Several media people are expressing outrage that media, all of a sudden, are experiencing open dislike for them in public. Mihingarangi Forbes is one such liberal media hand-wringer:
And Henry Cooke:
And Jason Walls tweeted up a storm about the tennis ball attacks:
Then followed that up with a hand-wringing cri de coeur that people were being mean to media:
There are three certainties in life for journalists: Death, taxes and a fair amount of criticism.
The latter comes with the territory and for the past few years, I’ve become accustomed to a certain level of feedback from people unhappy with my coverage, or questions.
It’s not unusual for me to receive unsolicited messages on Facebook or Instagram from these people – sometimes pretty ugly stuff.
I know other reporters get them too.
But recently, there’s been a stark and worrying change in the level of animosity directed at journalists.
Yesterday morning, for example, my partner woke me up to tell me someone’s been commenting on her photos with deeply personalised criticisms directed at me.
To get to me, they came at her.
For others in the news media, it’s been worse.
Over the weekend, a 1News cameraman was attacked by anti-vaxxers while filming a vaccination event in Greymouth.
A Newshub reporter was heckled by a member of the public as she was setting up for a story.
Unfortunately, all signs point to these sorts of incidents not just continuing, but getting worse.
NewstalkZB
Poor Jason, welcome to my world, where not only am I subjected to hate from randoms, but also the media who thought nothing of attacking me in 2014 and who have continued on with their vendetta at every possible occasion. Remember back in 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017 to 2021? Which journalist got vilified by even those in the same profession? You don’t hear me whinging like a sook about it.
But, why are these panty-waist journalists even surprised that people hate them?
The media have become tamed, toothless, poodles and shills for Government propaganda. They’ve availed themselves of millions upon millions of Government subsidies, and advertising contracts, they’ve uncritically regurgitated Government spin and often act as cheer leaders.
Media are supposed to hold every one to account, and in New Zealand they have failed, with few honourable exceptions, to even attempt to do that.
How often do we see the media gushing over the latest bowel movement of the Prime Minister’s daughter, or how naughty she has been, or her idiot boyfriend spouting forth just when Ardern is copping some deserved flak? These are all weapons of mass distraction, used to divert negative attention away from a beleaguered Prime Minister. And the complicit bought and paid for media lap it up, and promote it heavily.
The media run around labelling people protesting against our bizarre and illogical lockdown rules and the Prime Minister’s creation of medical apartheid and active discrimination against the un-vaccinated as nutters, cranks, grifters and losers.
Then there is their collective push to rename New Zealand as Aotearoa and injecting more and more Maori into the new process, slowly but surely brainwashing everyone to think that the vast majority agree with them, when we actually don’t. Poll after poll after poll shows the media are not only wrong on this but so far wrong that they are actually outliers.
Why are they surprised that some of those people feel highly aggrieved by not only the attitude of an increasingly out of touch Prime Minister but also her media enablers?
The media have segued progressively over the years from journalism to social and political activism. They have in effect become the unelected Media Party, who believe that they and only they can be the arbiters of what is “news” and what is not.
A classic example is the Siouxsie Wiles story. At first, they tried to ignore it, then when they could ignore it no longer they reported not on her actions and hypocrisy, but on the fact that it was us who broke it, that we were irrelevant and little read, and that I talk to Judith Collins from time to time. It really was that pathetic.
Little wonder then, as they seek to marginalise those they disagree with, that those same people have decided that Donald Trump was right when he said that the media have become “the enemy of the people.”
It shouldn’t be a surprise for the media to be copping this flak. They have followed the same path as media worldwide in becoming active participants in political discourse instead of doing their job.
They no longer represent their audience which is why they are tanking, both in readership, but also in advertising revenues and subscriptions. They have failed to address the rather large elephant sitting in the corner of their newsrooms and are constantly baffled as to why their reach is shrinking.
They are increasingly biased and increasingly left-wing. Of the top 15 media sites in New Zealand just two are considered conservative, ourselves and David Farrar‘s Kiwiblog. The rest are varying shades of red, from light pink to deep red.
The BFD ranks as the fourth least biased site, while Newshub, the home of Tova O’Brien, is the third most biased. Even Martyn Bradbury’s far-left hate speech blog is less biased than Newshub.
The media have been bought, bribed and corrupted so why are they surprised that many people hate them and no longer trust them?
They collectively pat each other on the back and carry on blithely, seemingly unconcerned that their own actions have seen the radicalisation of sectors of our communities, and then react with alarm when those same marginalised people push back at them.
Instead of pausing to contemplate how they ended up in this position, they instead double down on them and continue the demonisation. They are not learning their lessons.
I see in the comments on this site people bemoaning that Judith Collins isn’t saying the things they want her to say, hating on her because of what is reported as something she has said, (often falsely), then saying that she has no cut through in the media. Then in the next breath berating the media as untrustworthy. Pause just a moment to understand the disconnect in the logic. The media ARE biased, and these commenters are berating Judith Collins for something the untrustworthy media have set up to create a negative impression of her, and they are buying what the media are selling. I sit here daily shaking my head in wonder at the disconnect.
This is the same media who have been claiming she was going to be rolled in October and ran a campaign for months against her. It is now well into November and none of their commenters or talking heads has been right, and yet people still believe these liars and grifters with axes to grind.
I’ve said before, stop reading and watching mainstream media. Choke the life out of them by removing their eye balls, and traffic. Don’t advertise with them. Don’t give them any revenue at all. Starve them to death. It is the only way that they’ll learn.
You need to support the media you trust. You need to reward the truth-tellers and truth seekers and shun the liars and the activist media. The media landscape needs to be burned to the ground, and the ground salted so that new media sites will establish themselves unpolluted by the bias and corruption of the past.
Media is broken, but it still struggles on. Stop flogging the dead horses expecting them to get up and trot. Dismount, and find another ride.
We don’t trust the media because they lie, they obfuscate, they cover for the corrupt and they are Government propagandists. Take away their power by taking back your power and stop reading them, watching them or listening to them.
Trust us, not them.
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