Another Left-Wing Stooge

Riding the Hobby Horse, Hard

Mass media are often held in contempt.  Much of it is self-caused.  It is not uncommon to observe media personnel acting as if they were politicians in their own right.  They strive to push public opinion one way or the other.  Media scribes appear to have a political world-view which they strive to impose upon the community.  Their ideology now defines right and wrong, truth and lies, falsehood and verity.  No facts or base data is necessary.

All of this is pretty well known.  It is a reason why media in Western democracies are generally held in contempt.  In New Zealand recently we have seen another example of this trope.  Two political "scandals".  One a beat-up; the other more genuine.  One story pursued with relentless energy; the other ignored.  The reason is pretty obvious: it is yet another example of media attempting to influence the vote along partisan lines.

One of our local blogs has been working on the abacus.

It is very important that media holds power to account, and holds elected people and Governments to account. But media have power of their own, and that also needs to be held to account.  Newsroom is an Auckland based media organisation. They must have put considerable resources into a story about as far from Auckland as you can get, in Clutha-Southland.

There is a big contrast between their handling of the southern story and the other big political story of the past couple of weeks where it was important to hold another bunch of politicians to account – the Labour Party Fellowship/intern story. This is very much an Auckland story.  Newsroom is new and relatively small, so can’t be expected to cover every story in depth, but some balance should be expected.

Integrity and truthfulness of leading politicians were involved in both the Barclay and intern stories.

How did their coverage of the two stories compare?

On the National/Barclay Story:

Politicians, police, and the payout
Todd Barclay’s file of denial 19 June
Barclay payout raises questions over leader’s fund 19 June
Setbacks derail National’s election plan 23 June
Todd Barclay responds: ‘I did nothing wrong’
Barclay sorry for ‘misleading’ comments
Police to review Todd Barclay case
Privacy Commissioner may probe Barclay claims
Allegations Barclay invented complaints
Fall from grace for Baby of the House
How Barclay’s career went up in smoke
PM accused of cover-up
Hughes stonewalls Dickson questions
Barclay affair: What the board knew
English: Barclay offered to play rec
Officials knew details of Barclay tapes

On the Labour/intern story

Labour under fire over volunteer ‘hypocrisy’

No investigations on their own turf, no investigation about funding of the scheme, no questions about Andrew Little’s  integrity and truthfulness. Little slammed English’s morals while claiming the high ground over the interns, but media has barely touched on his lack of openness and on his varying and vague explanations.

Sixteen stories plays one.  On the basis of that performance and output we believe we can state without fear of contradiction that Newsroom is little more than a left wing, Labour Party front.  Nothing new to see here on the matter of a major political party exploiting non-residents and foreigners.  Move along.