Nothing highlights the racist blindspot & vacant ignorance of NZ mainstream media quite like the Mike Bush drink driving story

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Police Commissioner Mike Bush was caught and punished for drink driving 34 years ago.

Who cares?

He’s human. He made a mistake 34 years ago. He has proven that he has learnt his lesson.

He has earned his redemption.

Move along.

He’s the Police Commissioner, not the bloody Pope.

I don’t care. This isn’t news, it’s nooze.

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Nooze to news is cheeze whiz is to camembert.

This came out online as ‘Breaking News’?

What on earth is ‘Breaking’ about a 34 year old drink driving charge?

Look, I’m all for putting the boot into the cops about their incredible expansion of surveillance, bugger all oversight to their powers and don’t start me on the poorly resourced Independent Police Conduct Authority, but shanking Mike Bush in the media as a hypocrite for leading an organisation that would now stop someone becoming a Police Officer for drink driving is the most petty of examinations.

What it does however show is the naked racist blindspot and vacant ignorance of the NZ mainstream media.

Mike Bush acknowledging a 34 year old drink driving charge has led news headlines across the media spectrum; newspaper, radio, TV and online.

Compare however the coverage by the mainstream media, when in 2015, the very same Mike Bush admits to Waatea Radio that the NZ Police are ‘unconsciously biased’ towards Maori. The enormity of that admission to 177 years of policing rewrites the entire fabric of our history and demands a Royal Commission of Inquiry into how that ‘unconscious bias’ has impacted Maori in NZ and how it explains the UN concerning level of Maori in our prison system.

So where was the follow on from the rest of the media?

Where was the shock, the horror, the demanding for something to be immediately done?

There was nowhere near the same media attention to that statement as a 34 year old drink driving charge.

Why?

Because admitting the Police force is biased against Maori is an aknowledgment of a racism that is the bed rock of the dominance of Pakeha in NZ society. No corporate mainstream media wants to focus on that. A 34 year old drink driving charge? Why that can generate petty hypocrisy narratives like a gossip circle. Easy to understand and easy to tut-tut over.

That’s why nothing highlights the racist blindspot & vacant ignorance of NZ mainstream media quite like the Mike Bush drink driving story.

15 COMMENTS

  1. When I heard this story on Radio NZ yesterday, those were pretty much my sentiments exactly, ‘Bomber’. Like, WTF?!?!

    I immediatly sent of a txt-messagafe to Radio NZ voicing my views that something that happened 34 years ago in a young man’s life is fairly irrelevent (in that it had been resolved).

    34 years?!

    Jeezus on a stick, this is how petty our “news services” can be.

    What next, do we trawl through the history of every single person in this country to dredge up past mistakes? Maybe set up some kind of Ministry of Revisioning Purity?

    But there’s another point to this.

    We expect that Police have a responsibility to our laws. The Nicky Hager case is an example of police abuse of powers. We don’t like that, and nor should we.

    But hang on. There’s another side to this coin. Policemen and women also should expect to enjoy the rights accorded by our laws. One of those is the Clean Slate Act.

    Bush’s crime was 34 years ago; there was no incarceration, he paid his fine, he meets the criteria of the Clean Slate Act.

    As such, he should expect to be protected by it, like any other citizen.

    Otherwise, if society (in this case, the blessed media) can begin making exceptions based on what it considers “newsworthy”, then we’re on a slippery slope to sacrificing our rights on the Alter of Commercial (and non-commercial, in Radio NZ’s case) Media, to boost ratings/advertising revenue.

    What Mike Bush did 34 years ago doesn’t interest me.

    What happened to Nicky Hager does.

    • Bernie Hobbs

      I agree – Martyn that cheap journalism is dirty savagery. Journalists never reveal their own failures and flaws. We should therefore never under any circumstances believe anything they write.

      Incidentally, but just as savagely LPrent chief of The Standard Sheet is allowing his chosen Authors to label Greg O’Connor as guilty of “Rape Culture” – what ever that is.

      Greg was a front line Policeman and a fine Police Union Leader. Does he deserve the sort of scurrilous treatment that The standard deals out ?

      Love to know your view.

  2. Your are so right.

    It’s not news it’s snooze.

    In fact it makes me feel better about Mike Bush, that the only thing MSM can dig up is a 34 year old drink driving charge! Quite frankly 34 years ago. it was part of NZ society to roll out of the pub and get behind the wheel! Now things have changed!

    Move on MSM. Move on.

    As for him admitting that police are biased about Maori, of course that is true and good on him for admitting it!

  3. Many people have skeletons in the cupboard from past stupidity, most learn from them and move on. What they do and think today is what matters. This episode again displays the fact that NZ media are going down the gurgler at a vast rate of knots.

  4. The irony is tarseal thick in this story. Had the Commissioner of Police been a cop who transgressed a decade later or now, his very illustrious career that genuinely had many highlights would have been dust.

    It goes to prove that despite his conviction and everything that goes with that, the fine and the disqualification from driving, (punishments x 3), the mindless arbitrary act like instant dismissal for not calculating your alcohol intake correctly to add yet another punishment and one to remind you for the rest of their natural life is wrong on all levels.

    Does he see it that way and the same for others?

  5. I agree Bomber, it is irrelevant nooze/snooze…

    It does, however, point to the fact that we no longer have any kind of fourth estate here in Godzone.

    Any good journalists we may have once had have all moved into the very lucrative PR business where they spin and foil any of the remaining journalists from hunting for facts.

    Of those remaining journalists, most of them get their news from Facebook or those very same ex-journo PR people.

    The tradition of the old world weary journo tracking down leads and stories is well and truly dead. Modern journos have simply no idea of how to hunt down and find a story and even their very definitions of what constitutes a story are severely corrupted.

    Maybe the fault lies with the modern training methods for journalists?

    • It would be great if older/ retired journalists could run workshops on the sorts of journalistic standards and practices that were the norm when they were beginning their career. This would be useful both for younger professional journalists who really care about being a good job, and also for unpaid people doing journalistic work (bloggers and other online commentators). Good too for aspiring media watchdog activists, who want to know more about the standards they can try to hold contemporary media organisations to (using Press Council complaints etc). Maybe this could be run as a series of online webinars, and any learning materials created for them could be uploaded to WikiEducator.org under a CreativeCommons license?

  6. BREAKING NEWS! BREAKING NEWS!

    Andrew Little was seen jay-walking across the main street of New Plymouth when he was seventeen!

    How can he now impose laws and regulations for the benefit of poor people when he obviously doesn’t respect the rules of society. One has to question his ability to be a leader!

    Do I have to add /sarc?

  7. Never met Mike Bush.

    Need only say this- the fact the Commisssioner is of Maori extraction says it all.
    Or rather his performance on the job has.

    It is called racism and after being in Australia for 2 decades I see full well nothing has changed back home, either in the fabric of pakeha society or the attitudes of the pakeha majority.

    Its the unspoken and inherent racism that quietly endures. Other than on a rugby field “they cannot be good enough”.

    All one can say is Commisssioner Bush is he must have been twice as good as the other candidates or was 3 furlongs ahead at the finish of the selection process.

    Thus it has always been regretably, this is just a new manifestation of entrenched racism that is manifest in the notion of Maori seats that still endures.
    That is the faint suggestion of Maori not quite being good enough.

    This”dog whistle” article ” is reprehensible and aptly demonstrates that inherently the reflexive ingrained attitudes of the pakeha mainstream to Maori are unaltered.

    That such bigotry persists is a blight on the country, and clearly one may now reasonably suggest in 2017 the prospects of any recognition, or remedy are negligible.

    New Zealand does not deserve Commisssioner Bush.

  8. This is what its all about. Bush only admitted his crime when he was backed into a corner and even then he tried to minimize matters by claiming that he was only just over the limit leaving out the fact that in 1983 the limit was twice that of today.

    “Stuff Circuit sought clarification, asking if the prosecutions disclosed included those by the Ministry of Transport’s (MOT) traffic safety service which had the power to enforce drink-driving laws before being merged with police in 1992.

    Superintendent Anna Jackson, National Manager of Police Professional Conduct, confirmed that the list did not include MOT prosecutions.

    When asked for the list to include MOT prosecutions, police changed their position and refused to disclose anything.

    Jackson told Stuff Circuit last year that police had a stringent recruiting process “that would exempt most people from joining the Police if they had prior convictions”.

    Bush’s conviction was not disclosed then either.

    When pressed again, Jackson cited the Clean Slate Act.

    Challenged about why the Clean Slate Act, which enables certain convictions older than seven years old to be hidden, was preventing her from saying if anyone had an MOT conviction when it had not prevented her from disclosing the 2000 conviction of the former superintendent, Jackson said it was a mistake.

    “In hindsight the Act should have applied as it applies to both Police and MOT convictions,” Jackson said.

    It was only when Stuff Circuit asked last week, for the record and in fairness to the Commissioner and Deputy Commissioners, if any of them had any convictions that Bush responded with his statement.”

    http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/89767953/police-commisioner-

  9. The real news is the admission of racism within the blue ranks. This make pakeha media uncomfortable to explore, as if they do follow up on it, it may expose their own racial biases and they just don’t want to go there. The more we discuss it and have meaningful dialogue the better.

  10. I don’t see the admission of unconscious bias as anything too startling or scandalous. The fact is *everyone* has unconscious biases, as any pschologist will tell you. The trick is to be aware of your own biases and not let them affect how you treat others, which of course is easier said than done.

  11. This is all part of the greater plan and agenda, the MSM are experts in distraction and so forth. Of course they love to present such petty stories, also to discredit individuals, they do it with all sorts of people, even with Mike Bush.

    They do often do it with lesser kinds of people, and the agenda is, to distract people from what REALLY matters.

    So I treated this with rather much indifference, such “news”, come on, who even has NOT had a drink driving conviction, that may be a minority of people even.

    Let us focus on what really matters, that is some cover ups we still get from our beloved heroes in blue uniform. Let us focus on false evidence given in certain court hearings, and leading to people being locked up for years, while being innocent.

    Come on, this is NOT a story, he even admits himself, he did wrong and learned from it, when do other coppers admit to their wrongdoings of a more serious kind?

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