There was a refreshingly honest statement in last Saturday’s DomPost editorial, now online at Stuff with the headline How outgoing Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern will be remembered. In the piece, we find the statement:
There is no doubt Ardern was a darling of the educated left who dominate the media, academia and social services.
After years of media types assiduously denying outright left-wing bias in that industry, or dancing on the head of a pin in debating the point, I found the self-confirmation interesting, although just how that dominance can be a good thing in a setting that requires balance was a question not investigated.
One of the traits of the left is groupthink, which should have no place in news outlets, carrying with it the whiff of cancel culture for those who stray off-path. We saw two examples of that shabby behaviour in the last couple of weeks.
In the first, Karl Du Fresne, at his blog of the same name, described how a parliamentary press-gallery member tried to have Du Fresne’s voice muted among those corralled by Bryce Edwards in Edwards’ popular Political Roundup bulletin, claiming Du Fresne demonstrated “deranged, racist and misogynist” thinking, and suggesting he was senile. That’s OK: people who comment publicly, including me, should be open to accusations, in my case the more bizarre the better since I so far lack the notoriety to give my spiels the necessary bite. But such accusations should be addressed openly and honestly to the author, not buried in emails to third parties surreptitiously undermining the writer. More importantly: when the poison pen, or toxic typepad, is wielded by the New Zealand correspondent for Australian Associated Press, a bloke whose very tools are his words, his diatribe takes on a more sinister tone, ultimately illustrating more about himself than Du Fresne. Poor form, very poor.
The second example has been canvassed on The BFD by several commenters: the Stuff crusade to drive New Dawn magazine from store shelves. There’s been a market for alternative/scandal/doom-spruiking/conspiracy-type material for as long as I can remember reading. Edgy, odd, curious, weird, they can be fun, if a little crackpot. Stuff‘s sanctimonious stand over the quirky monthly collection of write-ups reeks a little of ‘protesteth too much’, methinks. A lengthy response to Stuff has been published by one of the offending magazine’s contributors:
The response criticises Stuff‘s social-crusade reporting and aims some barbs at New Zealand’s self-appointed doyen of misinformation, she of braided-hair phobia, and includes a full copy of the piece which apparently so offended Stuff scribe Ged Cann in the first place, inviting the reader to make their own mind up.
And therein lies the contrast: readers making their own mind up, or groupthink cancellers, de-platformers, ideology captured automatons, deciding what we should, or should not, be able to view. Regardless of the merit, or not, of New Dawn I know what side of the fence I’d rather be on, thanks all the same, Stuff and comrade leftists.