As Mark Steyn once observed, “the airbrush is mightier than the sword”. Once upon a time, the mission of journalism was guided by Kipling’s “Six Honest Serving-Men”: What, Why, When, How, Where and Who. The first principle of the honest journalist is to identify each and report it without fear or favour.
Alas, we live in a time where honest journalists are a rarer species than rational, free-thinking intellectuals.
The first principle of modern (mainstream) journalism (and more importantly, their political masters) is to identify the who, what, when stuff – and then remove any of it that doesn’t fit the “narrative”.
Stuff this week provided a magnificent example of modern journalism.
An Auckland man has been charged with threatening to kill members of the “Auckland community who were non-Muslims”.
The narrative is, as in 1984, “whatever the Party holds to be the truth”. What the Party holds to be the truth, in New Zealand in 2021, is that “they are us” (a splendidly Orwellian phrase, in itself).
And so, we have an “Auckland man” threatening to kill non-Muslims. Now, who, you might ask, might be motivated to kill non-Muslims? Stop that line of thinking right now, you bigot. Our “Auckland man” is obviously as Kiwi As. Don’t you dare think any different.
The 19-year-old man is alleged to have committed the offence between July and September 7, 2021.
The charge carries a maximum of seven years in prison.
He also faces two charges of supplying or distributing an objectionable publication, having reasonable cause to believe that the publication is objectionable, on August 5.
Now what “objectionable publication” would that be? Brenton Tarrant’s ludicrous manifesto? Nicky Hager’s latest taradiddle? The New Zealand Herald?
If your thoughts went immediately to, say, Dabiq, ISIS’ glossy that’s the must-have for every jihadi coffee-table, well, you’re probably just a “white supremacist” or something.
But merely suppressing the name of our “Auckland Man”, Bruce McKiwi, is not enough. The “narrative” mandates that every attack by the people-of-no-particular-description must be immediately construed as an imminent attack on that group. The “narrative” is always the backlash. To quote Mark Steyn again, our authorities live in perpetual fear of the “backlash from tomorrow’s terror attack”.
His lawyer, Peter Syddall, argued if he was named his family could be endangered, given the Auckland terror attack at LynnMall Countdown last week.
Stuff
Now why on earth would that be? Is there something they have in common?
Who knows? Certainly don’t count on your government or their media bootlickers to tell you.
You might start getting the wrong ideas.
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