IS THIS WHAT PASSES FOR POLITICAL JOURNALISM NOW? To breathlessly inform the world that David Cunliffe is no more immune to errors of judgement than any other human-being? Is the standard against which our politicians are now to be measured nothing short of perfection? Because if it is, then none of them can ever be expected to measure-up.
We are told that “to err is human”, which is to say “to be human is to err”. So, yes, Cunliffe erred in not making sure that someone had measured the rhetoric of his State of the Nation speech against the detail of the policy it was promoting before he stepped onto the stage at Kelston Girls College.
In saying that, however, I am conscious of the additional burden I am heaping upon a person already weighed down with crushing responsibilities. Surely, when the Leader of the Opposition is handed the final draft of an important speech he has a right to expect that it is ready for delivery: checked and double-checked by competent people hired to do exactly that?
In any case, Cunliffe’s error in not accurately setting forth the details of Labour’s “Best Start” policy would only have been an important omission had the package distributed to the news media not contained all the relevant – and accurate – details.
And this, surely, is the point? A political journalist’s job is not to critique the performance of a politician as if he were an actor. Yes, both professions involve standing on a stage. The difference between them is that the actor has a script in which all the words and actions of the other actors on the stage are known in advance – and the politician doesn’t. Recognising this, the responsible political journalist pays much less attention to the style of politics than they do to the substance.
How will this policy affect the ordinary voter? Is a fair question. Why didn’t you include every single detail of the policy in your 40-minute speech? Isn’t.
But, surely, it was perfectly in order for political journalists to criticise Cunliffe for lambasting Key for living in a “leafy suburb” and being “out of touch” with ordinary New Zealanders? Shouldn’t a man who lives in a glasshouse valued at $2.5 million be a little more wary about throwing stones?
Well, yes, of course he should. Cunliffe definitely erred in not mentally running through the ways his words might be turned against him by a Press Gallery addicted to “Gotcha!” journalism. But, once again, hasn’t the Leader of the Labour Party the right to expect political journalists to understand the meaning of “representation”.
A Press Gallery that possessed even a modicum of good-will would have given Cunliffe the latitude to speak out on behalf of those his party was formed to serve –the poor, the exploited and all other marginalised New Zealanders. Viewed from that perspective, is it not a reasonable contention that a person with $55 million in the bank, a $10 million mansion in Parnell, a luxury holiday home in Omaha and a spacious apartment in Hawaii might strain to fully comprehend the day-to-day struggles of a solo mother in Mangere? Does John Key really come across as a man who is constantly allowing the hardships experienced by his widowed mother to shape the social policies of his party?
What exactly is the Press Gallery saying as it slams Cunliffe for hypocrisy? That well-educated professionals should not be permitted to lead the Labour Party? That Labour politicians married to highly successful professionals should, in the name of “authenticity”, persuade their spouses and children to live in a State House in the poorest suburb of their electorate? Does the fact that every weekend, in their electorate offices, MPs from every party in Parliament are brought face-to-face with the tragic realities of life on the margins of society, really count for so little?
People on the left are fond of saying that Norman Kirk was Labour’s last working-class prime minister, and that its only since “middle-class professionals” took over the party that it has gone to the dogs. But, as is so often the case with “people on the left”, this is quite wrong. Labour’s last working-class PM was Mike Moore. This hard-line neoliberal (and founding member of the infamous “fish-and-chip brigade” that toppled Bill Rowling) ruthlessly exploited his humble origins not on behalf of the dispossessed but in order to wrong-foot and humiliate the middle-class opponents of Rogernomics.
If an American aristocrat like Franklin Delano Roosevelt could bring in the New Deal and castigate the “economic royalists” of his own class who stood in its way, then certainly David Cunliffe is entitled to draw attention to the experiential deficits of millionaire currency traders living in the leafy suburbs? (And am I the only one who has noted the similarities between Anne Tolley’s and Judith Collins’ attack on Metiria Turei and the journalistic assault on Cunliffe’s “hypocrisy”.)
As for the latest revelations or error – those swirling around the trust mechanism chosen by Cunliffe’s campaign team to conceal the identities of those willing to donate money to his cause. Have our political journalists really forgotten the strength of the factional undercurrents that have ripped and bruised Labour MPs and activists since the right of Labour’s Caucus imposed David Shearer on a left-wing Labour Party in 2011? Can the Press Gallery really not imagine the reputational and career consequences for those who backed a losing Cunliffe campaign – and then had their names made public?
Because that is the real story of the Labour Party; the real cause of Cunliffe’s all-too-human errors. The story that reveals how the true dividing line of New Zealand politics doesn’t run between Labour and National, but between the right- and left-wing factions of the Labour Party itself. And in that bitter struggle over this country’s ideological direction, far too many of our political journalists remain aligned with those who will do whatever it takes to ensure that the next Labour Prime Minister is anybody but Cunliffe.
Good article. I’m sick of the penny-ante, muckraking media assaults on DC, whilst overlooking vast discrepancies in the activities of National/Act/etc. MPs and National party members. A very biased right-touting media!
That is a brilliant article.
What has gone wrong with our media…NZ media has become a disgraceful embarrassment.
Sadly, yes.
This is the news the corporates want you to know. And corporations own the news.
They want National to win to maintain their looting of this country.
They are ruthless.
Their paid puppets do what they are told or they’ll miss out on their nice lifestyles in Herne Bay and Remuera.
Well said, far more succinct than I did, and absolutely on the button.
He’s hardly the archetypal King Lear with a few less years than four score and upward, but yes I’d say he’s pushing ‘shift-alt-del’ uphill, trying to fight a Tory-centric media.
Desperate Dann, Gormless Gower and Garner are all lining up to put the jack-boot into Cunliffe. Fuelled by GCSB leaks and greased with whale-oil, it’s a slippery slope with shark-infested waters at the bottom of the slope for the left-wing.
Let’s hope that the voting public have decent memories, to remember the antics of the Tories. GST-rise, tax cuts for the rich, GCSB, Pike River, Solid Energy, Asset Sales, Novopay, Warnergate, Skycity, Kim Dotcom, Change the Flag, ‘willing-seller-willing-buyer’, ‘nothing to fear nothing’ to hide, supporting Assad by cancelling passports, inviting Royals in an election year, mincing down the stage and a 3-way handshake, being ignored at Mandela’s funeral and being a “derp”. Did I miss anything?
Sorry about being a little bit biased, I was a lawn-bowler in a previous life….and I just wanted to ‘balance the books’??
Geez .. just watched Seven Sharp (suppress your groans please, it had s.t. on Kiwisaver) .. I forgot about the dandy-of-the-right Mike Hosking… please add him to Paragraph 2 above ….
Haha agreed! I have had to stop watching 7 sharp. Watching that rat Hoskings, I find myself fighting the urge to send him a pack of laxatives. He’s Paul Henry without the people skills.
“That well-educated professionals should not be permitted to lead the Labour Party? That Labour politicians married to highly successful professionals should, in the name of “authenticity”, persuade their spouses and children to live in a State House in the poorest suburb of their electorate?”
If Tim Selwyn’s analysis of Lorde is anything to go by, yes.
https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2014/02/03/music-review-royal-treatment-lorderoyals/
Right on the money Chris. This is a media witch hunt against Cunliffe and it started almost day one with Hooton.
Smearing Cunliffe, who was brilliant on the Nation and National Radio within the last week. Great policies that never get questioned.
And now free ride Key who will be interviewed by Gower this Saturday. I wouldn’t be surprised if he asked Key what is favourite colour was, rather than any real questions.
Does anyone have any thoughts about what we can constructively do about this?
Apart from his favourite colours which will be black and blue, Gower’s Tory-centric questions might be… How did he feel when his son planked? Did he feel he connected with the electorate when he derped? If the flag was changed, what would Key prefer? Now that the Royals are coming in April, can Key ask Llorde for playing rights to Royal? What did Tony Abbot say about Kevin Rudd? What was Nelson Mandela’s funeral like?
Or he might ask:
If you cancel the passports of kiwis fighting against Assad’s regime, does that mean you support Assad’s government Mr Key?
Stephen Joyce promised to fix teacher’s salaries woes and Novopay … is performance pay the answer to Novopay?
Should politicians be performance paid?
Now that you have sold 1/2 of NZ’s assets, how does the country fund schools, health, infrastructure?
Why won’t he release the details of TPP?
How many state-owned schools are going to be sold off to American or ‘others’ as Charter Schools
Are Five-eyes partners spying on New Zealanders by 4-eyes proxy?
What will Kim Dotcom say at the trial that will embarrass him (Key)?
Will John Banks go to jail? Will Key be a visitor to Banks if he goes to jail?
What does Key think of Colin Craig’s homophobic misogyny?
What does Key think of Jamie Whyte’s tacit support of incest?
When Peter Dunne said he was a ‘willing-seller-meeting-a-willing-buyer’s (Key’s) needs’, is this corruption?
Should Dunne go to jail for political corruption?
What is the Overseas Investment covering up when refuses to release information?
Come to think of it, can readers here reply and ask some REAL questions for the PM for Paddy on Sunday? I know the GCSB will be trolling this site, maybe readers can suggest some other questions for the PM to pass on to Paddy.
Some likely answers to your questions:
“If you cancel the passports of kiwis fighting against Assad’s regime, does that mean you support Assad’s government?”
Of course not. The governments policy in relation to the situation in Syria is clear and has broad cross party support. The decision to cancel the passports was taken after the parents of the people involved requested support to keep their children safe.
“Stephen Joyce promised to fix teacher’s salaries woes and Novopay … is performance pay the answer to Novopay?”
Performance pay has nothing to do with Novopay.
“Should politicians be performance paid? ”
Politicians are already performance paid via the electoral cycle. If you don’t like their performance you have the opportunity to vote them out of office.
“Now that you have sold 1/2 of NZ’s assets, how does the country fund schools, health, infrastructure? ”
1/2 of NZ’s assets have not been sold. All the government has lost from the partial sell down in the State’s holding in some of the SOE’s it controlled is some of any future dividends from profits. However given the nature of the electricity markets this may be seriously compromised in future especially if the Labour Green energy policy is implemented. The majority of governmet revenue comes from taxes not profits from SOE’s anyway.
“Why won’t he release the details of TPP?”
As with other FTA the details of the negotiation process is kept confidential. NZers will get the opportunity to debate and discuss the completed agreement once it is signed and before it is becomes law. This was exactly the same for the China-NZ FTA that Labour signed when they were in office. This has led to a huge increase in trade between the two nations as the TPPA is also.
“How many state-owned schools are going to be sold off to American or ‘others’ as Charter Schools?”
None. Charter schools are about setting up new schools not changing the status of existing ones.
“Are Five-eyes partners spying on New Zealanders by 4-eyes proxy? ”
Not that I have any information on.
“What will Kim Dotcom say at the trial that will embarrass him (Key)? ”
Nothing.
“Will John Banks go to jail? ”
That is for the courts to decide. Regardless John Banks is leaving parliament and will no longer be needed by the Government
“Will Key be a visitor to Banks if he goes to jail?”
Unlikely.
“What does Key think of Colin Craig’s homophobic misogyny?”
Colin Craig needs to learn some political nous
“What does Key think of Jamie Whyte’s tacit support of incest?”
Mr Whyte did not support incest. He supported keeping the state out of the bedroom of consenting adults. However Mr Whyte needs to learn some political nous too.
“When Peter Dunne said he was a ‘willing-seller-meeting-a-willing-buyer’s (Key’s) needs’, is this corruption?”
What is this in relation to? Unless you have evidence of something untoward happening this is not a question that will be addressed.
“Should Dunne go to jail for political corruption?”
As above.
“What is the Overseas Investment covering up when refuses to release information?”
What did the details of the reply to the OIA actually state?
All questions easily battered away without political damage to National or Key.
Great answers Gosman to some fairly inane questions. This is the lefts problem, they focus on the small stuff. Witness Grant Robertson banging on in parliament about Collins milk plant visit for the last 2 question times. Doesn’t he realise, no one gives a toss about that.
As for journalists, everyone knows they go into a frenzy when they smell blood in the water. The answer is don’t give them anything to feed on.
Gosman you can’t possibly have a job, there’s not enough time in the day to do all this trolling and get an honest day’s work done.
DDOS strikes on media outlets.
Punishment beatings and kneecappings of corrupt journalists.
A new journalism charter that requires balance with the teeth to end the careers of crooked journalists and their editors.
We should also adopt Bainimarama’s rule: all media must be 100% locally owned, so that it is accountable to the community it serves.
Basically restrictions on freedom of expression. Why do I not find it surprising that a leftist would call for that?
“…all media must be 100% locally owned, so that it is accountable to the community it serves.”
How does the origin of the ownership effect community accountability?
The Right is breaking the rules of fair play – usually they do this with money. When the left redress the balance sometimes they are obliged to use pick handles.
Journalists who betray their communities ruin lives – the worst of them need to learn to fear the wrath of a betrayed constituency.
The ugliness of some of the left’s language is instructive as to their underlying motives. The idea that a journalist can ‘betray’ their community is on par with the worst excesses of Mao, Stalin, Castro, and Mugabe.
The concepts ‘community’ and ‘honesty’ are of course meaningless to neo-liberals.
In Gosman’s case they probably form part of a series of significant gaps in his vocabulary, including ‘truth’ ‘deodorant’ and ‘underwear’.
Chris, this is an interesting piece (and I am going to write my own tonight), but complaining about the media is the same as MPs complaining that MMP has added a rural hump into their once-safe electorates. So what.! The stories in the media piss me off as much as they do the next person, however, we know this is now the game. If you don’t like the heat then get out of the kitchen. We all know the media hunt as a pack, and if they smell blood they go hard. At some point they will turn but the fact is that Key, at this stage, isn’t providing any scraps. Remember the discipline under Helen..? Well, Key may be many many things, but he is not stupid. Watch the media rip Banks apart when he finally goes to trial, watch them go for Colin Craig when he queries evolution, and for Jamie Whyte when the next philosophical burb emerges from his gut… But there is one way to ensure they don’t go for you: don’t fuck up in a way that leaves blood. The State of the Nation speech was poor form; the Key call wasn’t great; the blind trust – Labour made a rod for their own back as far as I am concerned. Matt McC is now in charge, and if he lives up to his billing, then this sort of stuff up will be a thing of the past. But don’t blame the media. Look a little closer to home. Cunliffe will do better; he has 8 or so months to convince the public that he is capable of leading the country. In 8 months time, no one will remember what happened 8 months ago – unless this becomes a pattern. I believe David is smarter than that.
You make an interesting point Stuart. I can see you must need to be thick skinned in politics to survive.
However it begs the question as to whether this is either healthy or helpful. If we are going to vote for the politician who appears to make the least errors (or manages to deflect them) then this of course is highly problematic.
I would much prefer the media to report on policy. Preferably in depth.
I would like to see the current government’s performance outlined and critiqued. And the opposition’s policy’s treated the same way.
Competency is a factor in any policy implementation. It is one of the reasons why Hekia Parata is attacked by many people (including on the right). She is not seen as competent.
ANKER – while Stuart may have some points about the MSM, I suspect he is also not unhappy with the media. He may think, hey, once we are on the treasury benches again, we can use the convenient and easily manipulated, and otherwise biased media, for our own ends too.
The ones in Labour that are the old guard, too many of them worked happily with the MSM (while it already degenerated then), as it suited their interests, when they were in government.
NO, the MSM and their largely unacceptable bias must be taken serious, and they are a challenge, and they are not really doing their job anymore. So that must be spoken out, as silence is nothing much short of collaboration and complicity with the rotten system we have.
No Stuart…you are wrong.
Im currently overseas reading the local news media, I don’t enjoy travelling away from home but one of the things I enjoy, is reading good news papers. Just about every other country can produce good quality news media, that provides informative, relatively unbiased reporting, but not in New Zealand. Lets not excuse our hopeless media, they are useless and deserved to told. Your strategy isn’t going to get us anywhere.
A Labour government needs to strengthen the Public Service…that is obvious.
Hi Saarbo, i do agree but the problem with NZ is that our largest city only has one newspaper, the Herald, whereas overseas there are a number of options that one can choose to read: from the nasty tabloids to the serious newspapers. Wish we had choice.!
“Just about every other country can produce good quality news media, that provides informative, relatively unbiased reporting, ”
What country are you visiting? Media bias is alive and well in most countries. In the UK and the US key elements of the MSM are openly partisan towards the left or right. NZ is just following suit. Unfortunately.
Eight Months to convince the public? You’re dreaming of rainbows and unicorns there sunshine.
It’s only six months to a September election. Five months if it’s August.
The real story? The real story is that our political journalists are running around like the classic busy-body, goody-good kid waiting for someone to tittle tattle to the teacher about. They are the classic quartermaster requiring triple duplicates for permission to even walk into his store to get a bucket to fill with water to put out the fire that’s going to burn the camp down.
The new ways of operating in government, the new sleaze is being writ while people like Gower and Garner are fossicking and ferreting hoping that they can wheedle out that Cunliffe pulled the pigtails of the little blondie teacher’s pet when he was six.
Well said Stuart. Some of us know the newspapers have always sided with the Nats. I had that explained to me by my Grandad 40 years ago and Grandad is yet to be proved wrong. All of us who support left parties need to get out there and work to get the votes out and remind people of why they should vote left. Not everybody reads the papers or watches the TV “news” or if they do believe it.
If the so called abc club is at work here that would be very disappointing.But what is far far more disturbing and intolerable is the complete and utter abomination that our so called media has become.Who trains these people?Watch Sky Australias’ political reporter/interviewer David Speers to see what a true professional looks and sounds like .This isn’t some game.Bad reporting can have serious consequences for honest hard working citizens, and if this unfettered garbage is allowed to continue unchallenged then N.Z is on a one way fast track to becoming a banana republic and beyond.What the hell kind of country have we become when the likes of Gower,Garner,Dann,Hosking,Henry,Smith,and a whole bunch of others and their paymasters are allowed to pollute the minds of N.Z citizens with their own self- opinionated drivel.Poetic licence,alluding and supposition have no place when reporting.Pure fact is the only measure.An impartial,honest media is the bedrock of any democratic, decent society and N.Z is failing miserably!
Absolutley! They are all shallow intellectual lightweights not worthy of respect or credibility. They are also prone to mass hysteria, a good example being the America’s Cup or Lorde. They all get caught up and suddenly that’s all there is, they’re a bloody joke.
And isn’t Chris Trotter also part of that of often skewered political reporting in New Zealand? there is no such thing as “real” fair, unbiased and balanced journalism in this country, its incredibly biased and corrupt and just like Duncan Garner and Patrick Gower et al, out rolls the conveniently destabilizing “it has to be the so called ABC club” You dont think john key has people wading though tons of info trying to find “something” “anything” on David Cunliffe with which to weld a political weapon? Is this not election year? Can’t mistakes happen for no other reason that mistakes can and do happen? Unfortunately David Cunliffe doesn’t enjoy the ownership of the media like john key and his national party does, to white wash, sugar coat, down play and hide the phenomenal amount of mistakes and wrong doings that they do. Just because the media never report on any divisional factions going on within national doesn’t mean its not happening. Out of sight out of mind, right? And that’s the very reason why the media don’t, just to keep national’s illusion of unity intact.
There appears to be some journalists, (and I use that term very very lightly), out there who are like a Trojan horse and are more like nats in labour clothing.
The NZ Media is a joke with a capital J soon they will be reporting on Cunliffe’s sex life when he was at Kindergartenl.
What about Hone Key’s Blind Trusts he forgot about.
Lets look at the big picture, NZ Media specialise in Trivia & BS what happened to good quality political and economic journalism, it went out the window 30-40 years ago here in NZ.
We have a incompetent Right Wing Tory Media which specialises in BS, that is the long and the short of it.
Cunliffe has got to be extra, doubly careful about everything he does. Those who have the means to make him look incompetent will do so. They may be small things But they all add to influence a public perception linked to incompetence. The news media will report it as it happens. He needs to check, double check and triple check. Those who make Whaleoil look knowledgable can also make Cunliffe look dumb. He has to be 100 times more careful than JK. Otherwise so called ‘slip ups’ will continue to occur. Just saying.
The solution to this is quite obvious. Set up you own media organization and report on politics in a manner you deem more appropriate. Obviously this blog is a start in this direction so you can’t argue it is too difficult. I suspect though what you really want is for other people to be forced to provide you the resources to enable you to do this in other mediums such as television. I and many other would vigorously oppose that and use that as just another example of the left using the mechanisms of state power to indoctrinate people.
Private interests do not own the airwaves. It is right and proper for the state to impose restrictions on those who wish to use them, just as it is the right of any rental property owner to ban pets.
You are free to purchase a segment of the broadcast spectrum.
“It is right and proper for the state to impose restrictions on those who wish to use them, just as it is the right of any rental property owner to ban pets.”
These are two entirely different things. As a property owner I put restrictions on pets because of the damage they cause. State imposed restrictions are rightly limited to matters of what could be broadly described as ‘good taste’, around language, sexual content, etc. Sate imposed restrictions on editorial opinion and news reporting is ok for North Korea, but not in a free and democratic society.
Oh Gosman, your hypocrisy is over-whelmingly (and quite ridiculous).
Set up our our media orgisanisations, you suggest?
And yet, you (and IV) are posting under other blogposts fully supporting and justifying use of taxpayer’s money to subsidise privately-owned, profit-drive, Charter Schools.
So if the Left sets up it’s own media organisations, can we expect taxpayer subsidies as well? If not, why not?
I’m sure this media organization can apply for NZ on Air funding like any other.
What service will this left wing organization be providing to the government in return though? I don’t think indoctrination of the population in leftist ideas is something that would be generally seen as something that could be acceptable to be directly paid for by a government agency.
Tv3 in particular seems very right leaning. Perhaps the bailout of Mediaworks is a factor?
FM,
In yet another post Gosman is quite comfortable with the fact that U.S. taxpayers funded their government to set up the Internet so people like Bill Gates could make a fortune from it.
Just another example of socialist cost for capitalist gain.
Where did I ever state I was comfortable with that?
I didn’t say you “stated” that, but you certainly implied you were quite comfortable with Bill Gates earning a fortune from taxpayer funded research.
“And yet, you (and IV) are posting under other blogposts fully supporting and justifying use of taxpayer’s money to subsidise privately-owned, profit-drive, Charter Schools.”
Ah, no. I fully support using taxpayers money to contract educational services from Charter Schools, just as they do from private ECE centres. You’ve still never explained how these two differ, Frank.
And today the revelation that there was failure to declare an investment trust until Shearer was caught out.
I hear what you are saying but this man must have known he was never going to get a honeymoon nor a free ride from our media. National have a formidable backing of the media and right-wing commentators who on a daily basis trawl the reef trying to find dirt to smear Cunliffe with and frankly he is making it way too easy for them.
He is or at least was a threat to Key but the credit is rapidly running out so he has got to be far more researched and careful.
Making key-note speeches and getting your figures wrong is careless, looks misleading and blew the whole purpose of it. Trusts are what National Ministers and MP’s hide their property portfolios in and it looks dodgy. Forgetting you live one of the most expensive suburbs in NZ if not the most and then qualify the PM for being out of touch because he lives in probably the second most expensive suburb is plain stupid.
It’s all relatively small things but he has to be damn near perfect to rise above the media love affair with John Key who can hardly be described as squeaky clean himself.
And mores the pity because for NZ to get moving in the right direction National need to be removed. More of the same old same old from them over the next 4 years will be hard for any government to come back from.
And I neglected to mention reports that Labours ICT policy was leaked to a government minister via Cunliffes office.
The message is simple: “Good” people are successful and potentially rich, as a result of their efforts and hard work, and they have no reason not to be open about it.”
At the same time the message is: “Advocates and fighters for the underdog and downtrodden, cannot be rich and successful, as being rich and successful means, you should rather be looking after yourself and your interests, as that is what “good”, “honest” people do”.
So the twisted conclusion is, whoever may be comparatively well off and successful, has no place to fight for social justice, same as smartly dressed women MPs in opposition, wearing designer clothing, cannot be taken serious when talking about child poverty.
Those that dare defend the poor and disadvantaged, and who dare fight for their interests, they are also expected to be perfect, and without fault.
This is simply the result of decades of indoctrination with neoliberal, laissez faire, look after myself, thinking of me, me, me kind of thinking, that now makes it commonly “acceptable”, that the new class order is basically “normal” and “natural”.
The message is: Poor and underdog people do at best only deserve “pity”, and they need to be “guided” and told, that they better get a job, work hard, become successful, and follow the example of the top “leaders”, to better themselves.
The media is just delivering this kind of ideoligical stuff through their way of reporting, because they have become fully absorbed by the powers at play, and that pay by them. They are rather licking the bums of the asset owning and powerful elite and political players serving them, rather than dare bite the hand. Yes, media staff are mostly also the typical “modern” career minded graduate material, all out to get a few notches under the belt, to work their way up to “fame”, to become a “media personality”, who will end up with “respect” and salary offers, that ordinary journalists can only dream of.
That is where Pat Gower fits in, and he is part of a corrupted system, dominated by arrogant, divisive and mercenary hiring bosses, who do not give a crap about what New Zealand once may have stood for. Welcome to NZ Inc 2014, which is no different from the same places in the US or elsewhere, where it is money and profit that rules, and where humans are nothing but consumers and slaves, to keep the treadmill running, to overeat, and to sweat it off, while paying for the gym. The master has control, and dictates the journey’s path. Work, work, make your employer happy and better off, shut up otherwise, and spend your money to keep it all going. And once you die, make sure you saved enough for the lot on the graveyard and funeral, as otherwise you may in future not even get a WINZ paid funeral anymore.
Cunliffe is in their eyes dishonest, and on the wrong side of the fence of “losers”. So they take him down and out bit by bit, as the downtrodden deserve no one who is smart and capable, to lead them against the oppression by the ones on top.
The MSM are trying and will potentially succeed, in determining the election result again, as they did the last two times. They even resort to outright lies, as P. Gower has done. Too many in the MSM have a preference for the status quo, as they are themselves comparatively well off from middle class or upper middle class backgrounds. They have no shame now to bring in their own personal bias. That is what we are facing.
Expose “The Purple Corridor”
Blame the messenger why don’t you! Just because it’s not what you want to hear doesn’t mean it’s not true.
Cunliffe has been shown to be an appalling hypocrite on numerous occasions. He’s not even clever about it.
Dumb.
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