GUEST BLOG: Gerard Otto – The media can do so much better

Social Media responded with mockery at Kate Hawkesby’s vacuous bile yesterday which focused on the clothes chosen by the Labour caucus at an informal retreat.

Even Newshub ran a story about some of the tweets – such was the mockery of the Twitterati at Hawkesby’s moronic stupidity.

Perhaps the most salient tweet was from Andrea Vance when she implored the media that it could do so much better.

“We can all have a laugh about the vacuous stupidity of this. But this kind of empty, insult rhetoric is part of the reason politics is so broken. It doesn’t add anything, just ratchets up the nastiness. We (media) can do so much better.” – wrote Andrea.

Russell Brown noted to Andrea that Newstalk ZB write this sort of “insult rhetoric” to provoke their callers to call in later in the programme.

The commercial imperatives to boost numbers presided over media standards and any old insult will do to get the grumblers grumbling.

Hawkseby’s husband Mike Hosking, holds onto his “opinion manufacturing” job – not because of his accuracy nor fairness – but because of his ratings inside a large echo chamber.

Accuracy and fairness are for journalists not for broadcasters.

This is the weasel excuse used in the commercial media woods to poison the public with misinformation and propaganda purely to make money from it.

It should be no surprise that birds of a feather flock together to defend the gutter opinion spewing forth from Newstalk ZB.

Russell Brown found it hard to believe that Leighton Smith supported Hawkesby in his tweet where Smith wrote :

“When the shallow, mean-spirited, fake mainstream media brings the bile to my throat, I turn to Kate Hawkesby for relief” – tweeted Smith ( or a fake Smith )

“This cannot be real?” – posed Russell Brown.

But it is real.

Real trolling of a shitty standard of media reporting propped up by NZME executives with an eye on the cash.

The media can do so much better – but have no intention of doing so because of the money.

This is in evidence whenever we stop to really question what we are reading or examine the views of the echo chambers expressed in commentary below articles.

There is no bolder example of the failure of media to educate and inform the New Zealand public than how hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders wrongly think a long list of election promises have been already broken by the Coalition Government.

I emphasise the word “already” because within a month of the new Coalition being formed the disinformation campaigns began in earnest to create a bogus list of broken promises.

One of the first was to suggest that there was an election promise made by Labour that it would build 10,000 houses in it’s first year but as soon as it got into power – it had revised that down to only 1000 houses.

There is no mention of building 10,000 houses per year in Labour’s election manifesto about Kiwibuild.

Instead you will find a ten year programme where they promise to build 100,000 houses for first time home buyers and “second chancers”.

It was after the election that the three year ramp up ( interim targets ) was pledged and now that pledge is blowing in the wind but let’s not confuse “how to achieve the target” with a broken election promise.

Yes let’s roast the government for it’s poor planning after the election and ask why it was not done more accurately?

But let’s not confuse this with a broken election promise.

This was no election promise and media could have done so much better to point this out – but failed to do so.

Media also failed to hold Mike Hosking and Heather Du Plessis-Allan to account when they claimed Labour had promised no new taxes in their first term.

Media should have pointed out the sophistry of these two – who abbreviated the statement made by Labour that it would rule out any new taxes beyond those they had already committed to.

You will find they committed to increasing the petrol excise in their policy manifesto but this was widely described as a broken promise by Mike Hosking et al.

The media failed to cover this and Newstalk ZB’s echo chamber are still horribly misinformed and in need of education.

The National Party wasted no time adding to the bogus list of “broken promises” concerning Budget 2018 as if Budget 19 and Budget 20 did not exist.

Media could have done so much better but instead took the view that they were there to hold government to account – not the opposition.

The first duty of the press to tell the disinterested truth had been abdicated and the Opposition could make up any old false statement it wanted to and media would turn a blind eye to it – or even promote it.

The sophistry continued when Immigration was not down by a sufficient amount in year one of a three year term so that was called a broken promise.

Although media did report that legislation had been passed in November 2018 that will see immigration fall further in 2019 – it did not not do it’s job to spell this out.

The fact was lost on Newstalk ZB’s echo chamber.

It was instead left to the commentariat, the fifth estate – to do the job mainstream media should do.

Another example is there were only 66 Million trees planted in year one of a ten year tree planting programme to plant One Billion Trees.

This was framed as broken promise rather than a slow start and was added to the list by hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders.

Astounding isn’t it?

When PM Jacinda Ardern attempts to point out to media that a ten year programme is not necessarily defeated in year one by a slow start – media report that she is dodging questions.

There’s also hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders who think that the Coalition Agreement has never been published because they confused negotiation notes with the actual agreement.

Media did not care to clear that up – nor did they clear up the meaning of manifesto promises in MMP.

Coalition Government Accountability comes down to The Speech from the Throne, The Coalition Agreement, The Confidence and Supply Agreement and the budgets.

Audrey Young briefly pointed this out in mid 2018 when even she could not stand witnessing the levels of misinformation her company had contributed to.

Andrea Vance is correct that the media can do so much better in so many ways.

It is good to see Andrea speaking out like a lone voice and to see the media attempting to hold the media to account.

We could do with more journalists holding the feet of those who let the rest of the media down to the fire.