Over the weekend there was a rampage by the perpetually outraged that Kerre McIvor & Heather Du Plessis-Allan had opinions so egregious that the woke on Twitter had to make public virtue signals to cancel subscriptions.
Now let me be clear – I don’t have a Herald Subscription, as far as I’m concerned the Herald’s paywall is where opinion goes to die, The Daily Blog has a larger readership than the Herald Paywall but I still read their opinion pieces, not because I agree with them, but because I want to know what my opponent is thinking and two rich right wing mouthpieces like HDPA & McIvor speak for a NZ I don’t interact with much.
I fear the drive to cancel these two by those who can’t tolerate hearing an opinion they don’t like is terribly counterproductive and only solidifies the echo chambers causing so much polarization.
It’s the editorial privilege of the Herald to platform whom they want and while I’ll never agree with much of what the Right has to say, I’m confident in my own Left intellect to have the debate and not act triggered when I hear an opinion I don’t agree with.
Making a virtue signal of ending your herald subscription because you disagree with what two female Columnists have to say says more about your timid brittle triggers and need for a safe space than it does about the Herald.
We need less precious echo chambers and more places for competing ideas.
If you want proof of the Herald’s journalistic worth, look at their incredible work on the Pandora Papers this week.
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I subscribe to the Herald during winter to use the Hosking column to start a real fire each day.
lol
Dear Bomber the problem is this. When you put the Prime Minister and everything she does on a pedestal with zero tolerance for a dissenting voice then this is a natural progression when things start to go wonky. It’s cultish in its application. The PMs minders, Robertson and the MSM have all played a part in this.
I do fear for the mental wellbeing of people including the PM. Kerri McIvor is middle of the road. Neither left or right. This is not Hosking the lynch mob is going after -this is middle NZ. The announcements today were neither here nor there. When the case numbers hit 3 figures then 4 there is only 1 target.
Meh the pressure on the government to let it spread (ending any reason to keep borders closed) and blaming the government for the impost on the health system consequences (periodic Level 3 lock downs both nationwide/and or region by region) is cynical as. But sure the government will be accountable for effectively adopting the Key plan, albeit step by step, and hoping no one notices.
I am no supporter of this government but I don’t think they had an option in accepting that complete elimination of Covid is not realistic. The delta strain plus human behavior means that the spread can’t be contained.
What is interesting is when Covid hit us in early 2020 the pictures from Italy, Spain and the like pushed all of us into towing the line. Now the pictures from overseas show a world moving on from Covid and many feel this is where we should be heading.
Yes vaccination rates need to improve, the one part of John Keys message that I agreed with is that we need to use the “carrot and stick” method to increase the levels. I think there is only a small portion of NZers that are true anti-vaxers, many just don’t consider it will impact them. Not being allowed to enter or attend certain events may impact them enough to change their minds.
I just went on Cam Perkins website……good god.
I will still keep my Herald subscription because l value what everyone has to say. Of course the value rating moves frequently but it’s nice to read a daily PAPER in this digital age (more relaxing on the eyes too).
I’m 36 and got into reading the paper about 10 years ago.
Bomber is right, leftist knee jerkers will be talking to themselves at the rate they’re going.
I’m 58 and stopped reading the herald over 10 years ago – I slapped myself on the knee and started listening to myself again.
Yes cancelling is not the way to go
People seem on edge. I believe if you don’t like what you read turn the page.
The Herald sold its soul to One-roof. The Herald is the enemy of the people.
I like Bomber. Think he adds perspective that we almost never get. In this piece, though, he’s plain wrong.
NZME has played an incredibly bad-faith role throughout the Covid crisis. It has reached fever-pitch during the Delta outbreak, as it did during the first lockdown last year.
There are pretty obvious reasons for this: both partisan and commercial.
People genuinely feel that NZME is deliberately undermining the Covid response – there is nothing “woke” about that. More a genuine concern that a conservative private sector player is using its significant influence to manage perceptions and therefore endanger the public.
The public is perfectly entitled to vent their frustrations with the editorial approach they believe is being taken and, more importantly, cancel their subscriptions. That’s the market.
Media group-think is a dangerous thing. Look to the destruction of Iraq – where media framing/ groupthink gave cover to a war which shattered the region.
I don’t see woke virtue signalling when people cancel their Herald subscriptions; more a large part of the public that is fed-up with blanket negative coverage — which many feel shows us the hidden hand of business in shaping editorial.
The public has a right to challenge the media. At this critical moment, I’m glad they’re doing it. Even better that some are canceling their subscriptions; we don’t owe “the media” our fealty – or our money and clicks. Media has enormous influence over us. I’d hope Bomber would be proud that (some) people are standing up and at least trying to send a message – out of genuine concern.
(And it’s the Pandora Papers, not the Panama Papers.)
I’m with Aaron on this. It’s not a matter of having tolerance for opposing viewpoints. It’s that the opinions are so obnoxiously biased as to make them irrelevant. During Labour’s first term when we were widely regarded as having one of the best covid responses in the world, with some of the least deaths and best economic outcomes, was there even one positive opinion column from Hosking, Soper, HDA, McIver mentioning this and praising the response? I can take critisism of the government from people who argue on the facts and give praise when it’s earned as equally as they give complaints when they are warranted. I remember one op-ed of McIvors I read (not in the herald – online under the ZB banner) during the first covid lockdown last year where she basically blamed the government for scaring people because they talked about covid every day at 1pm. These people are not forming a viewpoint from observing events, they’re cherrypicking events that support their viewpoint so they can have a moan about it. I no longer but the weekend Herald because I don’t want to read this garbage anymore.
Well said and oh so true.
Yep, right on.
Cancel NZ Herald because they caused this mess – https://www.interest.co.nz/property/residential-auction-results
Speaking of ‘Granny’s paywall’ someone was complaining that they apparently now try to ‘curate’ the comments into their favourite ‘featured comments’ which come up first and reflect their ideology, maybe are paid for? who knows…. NZ is a place where there is not much interest in what people think, rather in channelling discourse into pretending it is what most people think, to support unpopular ideology.
I’m not impressed by the Pandora Papers .Scratch a little deeper and you will find zilch US,Australia, Canadian 5 Eyes etc names .Only Blair is mentioned with the assurance what he did was not illegal.
Once again nothing could be pinned on Putin, but someone who he was alleged to have an affair with 20 years ago has an apartment in Monaco .
There have been plenty unimpressed commentators pointing out the US strategy to kill off their competitors in the safe haven for dodgy money industry. Those offshore havens that have been outed will lose their clients to the likes of Nevada and Delaware.
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2021/10/us-government-provides-another-trove-of-offshore-papers-of-people-it-dislikes.html#more
The issue with the pandora and Panama papers is that these trusts are leading way the 0.001% are more secretly in control all the world’s assets, can use it to launder and hide money and bankroll politics and politicians to keep it all going.
As for the Blairs and their vendor saving $300,000 pounds in stamp duty, the point is, why should someone super rich not have to pay stamp duty that the middle class and working class in the UK have to pay? Could the constant savings of tax from those who can most afford it, be why governments don’t have the money for the NHS? Why would politicians allow this stamp duty tax loophole to exist in the first place, possibly for their own use?
Same happening in NZ and around the world, where the super rich live and play in their mansions, are feted by politicians, while somehow getting extra deals and not paying taxes like the rest of the residents!
We see with Amazon tax breaks for film, Larry Page’s family being flown into NZ from Fiji with Covid, Peter Thiel getting ‘sweetheart’ deals with Xero and citizenship without following the rules of citizenship here, many of China’s most wanted living in NZ, NZ blind eye to moneylaundering and when caught a 4 month home detention in their penthouse in Auckland, liquidations and traffic offences let off like Mikhail Khimich ….
While NZ welcomes so many billionaires, how many of them are fully tax resident in NZ as they shelter from Covid? My guess, none of them for their world wide taxable income, which begs the question, why are NZ politicians so excited to receive them and have them buy estates here, that NZ rules are changed or ignored for their benefit?
We have NZ list MP seats being influenced for as little as $100k donation, and red carpet to anybody with any money from around the world who wants to have their hideyhole here. (with tax benefits).
Hawkesby, Hosking, Garner, Richardson, Bridge, Williams, Panapa, Plunket, Banks, Duplessis, Soper, Beveridge, Russell, from ZB & Magic have spent the last 10 years as daily National Party political broadcasts. They have given the Tories plenty of free political advertising however going by the political polls and election results in that time they have been big failures and losers, part of the 23%ers. They have never been correct with their reckons or opinions. Ditto the NZ Herald – full of right wing has beens and Losers like Joyce, Prebble, Trevett, O’sullivan, Hooten, Hosking, Roughan, Key, Dunn, Brash.
I think we need some balance – how about some social democrats or left wingers.
Well said Nikorima – agree wholeheartedly.
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