Mark Freeman
Concerned citizens visited media offices in the three main New Zealand centres on Saturday to protest at mainstream media bias. The marches and rallies were part of a global event, the Worldwide Rally for Freedom, to promote freedom, peace and human rights.
In Auckland, a number of speakers, including former TVNZ presenter Liz Gunn, addressed a crowd of just over 100 people in Aotea Square. People then walked to the TVNZ building for more speeches. Staff from the New Zealand Herald, Newshub and Stuff visited the protest to take photos. Protest organisers approached a journalist to request an interview, but the journalist declined the offer because she said she had received abuse from protesters in the past.
In Wellington, nearly 50 protesters visited the offices of RNZ and Stuff. A letter was read aloud outside each building assessing the organisation’s news coverage against their self-declared journalistic principles. The letters were then stuck to the doors of the buildings. The Stuff building was apparently empty; staff had earlier been warned about the protest.
In Christchurch, protesters stood outside the TVNZ and RNZ building. The key message from them was for the media to stop lying and speak the truth.
National organiser of the event, Gabrielle Tamihana, says the aim of the rallies and marches in New Zealand was to put the mainstream media on notice so they know, “we will not be silent until they publish the absolute truth.” The media should be accountable to the people of New Zealand, she says.
Vaccine injuries have not been reported on, says Ms Tamihana, and the vaccine-injured “have been silenced, ignored and told the medical conditions they received after taking this so-called vaccine are not related to the vaccine at all.
“The freedom movement, in general, is being ridiculed and people who are being targeted are not being given the right of reply because this would lead people into knowing the truth.
“Our Government is corrupt, and the media are enabling them to spread misinformation and disinformation to protect their narrative.”
On Saturday, marchers were able to “speak our truths on the doorsteps of the very same media outlets that are responsible for enabling our government.”
Letter to Stuff.
Dear Stuff,
The Dominion Post and the Press used to be proud newspapers of record in Wellington and Christchurch respectively, pillars of their communities and trusted by many citizens as impartial vehicles of news.
But, increasingly, the newspapers and your website have turned into partisan tabloids, and public trust in you has diminished accordingly. A 2022 AUT survey shows that the public’s trust in Stuff’s news coverage has dropped by 4 percentage points in the past two years to 57%.
That may be because your coverage of events in the last few years has been patchy. Time and time again you have violated your own editorial code of practice and ethics, specifically the standards relating to the right of reply; accuracy, fairness and balance; and bias.
Let’s look at some of the principles from your own code of practice and ethics and see how you have been measuring up to them.
“Journalists should strive to represent all significant sides to a story, to serve our audience with a balanced picture.”
Suffice to say that your audience has failed to get a balanced picture of thousands of stories in the last two and a half years that have had only one side presented. In particular, these have been on the Government’s handling of Covid, including the severity of the virus, the safety and efficacy of the vaccine, and the need for the lockdowns, the vaccine pass and the mask and job mandates.
There are countervailing views on all these issues backed by strong scientific research, which you have largely ignored: in effect, censored. Occasionally, you and the other media outlets have reported the findings of a study which run counter to the Government’s narrative, but they’ve soon been buried in an avalanche of Covid case numbers, musings by carefully-screened local experts and official pronouncements from the “single source of truth” in the Beehive.
“Publications should be bound at all times by accuracy, fairness and balance, and should not deliberately mislead or misinform readers by commission or omission. In articles of controversy or disagreement, a fair voice must be given to the opposition view.”
A fair voice and no deliberate misinformation? Stuff has aided in the marginalisation of ordinary Kiwis holding views counter to the official story. You have effectively denied a voice to the hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders whose rights were temporarily stripped from them, the effects of which are still being felt today.
In the last two and a half years, you have also demonised us. On the basis of flimsy evidence, you have painted us as a bunch of far-right, potentially violent extremists. You’ve labelled us as “conspiracy theorists”, “fascists,” “anti-science,” purveyors of “mis- and disinformation” and an “extremist fringe”.
You have focused your readers’ and viewers’ attention on the worst alleged language and behaviour you can find in an attempt to whip up fear in the general public. At the same time, you have skilfully avoided examining the substantive issues which are at the base of our grievances. You have effortlessly and heartlessly skimmed over people’s angst at losing jobs and income to the mandates and at their heartbreak at their loved ones being seriously injured and even dying following the jab.
“Any subject of a news story who is facing criticism or allegations must be afforded reasonable right of reply before publication.”
The most egregious example of your ignoring this guideline is your recently-released so-called documentary Fire and fury, in which the journalists responsible managed to convince themselves that the right of reply, a foundation stone of western journalism, did not apply due to the “dangerous” nature of the spokespeople who were under scrutiny. These dangerous people included three Voices for Freedom organisers depicted as ardent knitters!
“Journalists should take care not to allow bias – or the perception of bias – in their reporting and in public comments…”
The comments relating to the previous three principles clearly shows Stuff’s bias. That bias against groups in the freedom movement continues but has now been extended to thinly veiled attacks on candidates in the local body elections, who apparently represent a major threat to democracy. In fact, it may turn out that the exposure you’ve given these candidates backfires. While some voters may be warned off voting for the candidates, your articles will alert other voters to the presence of candidates who they feel truly represents their views.
In conclusion, Stuff, we have seen how you frequently and routinely violate your own ethical code. The big question now is: when will you connect with your journalistic consciences? Standing up for all New Zealanders with a clear conscience might lose you your job, but isn’t that better than going against your own journalistic principles?
In an article in Stuff in February this year, your news head Mark Stevens said, in a moment of rose-tinted reflection, that Stuff was “[h]olding the powerful to account, shining light on untruths and giving voices to the wronged…”
To this we would say that we applaud you doing these three things, but when do you plan to start? In contrast, recently, you’ve been allowing the powerful – politicians and corporations – to tell their untruths unchallenged while at the same time denying a voice to the wronged, such as the mandated and the vaccine-injured.
It’s not too late to change. Please revisit to your editorial code of practice and ethics and seek to uphold it – for the sake of our country and its people.
Yours sincerely,
A group of concerned citizens
Letter to RNZ
Dear RNZ,
To many New Zealanders you are the beloved official radio voice of New Zealand. Some of us here today also used to think that.
You were neutral and impartial – or so it seemed from a certain white middle-class perspective. Sure, some people accused you of a left-wing bias, but overall you appeared to be on the side of all New Zealanders. There was no name-calling, news and current affairs were presented in measured tones, and presenters and guests alike were civilised and erudite. Apart from some tense interviews between politicians and confrontational Morning Report presenters, Radio New Zealand exuded an air of calmness – reassuring us that everything was all right in Godzone.
As if to confirm this view, an AUT study published this year shows that you are the most trusted of the New Zealand media outlets. However, there is also bad news for you in the study: your trust rating, like the other outlets’, has dropped in the last two years: in your case dramatically, by 8 percentage points, down from 70% to 62%. This shows that many members of the New Zealand public understand that recently you haven’t been doing your job properly.
So what’s been the cause? It’s been a stressful two and a half years with the country going through a pandemic response that’s involved lockdowns, job losses, social distancing, vaccine passes, and mask and job mandates. The flow-on effects have included job losses, destroyed businesses, loss of income, fractured relationships, increased isolation, increased stress, declines in physical health, vaccine injuries, and an increase this year in all-cause mortality.
How have you responded to these devastating events? Actually, they’ve barely registered as a blip on your news radar. Let’s judge your response to the events by your own standards by looking at three of the elements from your purpose as outlined in the Radio New Zealand Charter:
(1) As an independent public service broadcaster, the public radio company’s purpose is to serve the public interest.
It’s clear that since 2020 RNZ’s coverage of the pandemic has not been independent of the government or the parliamentary system. We know that your funding comes exclusively from the government coffers, so perhaps the lack of independence is not surprising. Nevertheless, there’s been very little pretence of independence in the last three years. Almost exclusively, your coverage has been in lockstep with the government’s view. You, and most other media, have essentially acted as mouthpieces of the government and the parliamentary system in general.
On the matter of the public interest, it’s unclear who defines public interest: presumably the government. It’s certain that the interests of a large minority of New Zealanders have not been served by you in the last three years.
(2) Freedom of thought and expression are foundations of democratic society and the public radio company as a public service broadcaster plays an essential role in exercising these freedoms.
It’s also clear that New Zealanders’ freedom of thought and expression on the issue of covid, vaccines and mandates has been stifled by you and other media outlets, as well as social media giants. Many people have been denied a public voice on these vital issues. This amounts to censorship and is threatening the foundations of our democratic society.
To be fair, you haven’t been as one-sided as many of the other media outlets. Nevertheless, with your biased and partly decontextualized coverage, you’ve excluded from public dialogue the voices of a significant minority of New Zealanders on issues such as, the government’s handling of the pandemic, the safety and efficacy of the Covid vaccine, and the wisdom and morality of the lockdowns, mask use and mandates.
There are alternative views on these issues backed by strong scientific research. Occasionally, you and the other media have reported the findings of a study which runs counter to the official narrative, but it’s soon been buried in the avalanche of daily covid case numbers, musings by carefully-screened experts and the “single source of truth” in the Beehive.
(3) The public radio company fosters a sense of national identity by contributing to tolerance and understanding, reflecting and promoting ethnic, cultural, and artistic diversity and expression.
You have fostered a sense of national identity, but that identity has been limited to promoting the Prime Minister’s “team of five million”, a bitterly divisive and exclusionary concept which has done the complete opposite of contributing to tolerance and understanding.
You’ve contributed to the marginalisation of New Zealand citizens. You stood by and said next to nothing in opposition to the temporary stripping of the human rights of hundreds of thousands of people, the effects of which are still being felt today.
And you’ve also been part of the demonisation of New Zealanders. One example of this was a softball interview this year with security “expert” Paul Buchanan, who speculated, with no hard evidence, that recent anonymous bomb threats to schools may have come from “anti-maskers”.
RNZ, you have drifted a long way from the principles of the purpose in your charter. We ask you to revisit your charter and make a renewed effort to serve all New Zealand taxpayers.
Yours sincerely,
A group of concerned citizens