David Seymour blasts TVNZ reporter, attacks media industry
Act Party leader David Seymour has attacked the media industry – and singled out TVNZ political reporter Benedict Collins – implying it is hypocritical to ask for government money while criticising politicians.
Seymour spoke with Newstalk ZB’s Mike Hosking following criticism of his proposed public sector cuts.
But the conversation shifted when Hosking asked Seymour whether the downfall of some media organisations recently was their own fault.
“That’s not quite true, the media landscape is changing,” Seymour said, detailing how advertisers aren’t spending as much money through media.
But Seymour implied it was hypocritical for the media to ask the Government for money while at the same time criticising them and celebrating slip-ups.
“But it’s also true, I saw a report on 1News, Benedict Collins grinning down the camera about Chris Luxon’s apartment costs.
“These are the people that cry, ‘Oh you’ve got to give us sympathy, and you’re inhumane and you should be kinder to us’.”
It is the third time in the last two days that Seymour has taken a swipe at TVNZ’s coverage of the news.
The Television New Zealand Act stipulates TVNZ’s editorial independence from the Government, saying no shareholding minister, or any minister, can give a direction to TVNZ in respect of its programmes, content, or any complaints about its content, or “the gathering or presentation of news or the preparation or presentation of any current affairs programme or content”.
Earlier in the week, he posted some previous social media comments about him made by the co-chair of Health Coalition Aotearoa, Professor Lisa Te Morenga, and noted: “@1NewsNZ was shown this before it ran a story at 6pm quoting [the HCA], but chose not to inform its viewers.”
He then also noted that TVNZ’s columnist, John Campbell, was “quoting and linking to a left-wing blog that is promoting wealth tax-supporting David Parker for Labour leader.”
His comments come the same day as TVNZ signalled dozens of job cuts and possible changes to some of its biggest news and current affairs programmes.
As 68nTVNZ staff and whanau get kicked in the guts right after Newshubs 300 staff and whanau get kicked in the guts, Seymour is starting a war with TVNZ.
There is a vested political interest in killing off Fourth Estate Journalism for the Right, less journalism = less accountability.
Fast tracking Trans National Mining Interests to raze our Environment.
Throwing the homeless off emergency waiting lists to make the emergency waiting lists look better.
More meth precursor drug access.
More sub machine guns.
8000 tobacco deaths for tax cuts.
13000 more children in poverty for tax cuts.
Disability benefit cut by $2300 per year for tax cuts.
Getting us involved in a new American war.
Ramming through laws misusing urgency.
Gang Patch bans that are against the Bill of Rights.
Attacking worker right, renter rights and environmental rights.
Taking free lunches away from poor children.
This is what we have become in just 100 days and National/ACT and NZ First do not want any scrutiny of the things they’ve rammed through and they certainly don’t want any scrutiny of the pro-donor hand outs they are about to push through as economic policy.
Seymour is starting a war with TVNZ because he will want to amputate TV2 and sell it off as a permanent mutilation of Public Broadcasting that he can point to as a great achievement for Free Market cruelty.
Aotearoa New Zealand is better than this Government is making us.
Comrades.
As much as we are collectively shocked and horrified at the brutal right wing draconian madness that is being rammed through Parliament with bugger all over sight, can I assure you all, it’s about to get waaaaaaaaay worse once the lobbyists have fleshed their election talking points into actual policy.
I do not think we are ready for this jelly.
There needs to be an urgent political summit of the Left to work out how we are going to collectively resist this.
The Washington Post byline is ‘Democracy Dies In Darkness’, and in NZ, David Seymour is the one turning out the light.
The irony of the Political Right blinding the Fourth Estate Guard dogs of Democracy while cookers scream Labour bribed the media would be inanely funny if it weren’t such a dangerous slide into Kiwi Settler Fascism.
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Seymour is a fascist little twerp. He is so “owned” by neoliberal thinking that he is unable to conceptualise the world through any other lens – his way or the highway – should I say Ayn Rand, Milton Friedman, etc. way or the highway. He actually believes that the private sector can manage countries and/or large societies without any government interference – Laissez-faire is an accurate descriptor.
I find it ironic that Seymour, and those of his ilk, are always banging on about political machinations being driven by dogmatic ideology, yet he and his friends are all totally ‘captured’ (to coin a Friedman concept) by neoliberalism.
I find it hypocritical of Seymour telling us a journalist is smiling and smirking down the camera on the Luxon 52,000 scandal when that’s what Seymour does himself every time he speaks. He speaks with such arrogance and distain, forgetting he only ever had a job by default.
So……
I’d wholeheartedly support a sale of TV2 if it allowed for a rebuilding of TV One into an advert-free or low commercial-content public broadcaster again.
In all honesty TV 2 is one asset I wouldn’t miss at all.
After all, TV2 currently serves up a swill of reality-TV level content.
It’s of little to no cultural value except for being a revenue source.
But we all know that creating a quality non-commercial public broadcaster is the last thing on Seymour’s mind.
TVNZ is going the way of the Labour party. Same result. Same reason.
That reason is crass commercialism which, I guess with a stretch, could be applied to the use of focus group politics.
Its millennial tv production to boomers.
Deserted by the punters with the advertisers following.
Other than websites like this one (on various parts of the political spectrum) there is no credible NZ fourth estate. TVNZ and 3 News have a holiday when there is a Labour government and focus on trivia under National. They sadly deserve what they get and I doubt the majority of voters will notice they are gone, save for the incessant crying of how they are so special and deserve my taxes.
If that is the sum of your observations on the media over the last 15 years then you are a special kind of ignorant in that you obviously only see & hear what you want to think.
First, who said 15 years? TVNZ and 3 News have always been mediocre. Unfortunately journalism in NZ is not a career anymore with good grades would aspire to. The rest of your comment suggests I am ignorant. I have two first class honours degrees. I am not the brightest person in New Zealand but I suspect I am not completely „ignorant“ .
TVNZ is worthless and wouldn’t attract a buyer.
How many trust the new government bet some who were foolhardy to vote for this lot wish they didn’t now it’s too late we all have to suffer for three years before we flick them again.
TV 2 has turned itself off. Good Nite Kiwi.
If it is hypocritical to ask for government money while criticising politicians. The it must be OK to ask the government for money while saying how wonderful they are. I think he is confusing the media with his opaque financial backers or right wing thinktanks.
I’ve been wondering for years how the work Roger and Ruth started would be completed. It’s always been the true National agenda except that to date they haven’t had the balls to do it. Now they have the perfect vehicle to deflect the blame, that stunted weasel Seymour.
Make no bones though, this is National, dirty scum.
Does anyone actually watch TV2?
Capitalism and marketing executive imperatives have cooked the television goose.
What was regarded in the 1950s to be a new and promising horizon for the elevation of public discourse and culture has been well murdered.
Public broadcasting values have long been reduced to requiring life support.
Karma in action.
Do people still watch broadcast TV?’ Anyone under age of 60 still sit down to watch the 6 o’clock news? Maybe there’s a reason why their business model is failing. Oh no, let’s just blame the government, or get them to throw money at us, while we lie & criticize.
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