Media Tarts Dependent on a Pimp Government

As every junkie knows, every hit just leaves you wanting more. Then you need even more to get the same high. It’s a vicious circle.

It’s the same with bribery: paying a bribe just encourages the swindler to hit you up for more.

But junkies and swindlers, not to say whores, are paragons of honesty and integrity compared to the mainstream media.

Broadcasting and Media Minister Kris Faafoi is again warning the $55 million Public Interest Journalism Fund (PIJF) currently pumping money into commercial news outlets has a limited shelf life.

Which is surely unrelated to the sudden trickle of anti-Jacinda stories in the New Zealand media. That’s a nice little guvmint she ’as, there… be a shame if anyfink were to ’appen to it.

NZ On Air announced the second round of funding recently providing the biggest injection of government cash into commercial newsrooms seen so far […]

But the fund is drawing flak from the opposition parties and other critics who suggest the Government is buying soft news coverage.
And, when approached for comment by Newsroom, Faafoi said when he announced the PIJF at the start of the year he made it clear it would only last three years, and that hasn’t changed.

His comment is telling as the scheme reaches the point where government-funded reporters are being hired to work for commercial newsrooms.

Of the 110 reporter roles being paid for, 70 are regional community news reporters. Thirty-six are Maori reporters (19 for Maori news outlets and 17 for mainstream news outlets). There are also eight Pasifika and five Pan-Asian reporters.

Imagine a government paying media to hire reporters based solely on their race. Is this that “institutional racism” we’re always being told about?

But I digress…

These are no small bikkies the Ardern government is handing out as payola, either.

Unsurprisingly, the largest amounts are awarded to big players with regional newspaper stables […]

Australian consultant Hal Crawford, who advised NZ On Air on the design of the scheme, said it was large by international standards.

“The PIJF will invest more per year than either the UK or the Canadian PIJ schemes, in a country a fraction the size. The potential impact is big […]”

The potential is big, alright: but not in the way the governmental pimp and prostituted MSM want us to believe. Money corrupts, and lots of money corrupts absolutely.

Opposition MPs are asserting the Government is getting an easy run from the media. This is partly fuelled by the latest Covid lockdown and opposition frustration with the daily Beehive press conferences. But the bone is also pointed at the PIJF.

Blaming the fund is a stretch. To do so assumes news editors around the country are easy beats.

Well, yes.

News bosses, and some NZ On Air executives, have entertained the idea that the PIJF might be a forerunner to permanent financial support for local media.

Newsroom

And there it is.

As William S Burroughs once said, “Never believe a whore when she tells you she doesn’t want any money. It just means that she wants MORE money”.

But then, calling the New Zealand media “whores” is an insult to sex workers.

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