Past the earthquake and shock at Trump’s win, last week another disturbing lapse into dirty politics was undertaken again by NZs largest newspaper, the NZ Herald.
The NZ Herald has a long history of supporting racist, sexist, anti worker hatred, (their first editorial was calling on white settlers to attack Maori), but it’s their more modern deviations into being a mouthpiece for dirty politics which concerns us all now.
Last week, the NZ Herald attempted to smear Labour Party candidate Michael Wood by using unsubstantiated claims that Wood’s had a physical altercation with the husband of a Nation al Party candidate. That entire event was proved to be utterly false when the video was released, yet as long time critic of the NZ Herald and our guest blogger, Neil Watts rightly points out, the NZ Herald should have known better…
The Fairfax-hosted debate took place on Wednesday night, and was reported by Fairfax to be a “tense and fiery affair”, notable for the loud protests directed at National Party candidate Parmjeet Parmar.
The Herald weren’t much interested in any of this, until Friday, when they published this one-sided slur of Labour’s Michael Wood. Of course, in the Herald’s report, there was nothing on the protests, and it was all about Mr Wood’s “man handling” and “threats” towards Mrs Parmar’s husband, Ravinder Parmar.
The room was full of senior journalists, but none from the Herald have made any attempt to present the facts as they occurred on the night, preferring instead to run with what might be considered the wilful defamation of the Labour candidate in a by-election.
Unfortunately for the Parmar’s, the National Party, and the New Zealand Herald, the whole incident was captured on film, and the footage emerging today clearly shows that this was a cynical indulgence in dirty politics, intended to harm the reputation of the Labour Party’s candidate.
…NZ Herald senior reporters KNEW that Woods hadn’t physically assaulted anyone, yet they remained silent as the story unfolded, which begs the question, are the NZ Herald once again as we get closer to the election, starting to use dirty politics again to bias the media coverage of Labour?
Remember the Donghua Liu Affair where the NZ Herald claimed Labour was given $100 000 for a bottle of wine that never existed?
Remember the NZ Herald demanding David Cunliffe resign over this $100 000 bottle of wine that never existed?
Remember when the NZ Herald enabled and empowered Cameron Slater to break numerous smears and hate in their paper?
Remember when the NZ Herald lied about Rachel Glucina being a reporter for them and published the identity of a young waitress who had the courage to out the Prime Minister for constantly touching her at work?
One of the reasons Trump won was he played to the deep disgust many feel towards the biased corporate media, it is a theme that progressives should ferociously promote in 2017. These corporate media elites need to be denigrated and reduced to the hollow hacks they are.
NZME, now owner of the NZ Herald, are interested only in selling their publications, truth is irrelevant, that is if they get away with ignoring or even distorting the facts.
Commercial media must always be treated with great caution, never forget the profit motive, and sensationalising events and incidents is part of their game.
Send them a letter to the editor, and publish the contents here, that may send home a message, for all to read.
Why expect anything other than propaganda and misrepresentation from the NZ Herald? After all, it’s not a newspaper: it is an integral component of the Matrix that keeps the populace uninformed/disinformed/misinformed.
‘NZs largest newspaper’
So I really, Martyn, can’t understand why you keep referring to NZH as being a newspaper when it is blatantly obvious that it’s not. Unless your commentary is sarcasm too subtle for me to pick up on.
Has anyone lodged a complaint with the Press Council?
Has anyone ever done so and got satisfaction? Guess who the Press Council are composed of.
Years ago, I used to work in hospitality. We provided guests with feedback forms, ostensibly in order to better refine our customer service. In reality, the completed forms were collected and placed in the staff cafeteria, where we’d all read them and have a jolly good laugh.
This is likely what happens when you complain to the Press Council.
Has anyone offered the view that the tape could have been doctored by Labour supporters to edit out the offending parts? Always two sides to a story, unless one of them is in the wrong.
No, only someone as silly as you. Editing is detectable.
In Vino you were too nice David See-More, his comment was not silly, his comment was stupid, ignorant and that of the usual tards who come on left wing sites to spreed half truth and lies.
The Herald cannot help itself, it’s the National Partys bitch.
Trevitt and Old Audrey, very critical of Nationals biggest threat, namely Labour, very microanalysing which proves as “journalists” they have the ability but are blinded by their crushes they have for the rich men and cannot recipricate such analysis on the glaring deficiencies National throw up. You would have thought doing the numbers on Nationals so called extra $300 million for social housing would have been as easy as shooting fish in a barrel to see the flaws in it, the fact it was a sneaky way to bail out Housing NZ who have essentially gone broke, but nothing but silence. Maybe they think it makes their jobs secure?
And Fran O’Sullivan seeing the virtues of Donald Trumps wall. It will good for business who get to construct it and will be a job creater. The world has gone raving mad! This is how the Nazi’s subtly became monsters, supported by the media and business alike who only have eyes for their ruling party.
The Herald is slowly dying and because of its lack of objectivity it won’t be missed.
And at least they have stopped annoying me to resubscribe, since I dumped them after the 100k bottle of wine smear on Cunliffe.
At least most people know not to trust the Herald any more. Readership down. Hope the advertisers realise not to bother, as who’s reading it the Fox news of NZ?
Historically, more journalists see things from a Left viewpoint than a Right. After all they are closer to the morass than most. One might have hoped that they would eventually rise up against this kind of partisan bs. We saw the same in the Sunday Star Times Editorial last weekend.
The problem is the weak state of print media, where jobs are always under the knife. It would be a brave reporter who would blow the whistle at risk to their own employment, against the array of entrenched political power. But listen, “journalists” it’s actually your job.
If you are too fearful, try a leak to someone braver.
Judging from the endless array of piffle on Breakfast, as well as the Govt-appointed head of TVNZ’s assertion that Public TV is focusing only on money (to argue against public service election broadcasting) television journalism seems a lost cause for the moment.
Leaving RNZ.
I wonder if they realise that the dissemination of honest reporting is now almost entirely over to them. No pressure.
Maybe they are beginning to realise it is time they took that challenge more seriously.
Maybe they will be prepared to shock the Vicar on The Panel.
Maybe they will make sure they do ask the hard questions on straight news shows or political shows. (There are plenty out there to ask the patsy ones).
Maybe they will call out Cabinet Ministers who do not front, rather than simply reporting it.
Maybe they will ensure that they are sufficiently well briefed before a potentially confrontational interview.
Maybe they will….maybe.
Good prod at the corrupt media Martyn as it is also just when the global corporate cabal media is being taken to task by the speaker of truth himself.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/edward-snowden-facebook-fake-news-claims-fusion-president-donald-trump-a7422641.html
Edward Snowden addresses Facebook fake news claims: ‘It’s a sad indictment of our democracy’
The exiled NSA whistleblower criticises the fact massive companies dominate and monopolise the sphere of social media and suggested it can have dangerous consequences
I don’t visit their website any more (haven’t purchased their awful print version either). Occasionally I give in to the temptation to follow a link from an article here, or at TS or NRT or something, but even then I try not to if enough of the content is quoted in the blogpost which cites it. No page impressions & ad revenue from me for their reactionary drivel.
Yes, CJ but the irony is that we actually need a newspaper of record. The blogisphere is no substitute. I would far rather have a Herald, a Press, a Dominion with a range of commentators and a relatively neutral editorial board wedded to a fact-based approach. An editorial group that can tell fair comment from partisan name calling and unfair attack-based opinion.
It seems even this low bar is beyond much of the print media at present.
Look at The Hill; The NYT; The Washington Post, interesting sites we have come to know through the US Election process. Newspaper websites don’t have to be pathetic, insular click-bait. They can and should link to other news sources and actually provide a good service. Heavens, even the Daily Blog occasionally publishes good commentary and when it does, this could usefully be referenced by both Stuff and the Herald, even linked to their on-line political or social front page.
Yeah, that’s going to happen.
Little choice here, Stuff even worse, I don’t even bother reading their slanted reporting. Herald I browse but can’t take it seriously until fact checking any political speak they write. Sad state of affairs. Campbell, RNZ, The Nation and Hui still on guard with with Aljazeera when the noise reaches offshore
I’m just trying to think of a story other than the ‘leaky building’ fiasco that the New Zealand Herald has broken in my liftime (late 50s, for the record). No, nothing springs to mind.
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