WaateaNews: Metiria Turei vs Jian Yang – Compare the media values at work

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There are times when the mainstream media coverage of two events manages to say more about the real bias at work within the media than the news worthiness of their focus.

Take the media feeding frenzy over Metiria’s brave admission that the welfare system in NZ is so broken and draconian that she was forced to cheat it to feed her daughter 25 years ago.

The mainstream media refused to focus on the wider issues of why our broken welfare system treats beneficiaries with such cruelty and spiteful contempt, instead they focused on attempting to trip and trap Metiria every day with Radio NZ and Newshub both crowing that they were the final bodyblow that ended Metiria’s political career.

Media tracked down flatmates, bitter family members with axe’s to grind and voting enrolment details of an electoral law that didn’t actually make what Metiria did illegal.

It was less journalism and more lynch mob.

Compare that laser like and constant attack on Metiria with the revelations that National Party MP Jian Yang could be a Chinese spy who taught at a Chinese spy school and did not declare his previous employment links with that Chinese spy school when he immigrated here.

He has since been stopped by the NZ Intelligence community from accessing any military secrets and he has been allegedly investigated by the Secret Intelligence Service.

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Where has the media reaction been? The story was first broken on Newsroom and picked up by Matt Nippert in the NZ Herald, but to date there has been more overseas media focusing on this in the New York Times, UK Guardian and Australian media than has actually appeared in this country!

How come a Maori solo mum who stole to feed her child a quarter of a century ago is a bigger story than a possible Chinese spy deeply embedded inside our own Government?

How is that possible and what does it actually say about the values of our mainstream media?

First published on Waatea News: 

23 COMMENTS

  1. “It was less journalism and more lynch mob.”

    It was, and is, that precisely.

    It was also a fantastic (missed) opportunity for Metiria Turei.

    I remember those days leading up to 1984 ( Oh, sweet irony i.e George Orwell) .
    I was this odd thing, I remember. I think it used to be called ‘ happy’.
    I was ‘happy’ in a loving, sexy relationship with a gorgeous woman. I was helping her renovate a house in Lyttelton, we had many interesting friends, the waterfront was not fenced off by razor wire, we never locked the front door because no one could find the key, power bills were non consequential, phone bills likewise, we had wonderful Alice in Videoland to supply our mind’s most inquiring needs and even the summers seemed warmer and longer.
    Then in came that vile little criminal called roger douglas and that was that.

    Shipley created hit squads and encouraged people to peer over their neighbours fences for weed and miscreants lingering longer than was allowed by a state system accelerating away from its civic duties faster than the blink of an eye at the key hole.

    Since then, I’ve been in awe of the bold and daring who steal our days on this earth for their dollar profits while making us, their victims feel the guilt for it.

    Metiria was a heartbeat away from galvanising those many who sob into their pillows before they get up into poverty in a rich and stunningly beautiful country.
    She nearly, so very nearly, started a revolution to rid ourselves of the scum who subjugate us.
    We have a beady eyed little freak show sneaking about in our parliament because a door was opened for the fucker.
    Metiria can still ask the many to help her find out who it was that let that particular rat in.

  2. The “mainstream” media in No Zealand is nothing more than a mouthpiece for the Chinese dictatorship and its treasonous allies.

  3. “How come a Maori solo mum who stole to feed her child a quarter of a century ago is a bigger story than a possible Chinese spy deeply embedded inside our own Government?

    Answer is simple Martyn,

    Someone is getting paid off in Government and the MSM to keep the spotlight off the chinese corruption now ocurring here-in New Zealand today.

    It is as simple as that.

  4. Because a poor young Maori single parent is much easier to attack. She had no protection. Metiria was vulnerable, as all struggling impoverished families are to accusations and finger pointing.

    Whereas the suspected Chinese spy, acting as a government MP is fully protected by Natz’s Steven Joyce, absolute controller of msm. A more open, focused media would be chasing this one to its dirty core to achieve a result, by acting as the proxy of the people!

    Also there’s the point, before Metiria was cruelly demonised by Natz’s bloody thirsty media hounds for revealing her past misdemeanour, the party was doing well, sitting comfortable on 15% I believe at the time. Obviously a threat to the position of the status quo. As we know now, Metiria was the backbone of the Greens, given the party’s drop at the election and Joyce, English, Bennett & Co wanted her gone and what better way than having media shred her to pieces, thereby influencing public opinion!

    Filth and squalor are the true purposes of National!

  5. Welcome to Corporate Fascist (Corporatism) NZ.
    We Hobbit sheeple are helpfully docile serfs at the periphery of two empires vying for control of our natural resources.
    Wake up Kiwis and vote before it’ll all be too late. National ARE NOT YOUR FRIENDS

  6. I like Chinese, I like Chinese, they come from a long way overseas, they’re wise and they’re witty and they’re ready to please.

  7. …with Radio NZ and Newshub both crowing that they were the final bodyblow that ended Metiria’s political career.

    Newshub, I can understand. The tabloid-style “journalism” and soft-core porn (http://www.newshub.co.nz/home/entertainment/2017/10/married-at-first-sight-nz-2017-aaron-speaks-out-about-confronting-episode.html) they broadcast illustrates the dumbing-down of commercial television.

    But I expected better of Radio NZ. To say I was disappointed in the panellists of the “Caucus” programme would be an understatement.

    • It’s possible if the junta is allowed to continue in its current form @Frank, you might have to get used to disappointment.
      Even if WP decides on gNat’s piss and ‘cronyists’, let’s hope resurrection of PSB are high on his agenda and bottom lines

  8. I doubt this has much to do with media ‘values’. It is the caution the MSM tends to display, when perhaps more serious matters are still in the course of developing. They may be making inquiries already, behind the scenes, and maybe keen on reporting on Jian Yang and his fate a bit later, once they have more information.

    It may also be the overly cautious approach the MSM take, when it involves a person of a certain ‘ethnic’ group, an immigrant minority group, particularly when it involves a person who immigrated from the second largest economy of the world, which is also a one party state, i.e. a kind of dictatorship, with much clout, and some significant economic influence on this place here, NZ.

    So they seem to be careful.

    With Metiria it was easier to report on matters, even hypothetical information, speculation and what you have. She is born and bred Kiwi, had been an MP and co-leader of the Greens for years, her party held up principles like honesty and accountability, so she was easy prey, the exposed ‘hypocrite’, so to say.

    Those are small NZ ‘values’, the silent majority’s ‘values’, that people are expected to be honest, diligent and law abiding.

    As they found fault with her, they destroyed her, like wild jackals hunting their victim. There was nothing much the MSM had to fear, as she was a local, a defence-less local, not an immigrant from Mainland China, with a checkered history, not with sensitivities that may also have diplomatic repercussions, affecting trade and profits of NZ business.

    • You’re like Linus, waiting for the Great Pumpkin to visit his, the most sincere pumpkin patch of all.

      Yes! They’ll report on him, when they have all the facts. We just have to be patient.

      Me, I admire the way they waited until they had all the facts when they reported on the $100,000 bottle of wine and the $15,000 book and the $50,000 dinner party donated by Donghua Liu, because gee, you gotta be careful and make sure you have all the facts before you start shouting about it, especially when it involves sensitive issues like immigrants with checkered histories.

      Cheer up though, Santa’s coming soon.

  9. As for why msm failed to devote as much energy to the Chinese spy (non-)scandal as they did to Ms Turei, well, on one issue Cameron Slater has them pegged perfectly when he refers to them as lazy.

    It’s apparently easier to push emotional buttons to vilify a woman (and it’s always easier if it’s a female – echoes of the “village harlot”) than focus of something that is far more newsworthy. Multiply that by a factor of ten or a hundred if it’s a lynch-mob mentality at work, drowning out lone, saner voices; publishing critical letters-to-the editor rather than any attempt at balancing – and the narrative is complete.

    On occassion when the victim is a male – and the story is pretty much the same, as evidenced by David Cunliffe’s demise in the Donghua Liu Affair over a non-existent “$100,000 bottle of wine”.

    As much as I despise Donald Trump’s behaviour and disagree with Winston Peters’ policies – both men have a point in their criticism of our hyper-commercialised, headline-driven, dumbed-down media.

    • Also spineless. Beneficiaries have no bottomless pits of money and legions of thugs to send over to silence the media. The NAT party has endless money and the might of potentially two militaries – one enormous and ruthless – to throw at the issue. The Valley series on Stuff proved that it can be done though.

    • I agree with you there Frank. There’s a gutless “group think “thing going on too. Nobody dares speak differently for fear the pack will turn and tear you to bits

    • Everything you’ve written, we felt the same way. The media pack-hunt that destroyed Metiria’s career was a shameful moment in the history of the Fourth Estate. The media is a powerful entity, and as the old saying goes, “Power corrupts…”

  10. It is called the ‘chilling effect’.

    It goes back a damned long way now, even in the early days of the Clark Labour government, police protected Chinese dignitaries, and blocked protesters from protesting:
    http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=13751

    http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/3825646/MPs-Tibet-protest-flag-removed

    http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/63363535/chinese-president-whisked-away-from-protesters

    With the dependence on trade with China, New Zealand’s governments have become rather careful with making any comments that may upset Mainland China.

    https://www.newsroom.co.nz/2017/07/07/37733/mbie-slaps-down-china-steel-dumping-complaint

    There are many examples of the NZ government backing off, whenever the Chinese government shows signs that it may retaliate on trade matters raised by businesses or individuals in NZ.

    And as the MSM is also aware of the importance of China to NZ Inc. they dare not upset the rulers in Beijing.

    John Key was told to tow the line also:
    http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/79028076/john-keys-china-trip-begins-with-warning-dont-mention-south-china-sea

    Draw your own conclusions, Metiria was a too trusting, easy going local, representing no business interests, no danger or risk, so she was easy to deal to, to destroy, and the MSM succeeded.

  11. Good Post…the mainstream media did not let up on Metiria….but they ignored almost totally a far more serious issue for New Zealand …its sovereignty…this is treasonous

    ….lets hope the new government gets to the bottom of this issue and the bias and failures of the New Zealand mainstream media

  12. The Big Revelation

    We will soon know if the man who has everything will give National the nod – and drown the majority of New Zealanders in their low wages, high rents, and slow burning desperation.

    Winston Peters’s famous smile is an “I am alright mate, get out of my road.”

    If Winston goes with National he will prove himself to be a Maori elitist. A rank Bastard, who puts himself first – and the people last. So much for NZ First.

    For in place of his heart, he fills himself with fame and smart ass talk, and money. He will be revealed as the Big kiwi sham. For he will have made the very rich people richer and the ordinary Kiwi very much poorer.

    His smile will say “Fuck the Poor; Fuck New Zealand.

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