How is that News?

Let's give them something to talk about.

Before we begin today, a word of warning.

Some of you might think this newsletter is some old leftie yelling into the internet that things ought to be better. You’d be right.

That kindness wasn’t just a slogan that sounded good, and in our limited period of existence it just makes sense to live peacefully, working together and sharing. Rather than trying to get more than we need, which means that others don’t get enough.

It’s not a popular view point in the mainstream media, I understand that. But it’s not exactly the communist manifesto and a recipe for overthrowing the government either. My apologies.

You wouldn’t think there would be headlines over someone sharing one of my opinion pieces. But that’s what’s happened with this newsletter, that I sent out on Monday. As reported yesterday in the Herald…

It turns out that someone on the Papakura Labour Facebook page had shared the post, with the comment “This is the background of a current minister in our government?” Which seemed pretty innocuous, and utterly un-newsworthy to me.

I mean seriously, have you seen some of the stuff that groups affiliated with ACT or National post?

“The Herald contacted Labour for comment on the post, which was deleted before party general secretary Rob Salmond supplied a statement saying that the post, made by a “party volunteer”, didn’t reflect Labour’s position and had been removed.

Hipkins was unable to respond as he was attending the funeral for Green MP Fa’anānā Efeso Collins in Auckland today.”

Sorry, what? This is the scrutiny that Labour are under? Someone shares a newsletter from a left leaning blogger and it goes to the General Secretary?

Not only that but in that last line it sounds as if they expected Chris Hipkins to respond? Surely not.

“The Papakura Labour Facebook account has removed the post.” Image: NZ Herald.

When a kind reader (Thanks Louise 🙂) alerted me to it last night I felt like I’d gone through the Looking Glass. That’s just nuts. Again have you seen the stuff that gets shared on Facebook pages or even things that National or ACT MPs retweet?

If you’re not familiar with that platform, there’ll be more on it in a bit, re-tweeting is the equivalent of sharing something on Facebook.

The article sided with Andersen and criticised Mitchell for requesting that Andersen apologise publicly instead of via the text she sent shortly after the pair’s exchange on Newstalk ZB on February 21.

I mean that’s not exactly what it said, but I certainly suggested that having received an apology directly that ought to be enough.

In my view if Mitchell’s concerns were his hurt feelings - for goodness sake, show us on the dolly where the mean lady caused you so much pain Mark - then a direct apology should’ve been sufficient. His demand for a public apology, for penance from Ginny, is just political posturing and should be ignored.

The truth is, I don’t think she should have apologised at all, and I think Chippy should have said as much.

In a statement, Mitchell said it was an issue for Labour but added: “It fits with a pattern of atrocious behaviour from that party recently.”

Have we all lost our minds here people? I’ve written in the past many times about the microscopic nature of what qualifies as a Labour scandal - rest assured a Greens one is even smaller. While the likes of Uffindell and Kuriger carry on their merry way as if those elephants in the room were just part of the furnishings.

I can’t remember who said it, I’m guessing Russell Howard, but - “when did Sticks and Stones stop being a thing?” Hmm, come to think of it maybe it was Bill Burr - there go my “woke” credentials!

Maybe I’m getting a bit worked up as it was my newsletter but seriously how the hell does a Labour volunteer posting an opinion piece to a local party page warrant asking a question of a government Minister? I know we’re a small country but surely there’s a cat stuck up a tree somewhere, or something else more important to cover?

As I was writing this I got a call from my mother asking if I knew I was named in the Herald. That was a surprise as I’m not in the online version, but sure enough…

Thankfully there are other news sources than the Herald, although sadly there will of course be fewer in the future.

While much has been made of the loss of political coverage from the 6pm News, and current affairs, following the announcement of Newshub’s demise, there’s a whole lot else they do besides.

Newshub provide a lot of valuable coverage. It’s not all Jenna standing outside the Labour caucus making a pain of herself to the point where she gets told to “Fuck Off”, as I wrote about after the election:

A lot of their news coverage is not contentious but information that people really need. When there’s a natural disaster, or something else serious, they’re there with a camera crew and a reporter, in whatever conditions, informing people about what is going on and telling the stories of the people impacted. Our stories.

I don’t have the resources to do that, and neither do other independent writers. We’re dependent on the coverage from the mainstream media so we can see, and talk about, what’s going on - we all are to a degree.

Many people have expressed delight at the demise of Newshub, I just think it’s incredibly sad. I know many lefties were outraged with the way they reported on the politicians and parties we support, but they were giving it to the other side too - we just don’t see that in the same way.

C’mon, each time one of the interviewers made Luxon look like a vacuous middle manager with nothing to offer but meaningless buzzwords and hollow slogans you cheered or laughed, didnt you? But there were other people no doubt watching thinking “why are the media so mean to National? Bloody biased lefties.”

In these days of social media and partisan polarisation I think we’ve reached the point where any attempt at neutrality is deemed to be biased, so used are we to reading things from a single perspective in our bubbles.

It’s easy to just write a group of journalists off as being all National supporters, or a bunch of lefties. I don’t want to make it sound as if Newshub were producing great triumphs of journalism, I’m sure they didn’t have the budget for that, but they were, I think, trying to walk a tightrope down the centre. Sometimes we don’t like to hear home truths about “our side”.

The sometime tabloid sensationalism of Newshub wasn’t always to the liking of some, I guess I’m sympathetic to the reality that they needed to attract an audience. Simple fact is a negative article, ripping someone a new one, gets a lot more clicks than a thoughtful piece that’s more constructive in its analysis.

Whereas the outright deliberate disinformation from our local equivalents of Alex Jones and Fox News are leading people down rabbit holes, and there doesn’t seem to be any indication of them coming back.

Needless to say the responses to my tweet above were abusive and largely failed to understand what I was saying. So par for the course with Twitter.

What I meant in my tweet was that those on the left didn’t like some of things that Newshub said. Whereas the sort of people who felt compelled to reply misread it as meaning that the denizens of the Platform, Reality Checkout Radio, or ZB hadn’t liked Newshub because they were too far the other way.

There are people who genuinely think Newshub is biased to the left. They inevitably refer to the industry assistance given by the last government as proof that Labour bought the media.

I mean if that was the case (it’s not), then I reckon the last government should ask for it’s money back. It’d be like paying an advertising agency to come up with a commercial saying people shouldn’t buy your product because it’s faulty and some of the pieces are missing.

Cameron Slater missed the point of my post and seemed to imagine that I was asking for those right wing misinformation platforms to be closed down. Fortunately Matt was more adept at discerning meaning.

I’ve got to say my skins crawls when I see Slater reply to my tweets. Many people have some redeeming qualities, but a few seem utterly deficient in that regard. Paula Bennett, Sean Plunket, and top of the list old Whale Oil himself.

Like many I was absolutely delighted to see this story recently. It could only have been better if Slater actually had any money to pay for his crimes. Matthew Bloomfield is an incredibly brave man, but he shouldn’t have had to be.

I won’t trouble you with many other replies to my tweet, there’s little value in most of them, although there were some helpful suggestions of course.

Michael Fraser suggested I “crywank more”. Some say if the only tool you have is a hammer then every problem starts to look like a nail. I’m not sure what tools Michael is packing, but I’m guessing he’s not seeing a lot of nails.

This was one of the replies, which tells you plenty:

If you missed the whole population house arrest and medical mandates, he means the last government’s Covid response. Hmm not all views provide much value. Speaking of which…

Graces asked whether I saw a problem with these headlines:

I don’t. They look eminently sensible to me, but I didn’t tell Grace that, she can herd her own cats. There are so many more interesting things to talk about that than trying to corral the lost towards knowledge.

Especially with platforms that have redirected the road signs and are pointing the disoriented in the wrong direction.