn’t just $55 million.
. . . In 2022 TVNZ and Stuff accepted $500,000 between them from the Government in exchange for a number of programming and print deals, including an hour long 1news special on climate change, five news articles on 1news.co.nz, a selection of interviews with climate experts on Breakfast TV and a 7 Sharp interview with a government official.
All of these were presented as news content, none of them were adequately marked as government advertising. To quote broadcaster Mike Hosking at the time ‘if that isn’t media corruption, I don’t know what is’. The story received almost no coverage other than this comment. . .
On top of that there was a lot of advertising paid for with public money and a friend who worked in the media was told to moderate criticism of the government for fear the outlet would lose these ads and the income that came with them.
It’s no coincidence that trust in the media has declined:
The AUT research centre for Journalism, Media and Democracy (JMAD) has published its fourth Trust in News in Aotearoa New Zealand report, authored by Dr Merja Myllylahti and Dr Greg Treadwell. The 2023 report finds that general trust in the news and news brands is continuing to erode.
In 2023, general trust in news declined from 45% to 42%, continuing a downward trend that was already evident in 2020 when the survey was first conducted. . .
In 2023, all the major New Zealand news brands suffered a considerable decline in trust. Trust in RNZ fell 14.5%, Whakaata Māori 14.3% and Newstalk ZB 14%.Smaller brands such as interest.co.nz, BusinessDesk and Crux were less impacted. . .
The media’s hysterical outrage in response to Peters will have done nothing to improve that.
At least one outlet said his criticism had distracted attention from the Prime Minister, failing to see the irony that it was the media’s response to the criticism that created the distraction.
Some went on to criticise the PM for not hauling Peters into line in a manner not dissimilar from children running to parents to get them to discipline a sibling.
The PM isn’t Peters’ parent and his response was refreshingly measured:
. . . Luxon said, “it’s not the way I would describe it, but I actually also don’t support the fund either”.
“Many New Zealanders, they don’t think it was a good idea … and I will be one of those people that didn’t think it was a good idea.
“It actually leads to perceptions of bias, rightly or wrongly, I just say to you, that’s the perception whether that’s real or not, doesn’t really matter. That’s what the perception creates.” . .
The response of the media to the accusations which showed no self-awareness reinforced perceptions of bias, perceptions bolstered by a survey of journalists:
. . . Fortunately, the Worlds of Journalism Study in late 2022 has now provided some useful data through their survey of working journalists.
The study found a massive 81% of NZ journalists classified their political views as left of centre and only 15% as right of centre. So rather than have a 1:1 ratio of left-leaning journalists to right-leaning journalists, you have a 5:1 ratio.
This is in stark contrast to the New Zealand population. The 2020 election survey by Auckland University found 28% of respondents identified as left of centre and 43% as right of centre. So journalists are very unrepresentative of New Zealand in terms of political views.
New Zealand journalists were also far more likely to hold extreme left views. 20% of journalists said their political views are hard or extreme left, compared to 6% of adults. On the other side of the spectrum, only 1% said their political views are hard or extreme right compared to 10% of the adult population. . .
That’s more journalists on the far left than the total who regard themselves as right of centre which explains the government war on the new government:
We are in an extraordinary situation where the mainstream media are openly at war with an elected government. This has never happened before in my lifetime, and to my knowledge never in New Zealand history.
Having adopted a nauseatingly sycophantic approach to the former government, consistently ignoring issues that showed it in a bad light and subjecting it to only the gentlest scrutiny while mercilessly savaging the opposition, the media are now in full-on attack mode.
The level of hostility toward the Luxon-led government is striking. All pretence of balance and neutrality has been abandoned.
The hostility isn’t universal but it’s vehement.
The message is clear. The mainstream media are sulking because they think the voters elected the wrong government. They are angry and indignant that despite all their efforts, New Zealand swung right on October 14.
They are wilfully tone-deaf to the public mood because they think they know better. It means nothing to them that the voters had had enough of Labour’s ideological excesses. At best, the high priests of the media (or should I say high priestesses, since the worst offenders are female) are indifferent to democracy; at worst, they resent it because it gives power to the hoi-polloi – the deplorables, to use Hillary Clinton’s word. . .
Perhaps it would help if the press gallery got out of Wellington, which opted for red and green at the election in sharp contrast to the blue wave that swept the country, they might understand that there are other views than theirs and then they might also understand why voters wanted change.
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This article by Ele Ludemann was first published on Homepaddock.
Point of Order 