MEDIAWATCH: Waatea stands up for NZ Journalism over NZ Herald

This is what true leadership looks like…

Waatea News cuts ties with NZ Herald after Hobson’s Pledge ad

Waatea News, the national Māori news service provider has announced it will cut ties with the New Zealand Herald following its front page publication of a Hobson’s Pledge advertisement opposing iwi applications for customary marine titles.

Waatea currently have an informal agreement with the New Zealand Herald where they pick up their content as publishers of the National Māori News Service and were working on formalising an agreement with them.

The NZ Herald’s 7 August newspaper edition featured a wraparound ad that urged readers to sign a petition to return the seabed and foreshore to “public ownership.”

Waatea’s general interim publisher Matthew Tukaki issued a statement today which said it is ending “any or all informal or formal agreements with the New Zealand Herald because of it”.

“Having reviewed the material printed last week, I cannot, and will not, in all good conscience accept that the Herald decided to accept an advertorial filled with misinformation – accepting a payment for what was essentially an advertisement sowing division between Māori and non-Māori.”

Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) chief executive Hilary Souter issued a statement to RNZ and said they “continued to receive complaints regarding this advertisement, and these are being processed”.

Kawea te Rongo, the Māori Journalists’ Association, previously issued a statement calling for NZME to formally apologise to their organisation’s kaimahi Māori, contributors, advertisers, and audience, and said they should review their advertising standards policies.

…I’m proud that Waatea is showing more journalistic courage by suspending their content sharing with a racist Newspaper like the NZ Herald.

The NZ Herald has panicked by the backlash and have refused to post the second Hobsons Pledge advert…

NZ Herald publisher NZME rejects new Hobson’s Pledge advertisement; says it is reviewing advocacy ads

NZ Herald publisher NZME says it will not run a planned new advertisement from the Hobson’s Pledge lobby group, following the publication of a controversial front-page newspaper ad last week.

Hobson’s Pledge planned to place a new ad in the Herald newspaper this Wednesday, trustee Don Brash said in an emailed statement to supporters on Monday afternoon, reinforcing that it would not back down on its commentary about ownership of the foreshore and seabed.

NZME has since said in a statement the ad would not be published.

“We are reviewing our policies and processes around advocacy advertising and we have advised Hobson’s Pledge that we will not be running their advertisement,” said an NZME spokeswoman.

…this has generated the very predictable claim by the Zionist Free Speech Union and their astro turf right wing groups claiming this is a freedom of speech issue.

No. It. Is. Not.

Let’s be very clear what this is about and what it isn’t about.

It isn’t about free speech, this is about paid speech and paid speech can’t carry falsehoods like Hobson’s Pledge are vomiting up here.

It’s an advert, which has to conform to advertising regulations, what they’ve published is blatantly false, da Maaaris are not stealing do fucking foreshore, it’s National trying to steal customary frights from Māori FFS!

To attempt to take what National are trying to do and claim the foreshore and seabed are somehow not in public ownership is just a total fabrication used to generate race baiting anti-Māori racism, the NZ Herald can do that in the editorial section, but they can’t do it in an advert!

How weird that adverts have to be more trustworthy than the editorial!

Never, never, never forget that the NZ Herald’s very first editorial was calling on white New Zealanders to go to war with Māori.

It has always been a right hate rag propped up by Real Estate Advertising, it will always be a right wing hate rag propped up by Real Estate Advertising.