Howling at the Moon

• Karl du Fresne writes – 

There’s a crisis in the news media and the media are blaming it on everyone except themselves. Culpability is being deflected elsewhere – mainly to the hapless Minister of Communications, Melissa Lee, and the big social media platforms that are accused of hoovering up advertising revenue that would otherwise go to traditional mainstream media companies.

But while it has been clear for a long time that Lee is out of her depth, she’s not responsible for the media’s collapse and it’s not exactly clear what her media tormentors expect her to do about it. Bail it out with government money, presumably. But the proposition that the government should prop up news media that are openly hostile to it makes about as much sense as Israel providing arms and ammunition to Hamas. In any case, why should the long-suffering taxpayer be made to pay for the media’s manifest failings?

Latest on Dutta v du Fresne – the invitation to debate has yet to be accepted

Readers of this blog who are keen to learn when and where the Dutta v du Fresne debate takes place will be disappointed to learn there has been some ducking and maybe some diving.

We learn from du Fresne’s blog –

Professor Dutta ducks below the parapet

It’s now more than three weeks since I challenged Professor Mohan Dutta (above) of Massey University to a debate, and still there has been no response.

In the meantime, he has locked his Twitter account after I urged readers of this blog to check it out.

 Du Fresne has been inviting people to see Dutta’s tweets for themselves (he happens to regard them as “incendiary” among other things).

Update on Dutta and a steer to his tweets: he rails against racism but is bothered by the iniquity of “whiteness”

Almost two weeks after blogger Karl du Fresne invited Professor Mohan Dutta, of Massey University, to have a debate with him to determine which of the two was more accurate in his characterisation of the other, he has received no reply.

In an article today headed An update on the Dutta file, du Fresne records that Dutta says he is an agent of the hateful American Far-Right.  Du Fresne says Dutta is a bitter, angry, obsessive zealot peddling a toxic ideological line that’s openly hostile to the country he has chosen to live in.

In case Dutta didn’t see the blog post in which he issued the invitation to a debate, du Fresne says he repeated it in an email to him. He says he has had no response.

But while waiting to hear back from him, he had a look at Dutta’s Twitter account. He says he saw nothing there to contradict his opinion of him and urges people to check it out.

On one side, a Massey professor; on the other, a blogger – after slugging it out in print, the blogger suggests a debate

What must we do or say to be categorised as inhabitants of the Far Right? 

Nothing too extreme, if the categorising is done by Professor Mohan Dutta , Dean’s Chair Professor of Communication at Massey University and Director of the Center for Culture-Centered Approach to Research and Evaluation.  

Mind you, he might say the same about who determines when someone should be branded “Far Left”.   

Let’s see if he brings it up in the series of five articles he has launched

“… on the organised attack of the far right on communication and media studies pedagogy”.

In the first article  (Opinion: The far-right’s attack on communication and media studies), the professor showed he had been stung by a waspish critique of his academic profile by veteran journalist Karl du Fresne (first posted on du Fresne’s blog and then republished by The Platform). 

Dutta described the article as

“… a shabby hit piece, replete with its uninspiring tediousness, parroting the far-right conspiracy themes from the Infowars-Trump-Bannon universe, and demonstrative of the organised attack on critical literacy directed at silencing the questioning of entrenched forms of power in society.”

Mainstream media may be checking claims about the Mahuta family – or maybe they hope MPs will raise the matter in Parliament

The latest post by my friend and former colleague, Karl du Fresne, draws attention to the paucity of mainstream media coverage of questions raised about an array of posts filled by members of the Mahuta family and payments made to companies with which family members are associated.

The Platform – for example – recently reported:

More questions are raised after two payments come to light from Ministry for the Environment to companies owned by Nanaia Mahuta’s family members for their roles in expert group

In another article, The Platform said:

Co-governance roles filled by family members of Minister Mahuta amount to the whānau wielding extraordinary influence on the restructuring of New Zealand’s governance.

In response to questions put to her by The Platform, Mahuta’s office has denied she had any conflict of interest over the appointments of members of her family to government roles.

But where are the mainstream media headlines and reports on these matters? 

Brace yourself for the peddling of propaganda and try to relish the experience (because you have paid for it with your taxes)

We weren’t surprised, at Point of Order, to see the scant media attention paid to a statement issued yesterday by ACT leader David Seymour.  

Headed  Government’s questionable media funding, the statement notes how the Government

“… is extending its tentacles into nearly every area of media with an offer too good to refuse for each outlet, and it has rapidly reached absurdity with taxpayer money spent on journalism to check on Government expenditure of taxpayer money”.

The statement was triggered by the announcement of the first tranche of the government’s $55 million Public Interest Journalism Fund.

As RNZ’s Mediawatch reported,  Māori journalism projects and a new training initiative are the major beneficiaries of the first $10m, but some of the money goes to things already funded from the public purse.

Mediawatch further noted

“… this is the biggest single public investment in journalism for decades and takes the total annual spend on media to over $300m. (There’s another $20m up his sleeve if Cabinet thinks the media need that too.)  

“Media companies big and small, local and national, public and private alike can all apply to the fund – including those which have never had public money before.”

Oh – but let’s not forget the need for recipients of this lolly to push a highly political ideological barrow:

“Guidelines issued in April also said the fund ‘must actively promote the principles of Partnership, Participation and Active Protection under Te Tiriti o Waitangi’.” 

Oh, goody – a trough for journalists, but we wonder if those who gag on canards will be allowed near it

Latest from the Beehive

While one Minister was announcing a new trough, another was preparing an accounting for just over $1 billion in loans and grants slurped from the trough for which he is accountable.

Broadcasting and Media Minister Kris Faafoi launched a $55 million fund to support “public interest journalism”, with the noble aim of ensuring communities across the country are kept informed on issues that affect them and their communities.

We would like to think this fund will be applied to journalism which – for example – draws public attention to the data which exposes the canard used by the government to explain the introduction (and contemptible procedural urgency to hasten its enactment) of legislation which debases democracy in local authority electoral arrangements.  

As Karl du Fresne has written, this legislation 

” …  strips away the majority’s right to determine the form of local government representation, it provides Maori (or more correctly, part-Maori) candidates with a short cut to power by bypassing the need to win popular support, and it will result in the election of candidates who feel responsible only to constituents who claim Maori ancestry. In all these respects, it subverts democracy. 

“It also promises to solidify the Left’s grip on local government, since Maori candidates mostly lean left. If there were such a historical figure as Gerry Mander, he’d be quietly whistling with admiration. “