Over on The Daily Blog Political commentator, Chris Trotter muses about the role political journalists are currently playing in attack politics. He says that the enemies of Winston Peters are trying to remove him and NZ First from the chessboard and are using the news media to do it.
Those tempted to climb upon their high moral horses should first ask themselves which is worse: taking thoroughbred-breeders’ money to rescue the racing industry; or, taking money from the People’s Republic of China to ensure that New Zealand remains open to its investors?
[…]Where does the news media fit into all this? Essentially the role of the news media in dealing with political corruption hasn’t changed at all. In the past, the job of the press was to ensure that, even when they were looking directly at it, New Zealanders would fail to recognise corrupt behaviour. In a country as dependent upon crony capitalism as New Zealand, scorching media exposés of political and business venality could only undermine people’s faith in the system – maybe to the point where it collapsed completely. Best to turn a blind eye.
The advent of globalisation, along with the neoliberal revolutions it necessitated, only reinforced the news media’s role as the justifier of capitalism’s mysterious ways to the ordinary man and woman. In the new order, however, there was an additional duty. The final and furious destruction of any politician or party foolhardy enough to defend the way things were done in the bad old days – back when the country was run, you know, like a Polish shipyard.
Unsurprising, then, that Winston Peters and NZ First, from the moment they acquired independent political form, were targeted by the news media for termination with extreme prejudice. That Peters cemented his status as the people’s tribune by exposing the massive financial corruption scandal known as “The Winebox Affair” only made his political termination all the more urgent. The 25 years of unrelenting media hostility to which Peters has, accordingly, been subjected by this country’s political and business journalists is nowhere near as surprising as the fact he has survived it.
Just as they did in 2008, the present attacks will go on and on. Politicians will collude with press gallery journalists, and press gallery journalists will collude with politicians, both groups making sure that the grubby process of leaking information and priming the public for ever-more shocking revelations continues right up until the general election. […] Peters and NZ First will be condemned for the gaming of a system which no government has ever bothered to make un-game-able.
Trotter is quite right about the media’s historic fixation with NZ First and Winston Peters in particular. These days media are more at risk of being sued and some NZ Media and muck-racking politicians may live to regret their enthusiastic smearing of NZ First and Brian Henry.