The Infamous TDB Media Awards 2024
The NZ Media.
They were always the voice of corporate interest and neoliberal mythology and when everyone was making money from selling each other houses it was fine, but then covid ripped the security blanket from many who fell down rabbit holes and that collective anger turned on NZ media and we’ve been screaming abuse at them ever since.
Newshub gone, the entire news service from Māori TV gone, TVNZ News gone, Fair Go gone, 14 regional newspapers gone, Spinoff sinking and Trump’s landslide pointing to Podcasts being the new media, which is funny because The Working Group won best Current Affairs Podcast 2024.
When a Marxist and Libertarian attacking each other is the dystopian future of tomorrow’s current affairs, today – then the system has collapsed!
The one silver lining was Waatea Digital who managed the jump to nonlinear broadcasting better than anyone else this year and was the only media network that grew.
The truth is the Fourth Estate in this country is a defanged lap dog rather than guard dog.
We now have social media platforms that are suppressing news in favour of conspiracy theory algorithms which are generating an electorate of brainwashed, incel, racist, climate denying, anti science, feral vaccine cooker cultists who have turned New Zealand into Q Zealand!
We have a Prime Minister more focused on pulling duck faces for tictok than actually governing in any meaningful way.
Winston’s claim last year that the entire mainstream media were bribed by the Public Journalism Fund is a Conspiracy Swamp Kingdom myth that claims the mainstream media carried pro-vaccination propaganda so Jacinda could take over everyones immunity systems for a shadowy One World Government child molesting satanic cult.
No issues there with the Deputy Prime Minister spouting full blown conspiracies as if they are the fucking proclamations from Christ himself?
No issues at all?
None?
No one?
We are so fucked for the next 2 years!
Here are the winners and losers of TDBs infamous annual Media Awards. Time to crack out those grudges and ensure another year of personal animosity before all the mainstream media outlets collectively fail.
Seasons greetings!
WORST TV ADVERT- Why is TVNZ getting into Mobile Phones?
Why the fuck is TVNZ getting into the mobil phone market?
They are the Public Broadcaster, this bullshit advert about some Maori fella teenager searching for his Mum amongst the Scottish Highlands is not what their core business should be!
TVNZ should be focused on public broadcasting not broadcasting to the public!
TVNZ can barely do the pittance they are currently doing, why move into mobile phones?
Their Board should all be sacked for allowing the News and Current Affairs departments to wither and die while allowing Seven Sharp to remain!
A curse on everyone at TVVNZ, what a stupid idea to branch into Mobile Phones!
Wait a moment Sportsfans, my phone is ringing.
Hold on, I’ll get back to this attack on how stupid it is for TVNZ to get into the mobile phone market right after I take this phone call:
“Hello”?
“What”?
“It’s not an advert for TVNZ? What?”
“It’s called One NZ, that’s the TV1 channel name”.
“What”?
“One NZ is Vodaphone”???
“But why would you change your name to one that is immediately confused as the TVOne News network”?
“What sort of cocksucker fuckwit would damage their own brand by naming it something totally eclipsed by an existing brand”?
“Wow”.
Comrades I’ve just been informed that ONE NZ is actually Vodaphone who have decided for reasons beyond comprehension to rename themselves that is automatically confused for TVNZ, so all that hilarious shitting on TVNZ and Vodaphone was wrong of me.
Hilarious though.
The decision by Vodaphone to rename themselves something that immediately confuses them with another brand is as clever as Uber Eats bizarre decision to remind people who are ordering food of menstrual blood.
I’m not sure many people want to think about menstrual blood when they are ordering food.
Who is this for?
Vampires?
While we are talking adverts, has anyone noticed that the Big Save advert and that yoghurt advert are the exact same advert?
It’s about two Māori blokes who have a dream sequence for something ‘real’, it’s almost an identical advert, I hope someone got a discount because it feels like a shared creative moment there.
Consumerism has walked away from adverts and is pushing money towards influencers and social media bribed algorithms.
I think I’m the only person left watching TV as these empty adverts beg me to become emotionally available to them.
Hilariously the TVNZ mobile phone adverts attracted the most complaints for the sex scene in it.
We are a nation of prudes.
WORST TV SHOW – 7 Sharp
With the collapse of Fourth Estate Journalism confronting NZ at the same time social media Tech Bros strangle off advertising revenue while circumventing democracy with hate algorithms, we need a clear eyes assessment of TVNZs crucial role as the public broadcaster in our democracy.
Dump Seven Sharp.
Dump the whole thing.
Seven Sharp is a sad indictment of making citizens into consumers and its dumbing down of the once crucial 7pm current affairs pulpit reflects all that is wrong with the media eco system.
Dump 7 Sharp and replace it with the most important public broadcasting journalist we have, John Campbell.
Cut costs by making it a studio based live interview show with a few side journalists and camera teams to do background pieces on the topics selected.
Make it talking head TV where John is given the scope to do the Fourth Estate Journalism our Democracy desperately needs.
Save money by making it studio based talking head TV while empowering TVNZs obligations to real Fourth Estate Journalism, not whatever Sunday had become.
Now is the time for something dynamic and cheaper than infotainment current affairs.
It would generate ratings, lower costs and give TVNZ the mana of being a public broadcaster worth tuning in for.
NZ Democracy needs John Campbell holding the powerful to account at 7pm weeknights, it doesn’t need Hilary giggling at a face that Jeremy pulls.
To date the TVNZ Board have shown a level of cowardice in not standing up for the fourth estate obligations TVNZ has, cutting Seven Sharp and bringing back a studio based John Campbell would bring back mana to our public broadcaster.
Fuck Seven Sharp is terrible.
BEST CRIME STORY – Steve Braunias coverage of the Polky Trial
Hand on heart I was going to cancel my subscription to the NZ Herald because fuck them taking money for that hateful Hobson’s pledge advert!
Pretending some Pom who was in the country for 5 days and warbled ‘we are all one people” at the signing of the Treaty in Māori somehow means Māori ceded sovereignty is one thing, but pretending that ‘da Maaaaris is stealing da beaches’ as their advert insinuated is a total fabrication and malicious lie!
So fuck the NZ Herald.
Unfortunately the unbelievable Polkinghorne trial had erupted and bloody Steve Braunias was covering it.
I just can’t cancel until the end! Braunias has a way with language, a way with words where crucial moments in this terrible torrid awful murder trial are painted by him as painfully human and gloriously divine in equal measure.
The tender contempt Braunias has for the oafish Law students, the parasitically ghoulish mainstream journalists, the great unwashed who congregate to gawk.
It’s all so awful in a beautifully awkward kiwi way.
A loquacious gaucheness that stumbles and gapes at a murder trial that manages to boil down the facade of the Professional Middle Class Boomers into a puddle of drug fuelled orgies on a burning planet at the end of Late Stage Capitalism.
Murder or suicide.
What a bleak Claytons choice.
I was genuinely surprised by the lack of solid scientific evidence that connected Polky to strangling her in a meth rage, moving her body, staging the suicide and then calling the Police.
Most killers in a meth rage go troppo with violence to the body, none of that remotely happened here.
It is far more likely that this caring 60 year old woman, who had done all she could for this lewd leprechaun privileged Boomer, simply took her own life out of the empty hollow sadness her life had become because of his addictions.
I don’t think he murdered her, but I certainly think he killed her.
I think the police were so taken aback by his double life they immediately assumed he could have murdered his wife.
The Officer who finally made the decision to arrest and charge Polkinghorne was either:
a) An easily shocked pearl clutching Christian.
b) Shocked by how much it had cost to date and demanded a prosecution to justify the cost.
c) Bored True Crime Podcast enthusiast.
I think Polkinghorne was the voyeuristic trial we needed as the planet burns during late stage capitalism.
Bloated with privilege Boomers, pumped full of money and power, denigrating the personal lives of their loved ones for vice and orgiastic greed ending in a murder or suicide.
Is there a more fitting tawdry crassness for a country with all the active culture of yoghurt?
This is a sad grim story of addiction, privilege and terminal sadness that I don’t believe we ever needed to know or hear about because the idea that he murdered her and dragged her into a faked suicide scene simply hasn’t been proved anywhere near beyond reasonable doubt.
I think there are going to be some real question marks over why this case needlessly exposed Pauline Hanna’s lonely and intimate pain.
I want one of the muffins Steve Braunias baked. Does it taste like justice?
BEST POLITICAL PODCAST – The Working Group – Gold Medal Best Current Affairs + Silver Medal best Independent Podcast
Comrades, The Working Group Podcast just won Silver for Best Independent Podcast and Gold for best Current Affairs Podcast 2024!
Folks, this is the dystopian news future of tomorrow today – I hate that we are the last standing fourth estate as much as anyone, this is on all of us!
We held 7 live streamed election debates with political polls in each one, our Iwi Treaty Debate was the most watched podcast of 2024 and we arrange panel line ups you can’t see anywhere else.
We would like to thank our amazing audience, our long suffering sponsor Gravity Credit, our ridiculously talented ROVA crew of Willy, Forrester and Isaac.
Congratulations to Bernard Hickey for winning Silver for The Hoon, he is NZ’s most important political economic commentator and his voice is more important than ever and the Bronze for the BHN Crew who have revolutionised late night online podcasts.
Damien Grant would like to thank Free Market Capitalism.
I would like to thank Jacinda Ardern, Marx, Lenin, Black Jesus and Medicinal Cannabis.
The Revolution won’t be televised, but it will be on a podcast.
BEST INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALIST – Aaron Smale
Welcome to New Zealand
Aaron Smale has been at the forefront of exposing how the Wellington Bureaucracy first enabled the abuse of 250 000 kids and then hid that abuse using appalling legal tactics to silence them and minimise that abuse.
I worked alongside him in 2022 to expose the highest levels of the Wellington Bureaucracy covering up the abuse of children in NZ.
His investigative series on Newsroom highlights the terrible means with which the Wellington Bureaucracy went to hide the abuse of children and then adopted despicable tactics to derail that knowledge getting out and to avoid legal precedence.
He was banned from attending the official apology by Speaker Gerry Brownlee because the Prime Minister’s department asked him to be banned because he had apparently been aggressively asking Chris Luxon hard questions about the tactics the state used to destroy victims.
BIGGEST STORY 2024 – Aaron Smale’s investigation into the State abusing those abused in State Care
Who knew and when did they know it
The adolescent unit at Lake Alice psychiatric hospital was the first case where the Crown faced civil litigation. The hospital was set up for criminally insane adults, not vulnerable children. But in the early 1970s the Department of Social Welfare starting sending wards of the state to Lake Alice, where they would be tortured by Dr Selwyn Leeks and his staff with electric shocks and other cruel and degrading treatment. They were also raped and sexually abused by adult patients and staff.
There were a number of people who gave evidence at the Royal Commission’s redress hearing and the hearing on Lake Alice itself. But speaking on behalf of the Crown was the Solicitor-General Una Jagose. Jagose had been deeply involved in the Crown’s response to state abuse both as a Crown lawyer in the 2000s and more recently as the Solicitor-General, a role she took up in 2016. If anyone was aware of the Crown’s response to allegations of abuse, it was her.
Central to the commission’s inquiries into Lake Alice was the question of whether Leeks’ use of an electro-convulsive therapy machine was legitimate medical treatment or a heinous form of torture inflicted on children. There were many expert witnesses who came down unequivocally on the latter. One compared it to tactics used by the Gestapo. Jagose could only concur.
In her evidence Jagose said: “The record itself showed that Dr Leeks and other staff were using ECT and other forms of things that are treatment as behavioural modification and/or punishment for those purposes and not for treatment.”
But she was pushed to say more about what the Crown knew. Speaking of the litigation that started in the 1990s – which included Leoni McInroe, who was the first to file a civil case – Jagose acknowledged that the Crown knew from its own files that Leeks’ methods were unacceptable as medical treatment.
“Dr Leeks, was using treatment methods to punish and attempt to modify behaviour in a way that the Crown then, and still, thought was unacceptable, an unacceptable way to treat those children, and didn’t put any of them to proof over that because the proof was right there in the file, in the very systems that the hospital and Dr Leeks ran,” she said.
So the Crown had always known that what Leeks was doing was not acceptable treatment. It knew this because it had documentary evidence in its own files. Despite this knowledge, the Crown responded to victims in ways that put them through more trauma by denying their allegations or expecting them to prove them in a court; the Crown held overwhelming documentary evidence these allegations were true but withheld this evidence on numerous occasions.
The coup de grace arrived when Jagose was asked point-blank whether what was inflicted on children at Lake Alice met the UN’s definition of torture.
Jagose had to admit that it did, although she wound her way to an answer through a long series of legalistic qualifiers.
“Torture has three elements. Infliction of pain and suffering, mental, physical; no doubt that has been met. By an arm of the state or a person acting on a part of the state; also no question that has been met.
“The key question is the purpose for which that pain and suffering was inflicted. The allegations are that it was done for a punishment and where those allegations are made out by a fact-finder, might be the Inquiry, it might be the court, then that is three elements met – torture.
“As alleged, that conduct meets the three criteria for torture.”
It was this answer, given under oath on behalf of the Crown, that became the cornerstone of the Royal Commission’s finding that what happened at Lake Alice was torture, although there were plenty of other bricks of evidence to build that conclusion.
Jagose’s admission and the Royal Commission’s finding of torture compounded a previous finding from another institution – the United Nations. The UN’s Committee against Torture had made a finding in 2020 that New Zealand was in breach of the Convention Against Torture. This finding was in response to a complaint filed by the Citizens Commission of Human Rights on behalf of Lake Alice survivor Paul Zentveld, alleging that New Zealand had failed to investigate the Lake Alice allegations properly, as it was required to do under the Convention which New Zealand ratified in 1988. This ratification was then embedded in domestic legislation in the Crimes of Torture Act (more on this later).
One of the outcomes of the UN’s finding was that the police had to then open up another investigation into Lake Alice – the fourth – after telling victims for decades that there was not enough evidence to prosecute. This position became untenable with the UN’s decision and under the scrutiny of the Royal Commission. The police gave a formal statement at the commission’s Lake Alice hearing, apologising to victims for its failure to properly investigate. That included a failure to even speak to more than a dozen victims who had made formal complaints that they’d been sexually assaulted and raped.
The police investigation in response to the UN finding found there was more than sufficient evidence to prosecute Leeks and other Lake Alice staff, but it was too late because Leeks was unfit to stand trial and died shortly after.
Despite this, when police made formal requests for specific categories of documents to Crown Law in early 2020, some crucially relevant documents were not given to police. This included the file of Leoni McInroe that included a medical report stating unequivocally that what happened to her at Lake Alice was not medical treatment, it was medical misadventure. This report was written in the 1990s and had it been acted on in the legally appropriate way, the outcomes would have been very different. For one, it’s likely that Leeks would have been convicted of crimes. But that alternative history didn’t happen. What did happen is this report and other evidence was not given to a number of agencies, including the police, sending the whole trajectory in a different direction. It was not given to police during the investigation that concluded in 2010 when Judith Collins was Minister of Police.
…they knew it was torture and they went on to cover it all up…
But Una Jagose’s involvement in the Crown’s response to the abuse of children in state custody long predates her evidence at the Royal Commission. She has been involved over the past 20 years, with a number of others, including Collins.
“Political and public service leaders spent time, energy and taxpayer resources to hide, cover up and then legally fight survivors…”
So who else was aware of these crimes and what was their response?
The Royal Commission’s report makes clear there was a repeated failure to disclose “relevant information damaging to the Crown case”.
The UN’s finding that New Zealand was in breach for failing to investigate Lake Alice can principally be laid at the feet of Helen Clark’s government, but it had its genesis even earlier and continued on into the John Key government. There was a failure to look for information and a failure to provide it to the relevant authorities to do their job to investigate criminal offending against children and breaches of international law.
There had been failures to investigate in the 1970s when racial justice advocate Dr Oliver Sutherland and his colleagues at ACORD (Auckland Committee Opposed to Racial Discrimination) exposed abuse occurring at institutions like Owairaka and later at Lake Alice. An inquiry into Lake Alice at this time was essentially a whitewash and crucial evidence was withheld.
But when victims became adults they began filing civil litigation against the Crown in the 1990s regarding Lake Alice. The first victim to file a case was Leoni McInroe, represented by Rob Chambers QC. Another group of nearly 100 victims were later represented by lawyer Grant Cameron.
Bill English was the minister of health in the National government of the 1990s before the role was handed off to Wyatt Creech. During internal discussions regarding the claims made in civil cases about Lake Alice, officials and ministers from other government departments were also alerted to allegations of sexual and physical abuse in social welfare homes. Many of the Lake Alice victims had been through these institutions before they got to Lake Alice. Agencies including Social Welfare, Treasury and the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet were looped in to these discussions. Dame Margaret Bazley was chief executive of the Department of Social Welfare at the time.
In 1998 a paper was presented to Cabinet by English and countersigned by Dr Janice Wilson, director of mental health and chief advisor.
Collins’ denial at the United Nations that New Zealand committed torture was not only not true. It was also an insult to the victims and continued the 50-year injustice they’d experienced since their childhoods.
The central claims and the facts underlying the civil claims around Lake Alice were clearly known to the government by this stage. The Cabinet paper outlined them, stating:
“Their principal allegation is that they received paraldehyde and/or unmodified electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) for the purpose of punishment. Unmodified ECT is ECT without anaesthetic or muscle relaxant to counter the side effects of this form of treatment. Paraldehyde is an anti-convulsive drug. It can cause extreme pain when used extramuscally.
“This treatment is alleged to have been administered by nursing staff at the hospital and by the unit’s head Dr Selwyn Leeks. The former patients also allege that they were sexually and physically abused by adult patients at the hospital and by staff.
“The claims relate to the period 1972 and 1978. At that time the majority of the former patients ranged in age from 10 to 14.
…look at the legal tricky that was used to force the abused into being further traumatised!
Look at the appalling tactics used and weep in fury at the way we treated these kids abused in our care…
The Royal Commission of Inquiry into abuse in state care looked into the Crown’s litigation strategy against survivors who filed legal claims about their abuse. It said the the conduct of the Crown went beyond mere neutral defence of claims.
It included “causing long, avoidable delays and failing to keep claimants adequately informed of the progress of their cases” as well as:
-
- failing to disclose relevant information damaging to the Crown case
- opposing reasonable adjournment requests, despite a lack of prejudice to the Crown, when a claimant’s lawyer was without funding
- cross-examining witnesses to suggest survivors should have, as children, disclosed abuse at the time the abuse happened, or avoided the abuse
- cross-examining witnesses to suggest survivors were lying and colluding even when the evidence showed they were more than likely to be telling the truth
- making applications for costs against survivors personally, and making applications for orders that would have required the plaintiff to pay costs if they had not been funded by legal aid.
WEIRDEST CLAIM BY MEDIA PERSONALITY – Heather Du Plessis Allan believes Willie Jackson is sexually attracted to her….
Ummmmmmmm. I’m not sure how to tell you all this, but ZB Troll Heather Du Plessis Allan, fresh from denigrating the Hikoi and trying to downplay the 80 000 who marched, has lashed out at Willie Jackson and concluded that his recent attacks on her radioactive toxic venom means that Willie Jacson is sexually attracted to her.
I kid you not
Ummmmmmmmmm.
Ok.
Interesting she thinks any attention towards her is actually desire from that person rather than legitimate criticism at her radioactive toxic anti-Māori perspective.
Firstly, Willie had time to appear on The Working Group and not your show because our podcast beats you every week in the podcast charts.
Secondly I love how the ZB Troll farm bleat their independence when of course ZB was State funded, State set up and when it privatised changed into the right wing hate pus pit it has become, so sure Heather isn’t on a state funded media channel, but she sure as Christ benefited from it once being a State asset now didn’t she?
Heather du Plessis-Allan is claiming that the NZ Left have misread the room and that middle New Zealand are horrified by the anger Māori have expressed over a piece of legislation that 40 Kings council, the Crowns own lawyers and almost every single credible voice has been devastatingly critical of…
Parliament must be a place where law and order – not unlawful disorder – is on display – Shane Jones
Treaty Principles Bill: National and Labour have failed to read the room on hīkoi and Middle NZ reaction – Heather du Plessis-Allan
…no, no, no!
That Haka has been watched 700 million times!
An unprecedented 80 000 turned to protest at Wellington!
It’s you Heather who has misread the room!
Blaming Māori for reacting to an appalling piece of legislation is nothing short of victim blaming.
The Political Right have tossed a hand grenade into our Race Relations and are now running around complaining that everyone is angry at them for throwing. hand grenade into our race relations!
That Heather believes Willie Jackson is sexually attracted to her as his reason to denounce her radioactive far right slop is just so Mike Hosking level narcissism isn’t it?
Oh and in case Heather thinks me being critical of her means I have a ‘crush’ on her as well, allow me to be as clear as possible Heather.
I think your race relations hatred is all that is wrong in NZ media and your right wing hot takes are shallow, stupid and deeply hollow.
Heather, you are as attractive to me as dogs vomit.
I hope that has cleared up any confusions.
WORST POLITICAL INTERVIEW – Luxon’s infamous ”I’m entitled” shocker
If NZ was Air NZ, Luxon only cares about First Class, Business Class and considers joking with the Pilots as working class.
Those in cattle class are the middle classes & those who work outside the plane are the Bottom Feeders who never get to fly.
They exist to maintain the privilege of those who are flying.
This is the new class system of NuZilind.
The shock by almost the entire Press Gallery at how poorly Luxon handled this Accomodation subsidy at the start of the year where he said, “Im Entitled’ 30 times in the space of 5 minutes alongside his, “I’m Rich, I’m sorted’ comment highlights Luxon’s tone deaf entitled evangelical prosperity theology privilege.
I love how easy it is to read Luxon.
He is a gut politician, his first response to any social issue is a really weird and tone deaf statement that always exposes how genuinely Old Testament conservative Christian he really is with all the fake sincerity of an Air NZ safety advert masquerading as a corporate diversity virtue signal.
Before he was PM, he would walk these statements back in 24 hours, now he is PM, they’ve sent him to an expensive CEO weekend retreat on learning to be dominant to butch him up because Seymour, Winston and the Corporate Interests are having a field day playing him like chump.
That’s why we’ve seen him stick to robotic CEO KPI language and when challenged, simply repeating the same talking points but louder and with a stern look on his face.
What’s interesting about his refusal to immediately admit mistake and change is that he did it with the EV subsidy as well. While he was damning Labour for the EV Subsidy, he was intending to use it himself and apparently the rumour is they really had to argue internally against him taking it because it was such a bad look.
He clearly used it for his wife’s car, but his intent to get it for himself and the amount of time it took to convince him was astonishing.
The reason Luxon refused to back down on gaining stuff is because of his evangelical prosperity theology privilege. In Luxon’s branch dividend, Prosperity Theology preaches that the ordained and blessed by God are afforded huge wealth and prosperity.
It’s like Abraham’s blessings but on meth.
It’s what Bishop Brian Tamaki believes in.
The Bish has a huge gold watch, beautiful houses and expensive motorcycles because God loves Brian ever so much he is publicly blessing him with prosperity to bring more souls to Christ.
Hiding your prosperity when Jesus has given you the wifi password to heaven is considered a terrible shame.
For Luxon, him having 7 properties (3 of which he has sold right after tax changes he implemented) is proof positive that Jesus loves him, and hiding any of the prosperity and privilege that comes with being loved ever so much by Jesus is sinful.
Chris dug his heels in over his EV subsidy and paying himself $1000 per week to hire his own apartment while demanding brutal austerity for everyone else because Jesus loves him dammit!
If Jesus wants to give Chris all these privileges and benefits, then Christopher fucking Luxon deserves everything God wants to give him!
All hail baby Jesus!
BEST DOCUMENTARY – WITNESS – PRAYING FOR ARMAGEDDON – Al Jazeera
As difficult as this is to believe, Evangelical Republican Christians believe in a literal interpretation of the Bible, and as such, believe that if they whip up Israel/Palestinian conflict, they themselves can trigger the Armageddon.
This documentary follows Evangelical Republican Christians raising funds for Zionist organisation to go into the West Bank and illegally seize Palestinian land IN THE HOPE of causing violence and the end of days.
Trump making Jerusalem Israel’s capital sparked the violence that helped elect the Zionist fanatics that started the conflict we are seeing erupt in Gaza now.
That’s why the Evangelicals love Trump so much, they think he will start the prophecy for the end of the world.
BEST NETFLIX – The Octopus Conspiracy
The Death of Danny Casolaro has always been steeped in mystery and this powerful 4 part series gives us an insight into the pure evil of CIA domestic operations.
The 9 part series on the Bomb highlights the blowback CIA actions cause externally during the Cold War, but what American Conspiracy does is look at the impacts of CIA domestic operations that caused enormous damage inside America.
Danny Casolaro was a journalist working on an explosive book that detailed a domestic Rogue CIA campaign that was part Organised Crime and part corporate greed wedded to a far right Republican agenda.
I first heard of Casolaro in the late 1990s, he was ‘found dead’ in 1991 just as he was finishing this book and the case never stacked up and only added to the very deep suspicion that Casolaro was murdered before the book could be published.
The story starts like any great story does, after picking apart a weird Department of Justice ruling against. small tech firm who had provided them with a new software program so advanced that the Department t of Justice just decided to steal the tech. From that moment on a bewildering carousel of spooks and rogue spies amalgamate around this story and opens up vast new story lines as Casolaro attempts to trace a crazy cavalcade of conspiracies all emanating out of the CIA and NSA.
The level of corruption from the possible holding up of Iranian hostages so that Reagan could win to using Indian Reserves as sovereign territory to build biological weapon factories on so that the CIA could fund dirty wars using drug money is just so extraordinary.
The manner in which The Wackenhut Corporation (which looks like a private mercenary side hustle for CIA and NSA directors) has been used to enrich these rogue mafia like spooks is extraordinary and gives a real sense of how dystopian things have become in America.
The Military Industrial Complex murders at will and there is no force inside America that can reign them in.
BEST PRIME – The Rings of Power
TBH I was very late to The Rings of Power, because I thought after Peter Jackson, who on earth could ever match that, but I have been so surprised by how good it is I have become a staunch fan.
It’s really good, not Game of Thrones Good, but really close. It’s like Wicked but with more dragons.
The backlash from people who don’t think mythical beings can be anything other than white seems to say more about them than the artistic direction.
BEST DEBATE – The Iwi/Peewee Treaty Debate
The Working Group hosted the greatest Treaty Debate ever and it became the most watched podcast of 2024!
TRAINWRECK INTERVIEW 2024 – The Infamous Todd Stephenson Interview
Comrades, Brothers and Sisters.
I don’t use the term ‘Skull Fuck’ often.
It’s a strong phrase, the literal definition of which requires the insertion of ones penis through a hole in the head to simulate sexual intercourse into warm spongy brain matter.
It’s a terrible term and a yucky mind image.
None of us are better for it as a people, as a species nor as a culture.
However.
Unfortunately for ACT it’s the only way to describe the extraordinary interview between Steve Braunias and ACT’s Arts spokesperson, Todd Stephenson.
And when I say, ‘Skull Fuck’ I mean it as in, ‘Steve Braunias Skull Fucked Todd Stephenson’, I don’t want any misunderstandings…
It took Act’s arts spokesman Todd Stephenson 20 minutes to think of a single New Zealand author and a single New Zealand book. The only artistic experience he could think of is that he went to see Hamiltonin New York. His only press release on the arts has been to issue an empty threat about funding cuts to Creative New Zealand because he was upset Tusiata Avia was awarded the Prime Minister’s Award for Poetry. His central philosophy about government arts funding is the less, the better; he doubted that the majority of New Zealanders want their tax dollar spent on the arts. And yet Stephenson likely earns the basic MP salary, paid for by the taxpayer, of $163,000, in return for a paltry 2807 votes in the Southland electorate.
…it’s the most brutal, most funny take down ever in NZ politics.
It’s so good you deserve to respect it by going to the host site and giving them your clicks.
Enjoy a taste from the master that is Steve Braunias…
But you don’t have individual tastes yourself, do you? You’re kind of an arts ignoramus, really, by your own reckoning.
No, I certainly have individual things that I like to go to. We talked about that earlier.
You’ve been to see Hamilton.
Well, I was just giving you an example of the things I like to do.
What are your tastes, other than musicals?
That’s the main one in the creative sector.
Musicals.
And I watch movies. I watch TV.
“I watch TV,” says the Act spokesman for the arts.
Creative things are on TV, are they not, Steve?
Any New Zealand authors come to mind yet? Any? While the interview has progressed, I thought maybe one might have occurred to you.
Well, Alan Duff is probably the last one I would have read.
What book of his did you read?
Everyone has read Once Were Warriors.
Did you read it? Or did you just see the movie?
No, I read it a while ago.
So that’s it. The only New Zealand book you can think of is Once Were Warriors, published in 1985.
I mean, I’m being honest with you, Steve, it’s a portfolio I’m wanting to learn more about. But what are you hoping I will learn from this portfolio? As the literary editor of Newsroom, what are you hoping I will learn from understanding more about this portfolio in the sector?
I don’t know if I’m hoping for anything from you. But a little bit of knowledge and expertise, and enthusiasm for the arts, wouldn’t have gone amiss.
Yeah, and as I said, I’m starting out learning more about the sector. I haven’t got deeply into it.
You’ve spoken to an actor and a couple of other people.
…that’s a taste, it actually gets better and funnier.
It’s not a train wreck, it’s a train full of special needs children smashing into another train full of puppies exploding next to a Kitten pet shop.
Sweet Zombie Jesus it is such an extraordinary exchange that manages to utterly destroy the reputation of a politician with all the nuance of a misfiring suicide vest.
It’s a self mutilation you can’t stop watching because you are laughing so hard.
It’s like Stephenson got his tongue stuck to a icy lamp post and manages to ‘free’ himself by cutting down the lamp post, causing it to land on him and ripping his tongue off.
If you thought Prince Andrew did a bad interview, it ain’t nothing on Todd Stephenson’s.
I actually had to check with someone to make sure this wasn’t satire.
It’s real.
ACT’s agenda is really this awful and Todd is this thick.
Our Arts and Creative sector deserve more than someone who thinks they are an expert because they watched Hamilton FFS.
Best News Story 2024 – Willie Jackson at Oxford – Māori TV
The amazing piece on Willie’s Oxford Speech is the best thing you will see on TV this year…
…watch this and tell me Willie doesn’t deserve our respect!
Final word:
I’ve been in the NZ media now for 30 years, and over that time I’ve noticed the things you can and can’t say in the NZ media landscape. Here are the list of topics that you simply are NOT allowed to discuss on NZ mainstream media.
Palestine: You can not talk about the brutal occupation of Palestine by Israel in NZ media. It’s just not allowed, any discussion has to be framed as ‘Poor Israeli’s being terrorised by evil angry Muslims’, there is never focus on the brutal occupation and when it ever does emerge in the media it’s always insinuated that any criticism is anti-Semitism. Watching Israeli apologists bleat this phrase or that phrase is antisemitic when 20 000 Palestinian dead blot out the sun from war crimes and ethnic cleansing is gasp inducing at its audacity and sophistry.
Child Poverty NEVER adult poverty: We only talk about child poverty because they deserve our pity. Adults in poverty can go fuck themselves. Despite numbering around 800 000, adults in poverty are there because they ‘choose’ to be there. The most important myth of neoliberalism is that your success is all your own, as is your failure. If an adult is in poverty, neoliberal cultural mythology states that is all on them and we have no obligation to help. That’s why we only ever talk endlessly about children in poverty because the vast majority of hard hearted NZers want to blame adults in poverty on them so we can pretend to be egalitarian without actually having to implement any policy.
The Neoliberal NZ experiment: You are never allowed to question the de-unionised work force that amputated wages, you can never question selling off our assets, you can never criticise the growth uber allas mentality, you are never allowed to attack the free market outcomes and you can’t step back and evaluate the 35 year neoliberal experiment in NZ because you remind the wage slaves of the horror of it all.
Class: You can not point out that the demarcation line in a capitalist democracy like NZ is the 1% richest plus their 9% enablers vs the 90% rest of us. Oh you can wank on and on about your identity and your feelings about your identity in a never ending intersectionist diversity pronoun word salad, but you can’t point out that it’s really the 90% us vs the 10% them class break down because that would be effective and we can’t have effective on mainstream media when feelings are the currency to audience solidarity in an ever diminishing pie of attention.
Immigration: It must always be framed as positive. It can never be argued that it is a cheap and lazy growth model that pushes down wages and places domestic poor in competition with International student language school scams and exploited migrant workers. Any criticism of Immigration makes you a Xenophobe and because the Middle Classes like travelling and have global skills for sale, they see any criticism of migrants as an attack on their economic privileges.
Hyper Tourism: We are never allowed to ask ‘how many is too many you greedy fucks’. The tourism industry that doesn’t give a shit about us locals, live for the 4million tourists who visit annually. We are not allowed to ask why that amount of air travel is sustainable, we are not allowed to ask why selling Red Bull and V at tourist stops is somehow an economic miracle and we are certainly not allowed to question why these tourists aren’t directly being taxed meaningfully for the infrastructure they clog.
Dairy as a Sunset Industry: We are never allowed to point out that the millisecond the manufactured food industry can make synthetic milk powder, they will dump us as a base ingredient and the entire Dairy Industry overnight will collapse. With synthetic milks and meats here within a decade, it is time to radically cull herds, focus on only organic and free range sustainable herds and move away from mass production dairy forever. No one is allowed to mention the iceberg that is looming up in front of the Fonteera Titanic.
The Trans debate: This debate is so toxic and anyone asking any question gets immediately decried as transphobic. I’ve seen nuclear reactor meltdowns that are less radioactive than this debate. I’m so terrified I’m not going to say anything other than ‘please don’t hurt my family’ for even mentioning it.
It’s never climate change for this catastrophic weather event: Catastrophic weather event after catastrophic weather event but it’s never connected to global warming! It’s like the weather is changing cataclysmically around us but because it’s not 100% sure that cigarette you are smoking right now is the one that causes that lump inside you to become cancer, so we can’t connect this catastrophic weather event with a climate warming model that states clearly that we will see more and more catastrophic weather events.
Scoops: No NZ media will ever acknowledge another medias scoop despite a united front being able to generate more exposure and better journalism.
Te Reo fanaticism: You are not allowed to point out that barely 5% of the population speak Te Reo and that everyone who militantly fires up about it being an ‘official language’ never seem that antagonistic about the lack of sign language use. Look, my daughter goes to a Māori immersion class and when she speaks Te Reo it makes me cry joyfully and I feel more connected to NZ than any other single moment, but endlessly ramming it down people’s throats seems woke language policing rather than a shared cultural treasure. You can still be an ok human being and not speak Te Reo.
Māori land confiscation: Māori suffer losing 95% of their land in less than a century, they were almost decimated by disease and technology brought via colonisation, they endured the 1863 Settlements Act, they survived blatant lies and falsehoods devised to create the pretext for confiscation and saw violence in the Waikato. Māori have lived throughout that entire experience and still get told to be grateful because Pakeha brought blankets, tobacco and ‘technology’.
The Disabled: Almost 25% of NZ is disabled, yet for such a staggeringly huge number of people, theire interests get sweet fuck all mention in the mainstream media.
Corporate Iwi: You can’t bring up that the corporate model used for Iwi to negotiate settlements is outrageous and has created a Maori capitalist elite who are as venal as pakeha capitalists.
Police worship: One of the most embarrassing parts about living in NZ is the disgusting manner in which so many acquiesce to the fucking cops. It’s never the cops fault when they shoot someone, it’s never the cops fault when they chase people to their death, it’s never the cops fault for planting evidence, it’s never the cops fault for using interrogation methods that bully false confessions out of vulnerable people. I think there is a settler cultural chip on our shoulders that always asks the mounted constabulary to bash those scary Māori at the edge of town because we are frightened of what goes bump in the night. We willingly give Police total desecration to kill and maim with very little in terms of check and balance. It’s sickening.
House prices must increase FOREVER! Too many middle class folk are now property speculators and they must see their values climb to afford the extra credit cards the bank sends them. We can never talk about house prices coming down. They must never fall. Fuck the homeless, fuck the generations locked out of home ownership and fuck the working poor. Buying a house is only for the children of the middle classes now. Fuck everyone else. Boomer cradle to the grave subsidisations that didn’t extend to any other generation uber allas baby! Free Ben and Jerry Ice Cream for every Boomer forever! ME! ME! MEEEEEEEEEEEE! You’ll also note that because so many media are dependent on real estate advertising, there’s never been a better time to buy!
That was the year in media 2024 where all the predicted meltdowns of the media actually took place.
The media industry faces more challenges as the new hard right Government turn off the funding taps and the social media platforms strangle off their appearance in newsfeeds.
Podcasts look like the only vehicle left to be able to actually debate the issues without cancellation or censorship.
We are privileged to be able to enjoy free speech in this country and we hope that The Daily Blog adds to the zeitgeist of our collective debate.
Increasingly having independent opinion in a mainstream media environment which mostly echo one another has become more important than ever, so if you value having an independent voice – please donate here.
The rings of power turned the orcs – an artificially created race of pure evil – in to poor misunderstood repressed folk just wanting emancipation.
Kind of the exact opposite of Tolkiens tale of actual good maintaining hope and fighting the overwhelming odds of actual evil.
Sure good and evil are subjective in the modern world without the old religions but it’s why the original story resonates.
Rings of power is very very woke, a very stupid “remake” of Tolkien’s premise.
Another thing verboten to mention is the dangerous economic cults that dominate politics.
Ah…Free Speech…freedom of expression, assembly and association–unless you wear a gang patch!
Brilliant. Thanks Marion. I especially enjoyed Willie Jackson. Sometimes a bit of fun makes the ooint
Thanks Marion. I especially enjoyed Willie Jackson. Sometimes a bit of humour makes the point very clearly
There are very few in the media that deserve to be awarded .Arron is about the only real reporter who actually digs into the facts and reports those facts .The rest just live for the two minute head line or seeking the death of a Labour minister or PM .Generally they have become blood lazy click bait right wing mouth pieces giving bullshit misinformation a platform it never ever would have been given back in day when editors had balls enough to only publish the truth .But the truth does not sell advertising like false information .Take crime rates ,since 2015 rates of crime per 10000 have dropped by about 100 in 2024 but the media insist we are having a massive up turn in crime and continue to publish the lie to please the current government bull shit artists .