The BFD | The Mainstream Media Are Scared

OPINION

The mainstream media seems to have a fascination with the new media startups coming to New Zealand.

First, they went after The Platform, with speculation about Sean Plunket’s plan for this new website and some cynical doubt as to whether the venture would succeed, and then it was a profile about the person backing him. Then they were almost gloating at the legal disputes Sean faced with Ani O’Brien and David Farrier. The Platform also seems to now be the standard bearer for ‘fringe media’ in New Zealand with other independent ventures being compared to them.

Then they went after Reality Check Radio, speculating about its possibilities and gleefully predicting its collapse. Of course, that could be counted as part of the media’s continued smear campaign of Voices for Freedom, noting that the three founders each owned an equity share in this privately owned media company.

They came after the Common Room, New Zealand’s version of PragerU, attacking it for having the majority of its hosts both male and pale. The only things they could attack were the comments underneath their videos and accusing it of being ‘The Platform Mark II’.

Then they came for Counterspin, mainly because it was hosted on a platform owned by Steve Bannon. This is even though backing for that platform came from Miles Guo, a billionaire who is risking bankruptcy fighting the Chinese Communist Party. Of course, there were also the usual attacks about them ‘spreading misinformation and conspiracy theories’, even though the media have been guilty of that for the last three years.

It’s also worthy to include the media smear of Operation People, accusing Chantelle Baker of ‘endangering the lives of Ukrainians’ and ‘spreading Russian misinformation’, even though the MSM spread Ukrainian propaganda about the war.

Their most recent target was New Zealand News Essentials and The Centrist. A media company started to help the ‘wobbly middle’ understand the state of things. It is funded by a Canadian millionaire, who was involved in third-party advertising. The media accused this group of receiving ‘dark money’ even though the Disinformation Project and other media companies won’t disclose who funds them.

It should have been obvious by now that the mainstream media are not fans of ‘independent media’ unless it suits their narrative (looking at you, Bomber) or if they discuss the topics on the political agenda (listen up Farrar).

It was obvious back in 2014 when they decided to go after a blog called Whale Oil Beef Hooked and a man called Cameron Slater. The fact that they celebrated files stolen by “Rawshark” while going after Cam for ‘breaching name suppression’ shows you not just their double standards, but also their fear of independent media. That is why Stuff is leaving X (aka Twitter). Could it be because people would be able to hold them accountable? They fear losing their audience, which is why ZB Plus announced Philip Crump, aka Thomas Cranmer, as its editor and Muriel Newman as one of its contributors.

The mainstream media fears these independent media outlets because the internet and social media allow these ventures to have instant and wide reach.

They fear them because they are a challenge to the power of narrative and information that has been centralised by the mainstream media for the last two hundred years. The decentralisation of information sources in the net has allowed public access to information that would have been suppressed in the past, and now people know much more than the mainstream media.

If you really want to scare them, if you are sick of the mainstream media and want them to lose their influence, then support these independent outlets like The BFD, and together let’s expel the MSM from the public square.

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