"Almost every media corporation has supported conservatism since the emergence of the popular press in the last half of the 19th Century" ("Rupert Murdoch: An Investigation Of Political Power", David McKnight, Allen & Unwin, 2012, p42).

"In contrast to the standard image of the media as cantankerous, obstinate, and ubiquitous in their search for truth and their independence of authority, we have spelled out and applied a propaganda model that indeed sees the media as serving a 'societal purpose', but not that of enabling the public to assert meaningful control over the political process by providing them with the information needed for the intelligent discharge of political responsibilities. On the contrary, a propaganda model suggests that the 'societal purpose' of the media is to inculcate and defend the economic, social, and political agenda of privileged groups that dominate the domestic society and the State" ("Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy Of The Mass Media", Edward S Herman & Noam Chomsky, Vintage, 1988/94, p298).

"Is democracy just a political luxury of the rich nations of the world? Does democracy really operate in the countries that claim its name? Can it operate in a mechanised world, a huge world where millions of people compete for a place in the Sun, doubt each others' motives, are alienated, without community?"" (Patrick Watson in "The Struggle For Democracy", Patrick Watson & Benjamin Barber, W. H. Allen & Co, 1988/90, p268).

"There is no free and independent press in the US. The notion of a 'free market of ideas' is as mythical as the notion of a free market in goods . . . In fact - be it commodities or commentary - to reach a mass market you need huge sums of money to buy exposure and distribution. Those without big bucks end up with a decidedly smaller clientele, assuming they are able to survive at all" ("Dirty Truths: Reflections On Politics, Media, Ideology, Conspiracy, Ethnic Life And Class Power", Michael Parenti, City Lights, 1996, p99).

"The National (Party) papers show various mainstream journalists and a good number of radio talkback radio hosts, whom the Leader's staff regarded as actively sympathetic to National" ("The Hollow Men: A Study In The Politics Of Deception", Nicky Hager, Craig Potton Publishing, 2006, p261). National's then Leader Dr. Don Brash was eager to promote his far Right fundamentalist "free market" and racist anti-Maori views.

"Media-wise, the biggest sign for us that things were going downhill was Bauer (i.e., its closure) . . . and that was the first big collapse" (Helen McCarthy, Producer Kerre McIvor Mornings, Newstalk ZB, quoted under the section subtitled "The closure sent a chill through other media, including radio" in "The Covid Chronicles: LESSONS FROM NEW ZEALAND", Paul Little, Harper Collins Publishers, 2020, p90). The Covid-19 pandemic, etc. continue to pressure much of the traditional media, giving us an unprecedented opportunity to promote public good alternatives.

"I have never ruled against ignorance in this House (Parliament) because that would be stupid!", Speaker Trevor Mallard, replying to an illegitimate point of order from ACT Leader David Seymour (Parliament TV, 17/2/21).

Far Right Domestic Cheerleaders

Long ago in the modern era, C Wright Mills, a Professor of Sociology at Columbia University, US, and a leading critic of American civilisation, aptly observed that the mass media were "among the most important of those increased means of power now at the disposal of elites of wealth and power; moreover, some of the higher agents of these are themselves either among the elites or very important among their servants.

Alongside, or just below the elite, there is the propagandist, the publicity expert, the public-relations (PR) man, who would control the very formation of public opinion in order to be able to include it as one more pacified item in calculations of effective power, increased prestige, more secure wealth" ("The Power Elite", Oxford University Press, 1956, p315). Rupert Murdoch's notorious Fox News has come to represent the worst example of corporate media organs operating in the US. Fox News has operated as a far Right domestic cheerleader as well as a foreign policy propagandist. It has served as a crucial vehicle of ideological dissemination for much of America's power elite.

Just recently the death of the notorious media "shock-jock" Rush Limbaugh, farewelled with all the sickening fulsome obituary praise of former US Republican President Donald Trump & Co. signalled just how low American culture has sunk. Limbaugh was very influential in the American context for marshalling racist, sexist, and homophobic prejudices, as well as plenty of crude and ugly foreign policy antagonisms. He was an enthusiastic peddler of crackpot conspiracy theories. Closer to home, Professor Mills' reflections are more meaningful than ever for us today in Aotearoa/NZ as we struggle to break the stranglehold of the neoliberal media. The Covid-19 crisis is giving us an unprecedented opportunity to do so.

Seize The Time!

For many years now, among so many other issues, CAFCA writers have been monitoring and analysing NZ's mainstream media in a continuing critique of its rightwing corporate bias (see relevant past issues of Watchdog). Anti-Bases Campaign (ABC) has long done the same in Peace Researcher. The Left in general has always been very concerned about the conservative bias of the capitalist media. But in the modern era this concern has been particularly acute during the hegemony of the neoliberal creed, which got more or less kicked into full gear during the Reagan/Thatcher regime of the 1980s.

"Rogernomics" was the version of this free market creed as implemented during the same period in Aotearoa/NZ. Its full-blown form has markedly faded over the years. Mind you, it still has some resonance in the mainstream media, although the Covid-19 crisis - coupled with gathering critical scrutiny in recent times - is making it look increasingly tattered as a plausible ideology in the public arena. ACT, as facilitated by the media, carries the banner still for Rogernomics and its disciples.

In this current article for FCW, I am essentially making another appeal for more concerted action by the Left in holding the media democratically accountable. Correspondingly, I am pushing for better public good alternatives given the golden opportunity now beckoning. We can all work together to create a much better media. I continue, as well, to expound on certain themes relating to media bias to point up the need for improvement. More specifically, I explore several more examples of such bias in order to emphasise the focus of my article. My basic message is for us to seize the moment!

Cultivating Capitalist Greedy Control

Explaining the US's record in what used to be called the "Third World", American Professor Michael Parenti has observed: "that Rightwing oppressors, however heinous they be, do not tamper with, and give full support to, private investment and profits, while the Leftists pose a challenge to that system" ("Dirty Truths", op. cit., p69). Hence the standard American eager support for such regimes and corresponding repression of Leftist opposition.

(For background, see e.g., "The CIA: A Forgotten History. US Global Interventions Since World War 2", William Blum, Zed Books Ltd., 1986; "Confronting The Third World: United States Foreign Policy 1945-1980", Gabriel Kolko, Pantheon Books, 1988; & "The Sorrows Of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, And The End Of The Republic", Chalmers Johnson, 2004). Moreover: "The national media play a critical role in making sure that no fundamentally critical views of the rationales underlying and justifying US policy gain national exposure" ("Dirty Truths", op. cit., p59). A broad conservative consensus is created and maintained across the mainstream mediums of public discourse.

This built-in bias to the interests of the rich and powerful has, of course, been emblematic and expressive of the capitalist system from the very start, both in the sort of global reach outlined by Michael Parenti, and in the domestic sphere. Overwhelmingly in the sphere of foreign affairs, the propaganda model described by Professors Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky reigns supreme. It has long applied in NZ.

This model also has much relevance in the sphere of domestic affairs. Parenti aptly highlights the hypocrisy so regularly purveyed by the corporate-owned/oriented, commercialised media ("Making The World Safe For Hypocrisy" in "Dirty Truths", ibid., pp55-72). In the name of freedom, they effectively suppress free speech by marginalising the more critical political Left as much as possible.

A Studious Self-Serving Silence

They keep silent or assiduously misleading on the reality and truth of so many vital issues. While in the essay cited, Professor Parenti is talking about the treatment of American foreign policy, his point about the practice of media hypocrisy and selective attention certainly applies more generally. As he says: "Capitalism has no loyalty to anything but itself, to the accumulation of wealth" (ibid., p58). Pursuit of narrow self-interest and greed are the operative words. And the exponents of free market capitalism get maximum media protection for the most part. If individuals can be criticised at times, the capitalist creed continues to reign supreme with the celebration of the "entrepreneur" and "entrepreneurship" - and bugger the accumulating costs for the Earth and its peoples!

In Aotearoa/NZ, three big mainstream media companies, Discovery NZ Ltd., MediaWorks NZ, and NZME are now effectively owned by American transnational corporations (TNCs). The former has Newshub TV3 as its lead organ of dissemination, the second is so-called Magic Talk (MT) radio, while the third flaunts the NZ Herald, plus, perhaps equally enough, NewstalkZB (see: MediaWorks New Zealand, Wikipedia).

What was known as MediaWorks/NewsHub got carved up in a transnational corporate (TNC) deal in December 2020 (ibid.). Original owner US-based Oaktree Capital Management and "out-of-home advertising company QMS" got the radio chains and certain online websites, keeping the MediaWorks name. Another American TNC, Discovery Inc., picked up the entire TV division (ibid.).

ACTing Up!

In my immediately previous Watchdog article, I pointed out the egregiously flagrant media bias in favour of the ACT party and the reasons why ("Collapsing Globalism: Contesting The Dangers And Actioning Alternatives" in Watchdog 155, December 2020). ACT represents the rich, comprador elite in Aotearoa/NZ, a grouping which has been riding high on the corporate globalist wave for well over a neoliberal generation. It stands for social injustice, inequality, and rampant environmental depredation. As a consequence, ACT has been heartily endorsed by the mainstream media for the most part, with the minimum of criticism.

As was demonstrated in Trump's America, ACT would similarly let the "free market" rip to obscenely exploit both people and the environment while boosting economic growth as much as possible. Such "trickle-down" growth is intended by ACT and its mates to facilitate, entrench, and expedite socio-economic inequities and environmental extraction.

So, the media ensured that ACT got a helping hand to greatly boost the number of the Party's MPs in Parliament from a solitary one (Leader David Seymour) to ten. TV3 was especially prominent as per normal in assisting ACT but State-owned TV1 was also very helpful, with Political Reporter Benedict Collins, in particular, seemingly ever so solicitous. Incidentally, TV1's commercial corruption in the capitalist cause has got so bad that it is now making a home-grown production series of the Trump-inspired "The Apprentice". TVNZ has long been locked into the promotion and cultivation of greedy "entrepreneurship".

Contrasting Styles Of Critical Commentary, And ACT's Great Escape!

ACT's free ride to Parliament has now ensconced it as a far Right bridgehead, with all the potential dangers so evident now in today's world. Over time, this extreme Rightwing party has served as a political vehicle for the white supremacism of leaders like John Banks and Dr. Don Brash. It gives a platform for the defence of hate speech. Above all for its adherents, ACT provides a promotional base for the rich and powerful under the cover of the so-called "free market" - a corporate-contrived cover for rapacious exploitation and ecological abuse!

So many issues obviously screamed out for critical attention in ACT's election programme. Stuff's Alison Mau has been one of the few journalists to do an in-depth look at a key aspect of Seymour's policies. Seymour had widened his defence of racist "hate speech" to actually take "a huge swing at the Human Rights Commission (HRC), calling for it to be scrapped altogether" ("Human Rights Are Your Rights Too, David Seymour", Sunday Star Times [SST], 1/11/20).

Mau very ably took a searching scrutiny of Seymour's purported promotion of "free speech" and how abolition of the HRC would in fact "drastically reduce ordinary people's choices" (ibid.). But the hugely significant point to note here is how Stuff so very cynically tailored such criticism to come after the the October 2020 general election! In general, any criticism of ACT and Seymour during their free ride to Parliament and boost in MP numbers was typified by Alison Mau herself in some remarks made elsewhere ("Important Election Details You Might Have Missed" (SST, 11/10/20).

Note that I am using examples of commentary by the same Stuff columnist in order to contrast, firstly, the sort of journalism that should have prevailed in the lead-up to election day in mid-October; and secondly, what did in truth prevail. Ironies aside, the contrast of style is clear and graphic enough. In this latter case timed just before the election, Mau's criticism was markedly light and fluffy. It amounted to just a playful slap on the wrist rather than any effort at the systematic, probing scrutiny, which ACT's ideology so richly and urgently deserved!

ACT's Poisonous Policies

Under a sub-titled section on "ACT's Will-He-Won't-He Game", Alison Mau had some fun with David Seymour's policies when she said journalists pressed him hard on a couple of them (ibid.). Seymour claimed that "cutting the minimum wage" and "putting interest back on student loans were no longer 'active' policy", although the ACT Leader was obviously keeping these intentions on his agenda (ibid.).

So, Mau indicated that Seymour was being expediently muddled as the election got closer, and was deliberately blurring the public perception of such policies. Other policies still strongly endorsed by ACT included: "dial back gun laws; abolish the HRC, (along with) the Best Start payment for folks with babies; the KiwiSaver subsidy; the Zero Carbon Act; winter energy payments; and the billion trees programme" (ibid.). Alison Mau herself commented that: "There's more but that sentence is already way too long" (ibid.). But this was pretty well the sum of Mau's criticism of ACT in this particular column.

Now while Mau did commendably draw attention to ACT's extreme anti-human and anti-environmental policies, we can contrast this sort of conservatively worded criticism with the concerted full-out media attack on the Green Party and its Co-Leader James Shaw over the funding that Shaw had successfully helped get for a so-called "Green School". To clear the air, Shaw had admirably manned up and duly apologised for a measure of misjudgement.

The so-called "Green School" controversy related to one specific case of Government funding within a regional rehabilitation scheme. In overall context, the rights and wrongs of the decision made here simply pale in importance to urgently confronting a party with the hugely ignorant, denialist, and destructive policies of ACT! Yet this is how capitalist control operates!

Post-election, TV3's Tova O'Brien has even rubbed salt into the wounds of the Greens. She has remarked menacingly about how the "Green School" controversy almost took out them out of Parliament altogether (Newshub Live at 6pm, TV3, 11/2/21). In 2021, the Green Party is, of course, positioned in certain crucial dimensions at the very opposite pole to ACT.

The Greens promote policies that address both the mounting global environmental crisis and the desperately urgent imperative for humankind to cooperate far better, sharing resources fairly in a transition to genuine sustainable development. But, again, such policies deeply threaten the vested interests at the root of the capitalist engendered media brigade!

Embracing Entrepreneurial Exploitation And Far Right Excess

These vested interests were explicitly enunciated by Stuff's Rightwing propagandists in its celebration of ACT and its Leader David Seymour. For instance, former Stuff Political Editor and current SST Editor Tracy Watkins proclaimed that ACT's "remarkable revival (was) due to one man" (SST, 18/10/20). She said that: "ACT's Houdini-like escape from political oblivion is entirely down to Seymour", who only three years ago had still been "a virtual unknown with almost zero name recognition" (ibid.).

Her assessment, as we have seen, is just so much rubbish! Watkins ascribed a lot of Seymour's success to a "turn on (TV3's) entertainment show Dancing With The Stars and his championing of euthanasia through his End of Life Choice Act" raising his "profile and standing with voters" (ibid.). While this is certainly true it is important to record in the first instance that Seymour got a calculated helping hand from TV3 of Newshub (now owned by Discovery NZ Ltd.). The euthanasia bill, that David Seymour was able to promote, depended on the luck of a Parliamentary draw and its obvious relevance to many people. Overall, as I have stressed, the media were only too happy to boost the ACT Leader's image as much as possible, whatever the pretext and opportunity.

The other side of this is, as similarly stressed above, the egregious lack of any real critical examination of ACT's eminently noxious policies. Seymour is instead credited by Watkins as assiduously active in "hoovering up small but significant constituencies, including the influential gun lobby, after being the sole MP to vote against Labour's gun buyback laws, which were rushed through Parliament after the Christchurch mosque attacks" (ibid.). Note, incidentally, Watkins' seemingly implicit criticism here of allegedly rushing through such gun legislation, and thus her affirmation of Seymour's position! She certainly did not condemn Seymour's outrageously callous lack of concern for the victims of the mosque massacres, and for our Muslim minority community!

Tracy Watkins goes on to remark that Seymour's "championing of controversial speakers under the banner of free speech laws also cemented him as the anti-Establishment voice, wooing across many former NZ First supporters" (ibid.). So, our big question then is how this far Right, opportunistic, and supposedly "anti-Establishment" rabble-rouser remains the darling of the NZ Establishment media for the most part? For Leftwing critics of so many Establishment policies, this exultation of the far Right David Seymour and ACT all amounts to so much absurd bullshit! And it affords another very disturbing insight into the underlying agenda of the Rightwing media!!

Imploding Capitalism!

All kinds of factors have come into play together here. Most importantly, Seymour and ACT represent the cutting-edge of "free market" globalist capitalism for one. For another, with Trumpism and Brexit the Anglo-America axis has shifted sharply further to the political Right, and even closer to fascism, given the compounding problems of evolutionary overshoot. At bottom, of course, ACT has cultivated the image of "a Rightwing classical-liberal party", as portrayed by Wikipedia (Wikipedia). So, it serves as a very convenient front for globalist Big Business, along with outfits like the NZ Initiative, and the NZ Taxpayer's Union.

To return to the major capitalist model of the US, the January 2021 Donald Trump-inspired "insurrection" attempt on Capitol Hill in Washington may have indeed created a backlash for the consolidation of new President Joe Biden's Democrats. But this is in the wake of wider and deeper disruptive division in the US. While the political Right is now heavily fractured in the US, similar to the state of affairs in Aotearoa/NZ, and elsewhere in the world, the far Right - also very diverse and competitive in itself! - thrives on all this sort of stuff. A current illustration is the performance of the viciously vitriolic American Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene ("Care-Free Greene Is Trump's true heir", by Bloomberg's Robert A George, reproduced in the Press, 9/2/21).

Reactionary Ructions

The far Right can yet unite on white supremacy, freedom for hate speech, and whatever happens to appeals out of a range of crackpot conspiracy theories (ranging from climate change scepticism, through anti-vaccination fears, and on to Covid geopolitics plots, etc.). In Europe, racist anti-immigration movements and political parties have flourished in recent years.

It is highly significant that David Seymour and ACT appeal in values and attitudes to the American National Rifle Association (NRA), and to the defence of the type of "free speech" and its exponents that inspired the Christchurch mosques mass murderer (e.g., "Calls For ACT To Return Far-Right Donation", 17/2/20).

In speaking to the Films, Videos and Publications Classification (Urgent Interim Classification of Publications & Prevention of Online Harm) Amendment Bill, First Reading, Seymour made clear he was happy with the broadcasting of racist speech (Parliament TV, 10/2/21). He explicitly endorsed the freedom for the expression of views like that expounded by John Banks, a former Leader of both the National and ACT Parties, and also a former Mayor of Auckland (twice!).

Banks and Sean Plunket were recently dumped as radio talkback hosts from MediaWork's Magic Talk programme for racist remarks (see e.g., "MediaWorks Bosses 'Rattled' As Sean Plunket Leaves Magic" 11/2/21). In the wake of the international Black Lives Matter movement such bigoted prejudice has become less publicly acceptable.

However, in "Uncle Tom" fashion, National's Simon Bridges has even expressed disappointment at the dismissal of Banks and Plunket by a TNC subsidiary like MediaWorks (Parliament TV, 11/2/21). But then, of course, Bridges had been National's Leader during its participation in the far Right racist campaign against the United Nation's (UN's) immigration pact!

Poisonous Political Pantomimes

It is worth noting at this point how our State-owned purportedly public service media, i.e., RNZ and TVNZ, have in fact long been loaded with Rightwing news presenters and commentators. In recent years, former RNZ/TVNZ hosts like Plunket, Mike Hosking, Peter Williams, and Heather du Plessis-Allan have proceeded to freely vent their nasty prejudices and blinkered ideas on privately-owned MT and Newstalk ZB, as well as via other media

They have participated in a hallowed tradition of corporate-sponsored public relations (PR) agency. Their formerly more subtly biased communication has been unleashed, at least until the latest backlash! The abusive antics of MediaWorks's MT has in fact afforded a very revealing insight into this TNC's real agenda. Ironically enough, Stuff, formerly also a TNC subsidiary and now NZ-owned, has delivered some criticism of MT for its "Right-skew over the last couple of years" ("Is Talkback Radio Getting Worse?", Press, Keith Lynch, 5/2/21).

In Aotearoa/NZ, of course, given that talkback radio has been a notorious forum for the cultivation of Rightwing opinion, media hosts have been orchestrating a chorus of reactionary voices in today's cultural climate. From former TV3 Political Editor Duncan Garner, still this channel's key host on its current AM Show, as well as a host on MT, to Mike Hosking operating on NZME's Newstalk ZB, crony capitalist PR has run rampant up to the present-day. Newstalk ZB has the larger audience (ibid.).

Critics have charged that MT has consequently lurched hard to the Right to try and compete better with Newstalk ZB (ibid.). Racist attitudes, climate change denial, anti-environmentalism, and even anti-vaccination became hot topics for airing on MT to try and get more callers in order to stir debate, as well as increase listenership. This is the kind of cultural context that has spurred "Islamophobia" and similar ugly manifestations of ethnic prejudice.

The pantomime performances of the political Right in general radiate across a range of critical issues. Again, ACT is an eminently egregious exemplar. For instance, ACT's David Seymour's sole stance in Parliament against the new gun laws was parallelled too by his loony climate change scepticism, and so his lone opposition to the Zero Carbon Act.

Again, it is most important to note just how deeply anti-environmentalism and anthropogenic climate change scepticism/denialism are embedded in ACT's ideology. Such reactionary views, as already being freely expressed by Seymour and his new mates in the 2021 Parliament and other public arenas, will be very damaging for the future. The mainstream media have contributed massively to this syndrome.

Trump-style Cultivation Of Greedy, Narcissistic Individualism

Former ACT MP Heather Roy weighed in as part of Stuff's congratulatory celebration for the electoral success of Seymour and ACT. She called the gun law changes "a kneejerk reaction to the Christchurch mosque attacks" in an unashamedly exuberant endorsement of ACT's position ("David Finally Has Friends In High Places", SST, 18/10/20 - note the very cynically ironic headline!).

Roy goes on to say that: "ACT MPs are always strong-willed individuals connected by the desire for less Government interference in our lives" (ibid.). Sorry, Heather, ACT MPs are always outrageously self-serving in the promotion of greedy vested interests, denialist ignorance, corporate foreign control, and callous lack of concern for prescribed "losers".

Both Heather Roy and Tracy Watkins strive to give the impression that Seymour and ACT lack "friends in high places". ACT's record shows in fact that the Party has always had friends in high places. ACT, as stressed above, is at the very cutting-edge of globalist corporate capitalism. While Watkins warns of a tougher road ahead now for ACT in Parliament, this is also a general Stuff theme for the Government itself.

Militant Right On The March

As indicated above, what David Seymour, aka "The Weasel", has done of late is to deliberately reach out in neo-fascist fashion to the local gun lobby in NRA-style. At this point it is important to take account of the deep connections of the international far Right as fostered by its extensive American elements. The American militia movement has been described as: "A loosely organised anti-Government movement which surfaced in the US in the 1990s following the end of the Cold War" ("The New Fontana Dictionary of Modern Thought", 3rd Ed., ed., Alan Bullock and Stephen Trombley, HarperCollins, 1999/20, p530).

While the various groups that make up this militia movement can differ across a range of motivations, they "share anti-Government, pro-gun and, in some instances, virulently racist and anti-Semitic views" (ibid.). By the 1990s, they were active in most American states and on the internet (ibid.). Militia movement members were observed by one expert as driven by visions of "a bloody race war in the US" and an "apocalyptic world view" (ibid.). So, suitably enough, the movement's "most unifying belief may be opposition to gun control" (ibid.).

Culmination of the movement's ambitions came with the dramatic and pretty horrifying Trump-inspired insurrection on Capitol Hill in Washington in January 2021 ("Militia Members Had Plan For Attack - FBI", Press, 21/1/21). Wild "fake news" false charges of "vote-rigging" in the US election were fanned by an extremist "alt-Right" social media network that was widely-interconnected and very active ("The Media Behind Those US Election Conspiracy Theories", Press, 14/11/20).

In more general context then, it is very ominous that David Seymour has so very opportunistically and cynically picked up a gaggle of obviously American-style gun enthusiasts for ACT. As well, Seymour enthusiastically employs the "free speech" facade of the extreme Right, especially the "alt-Right" and their confreres, who constantly cultivate various internet sites on Facebook and other corporate tech platforms. We have observed how he has gone so far in fascist mode as to even call for the abolition of the HRC (e.g., "Human Rights Are Your Rights Too, David Seymour", op. cit.).

Colluding In Crackpot Conspiracy Theories

ACT is starting to echo - at least subtly and indirectly - some aspects of what the American far Right construes and criticises as "the deep State". Such ideas informed the pro-Trump supporters who ultimately rallied to violently storm Capitol Hill at the start of 2021 (for relevant immediate background, see, e.g., "Conspiracy: The Greatest Plots, Collusions And Cover-Ups", Charlotte Greig & Mike Rothschild, Arcturus, 2020, pp42-46).

ACT's anti-State line extolling the private market draws on key strands of paleo-conservative Trumpism! Contorted contradictions continue to grow. In an irony of ironies, Seymour, who can use his part-Maori ancestry when it suits, is in fact cultivating a constituency with an underlying white supremacist orientation. Such then are the posturings of cynical political opportunism, as facilitated by the media!

This kind of crackpot conspiracy stuff spills over into the hard Right leadership of the National Party. For instance, during the 2020 election campaign National MP and then Deputy Leader Gerry Brownlee floated bizarre ideas around the Labour-led Government using the Covid-19 crisis in devious, calculated ways to gain votes ("The Ruthless Electoral Politics Behind National's Covid Conspiracy-Baiting", www.thespinoff.co.nz, 14/8/20).

Later, in 2021, the new National Deputy Leader Dr. Shane Reti similarly got even funnier (in both main senses!) with the absolutely paranoid and comical suggestion that an illegal romantic tryst between a quarantined traveller and a quarantine worker was actually a dastardly plot against National ("Shane Reti's Bizarre Theory On The Government Baiting National With Quarantine Rendezvous Scandal", Newshub, 1/2/21).

Dr. Reti is also National's health spokesperson! If Shane Reti had been a Labour Party spokesperson his credibility would have been blown for good. But even so the traditional "glove-puppet" relationship between a lot of the media and National has certainly got badly frayed since the coronavirus began to bite into National's support base - at least for the moment...

Gambling And Gaming With Covid-19

Expanding our purview over the media to take account of the experience of Covid-19 in Aotearoa/NZ affords a far wider accounting of the performance of the Fourth Estate at work in its treatment of our political system. A lot has been said already, and a lot continues to be said on social media and other forums. For a extended example of the failings and bias of the media in this context, I shall mainly focus on a specific phase in the public discourse on the impact and management of the coronavirus. In Parliament during May 2020, ACT Leader David Seymour opposed the Covid-19 Response (Further Management Measures Legislation Bill, Second Reading).

Once again in familiar far Right style, similar to his posturing on global warming and gun control, Seymour stood out like a sore thumb as the sole voice of opposition to the Bill. He especially objected to conditions applying to the section on Directors - Private Sector (Parliament TV, 12/5/20). Was he then as a consequence roundly pilloried by the media for trying to protect the top rank of corporate Big Business from the social consequences of narrowly self-interested behaviour? Of course, not!

Most outrageously, some in the media have later even tried to portray Seymour as some sort of principled critic of the Government's handling of the pandemic crisis. Meanwhile, our Jacinda Ardern-headed Government was copping criticism for its limit of ten people attending funerals. The Funeral Directors' Association and the National Party were slamming the limit as "inhumane", with the media eagerly giving plenty of oxygen to this sort of criticism.

Getting Really Negative!

Various media figures like TV3's Political Editor Tova O'Brien kept doing their utmost on such issues to try and undermine the PM's credibility on being "kind". O'Brien called the limit "inconsistent" and even "cruel" (Newshub Live At 6pm, TV3, 12/5/20). She was strident on this particular issue at the Government's regular noon press conferences dealing with the latest Covid-19 management news, viz., earlier on the same day at TV1 Noon, 12/5/20, plus following days, TV1 similarly played up the issue too.

From another angle on the 12th of May, hard Right National MP Simon O'Connor also lambasted the Government in Parliament for supposedly suppressing the freedom of religion with the limit imposed on church gatherings. O'Connor's fellow MP Michael Woodhouse heartily joined in (Parliament TV, 12/5/20). In Parliament the next day, National continued to bang on about the pain of not being able to attend funerals (Parliament TV, 13/5/20).

Simon O'Connor went off on a further rant, alleging that the Government was "scaremongering" and unduly harsh in taking away our freedoms. MP Gerry Brownlee, who was at the time the Shadow (Opposition) Leader of the House, pitched the same sort of line. As observed, much of the media were hooked into National's line of criticism in typical "glove-puppet" mode.

On Radio New Zealand (RNZ), reporter Lisa Owen likewise accused the Government of being "unkind" and "inhumane" regarding funerals (13/5/20). By this point, the Government had buckled under the concerted public pressure, deciding to loosen the rules. Owen tried to press Health Minister David Clark to admit that the Government had got it wrong from the start.

So, get all this "carry-on"! Orchestrated pressure from a coordinated, joint National Party/media campaign evidently got the Government to relax conditions on funeral attendance. Yet in cases where border quarantine protocols were breached, the media and Opposition parties have raved on about alleged "botch-ups" and panned the Government for being slack! ("National Is Relentlessly Negative About The Country's Covid Response", Standard, 24/6/20).

Getting Down And Dirty!

Key elements of the mainstream media carried on the theme about Jacinda Ardern's alleged unkindness and, so, hypocrisy. In particular, the issues relating to compassionate leave continued to figure prominently. TV3's Tova O'Brien later had another emotional "beat-up" about people who were now unable to see sick relatives or attend funerals, this time because of a breach of the quarantine protocols. Two British women with the virus had been mistakenly allowed out to travel from Auckland to Wellington, and remedial regulatory measures were consequently taken (e.g., Newshub Live At 6pm, TV3, 17/6/20).

O'Brien stressed that the PM and Health Minister were unapologetic about this latest constraint. In addition, she talked about the Government's "epic failure" on the quarantine system, and promoted the potential of the then National Party leader Todd Muller for better management of our health system (ibid.). So, earlier we had the most extravagant use of language condemning the Government for being too harsh in the imposition of restrictions on people for proper conduct of the Covid-19 crisis. Now we got a dose of similar language being used in regard to a case where early leave was granted to visit a dying parent!

The hypocrisy of TV3's editorial line was stunning here in that Tova O'Brien was now panning the Government for allowing two women out of quarantine on compassionate grounds. In this particular case, O'Brien accused the Government of looking "unreliable" and guilty of "ineptitude" for relaxing the rules (ibid.). TV3's "investigations" reporter Michael Morrah said that it was now "shutting the gate after the horse had bolted" (ibid.). Yet, clearly the constant harping and harassment by the Opposition parties, other groups, and the media had contributed to this particular failure in the sense of weakening the Government's confidently articulated grip on the situation. Moreover, even deeper issues were involved in the specific case at contention.

Messed-Up Media

Okay, there was certainly a failure to test adequately for the virus. But the whole affair was rather messy to say the least! You see, National MP Chris Bishop had intervened on behalf of the two women concerned, and had actually lobbied for a special exemption and an early release from quarantine (e.g., "Two Covid Women Let Out After National MP Lobbied For Release", Otago Daily Times, 18/6/20).

Earlier on, TV3 and other media had also even openly celebrated a court case overturning restrictions on funeral attendance ("Judge Overrules Lockdown", NZ Herald, 5/5/20).

But when TV3 is after another "Gotcha"-style attack on Left-leaning Government Ministers and MPs it does not let any such complicating factors get in the way. These days, comically enough, Chris Bishop is the National spokesperson on Covid-19 response. The latest media/National/ACT call is for stricter border controls backed by specially built facilities.

But the media just don't get the joke! Mind you, they construed former Labour Leader David Cunliffe's remark about feeling sorry for being a man as the butt of ridicule for years! Cunliffe made his remark at a women's refuge in reaction to hearing about extensive male domestic violence. Oh dear . . . In connection with National, something very bizarre and really quite hilarious did pop up at the start of February 2021 but I shall comment on that later below. It comes under the rubric of National's PR on the coronavirus.

Public Versus Private Interests

During mid-2020, TV3's Political Editor Tova O'Brien and her mates went on in the same sort of vein about the Government's alleged "ineptitude" about lapses at the border. Despite the glaring contradiction between hyping up concern about the pain of families unable to visit loved ones, and at the same time attacking the authorities for letting such cases slip out, TV3 endeavoured to whip up antagonism against the Government regarding any quarantine breaches or apparent lapses in control. So, such media revelled in pressuring the Government to ease controls on the one hand, while slamming it for any perceived failures of control on the other!

O'Brien even claimed that the public were "fuming" over the breaches, yet another example of obviously gross hyperbole (Newshub Live at 6pm, TV3, 18/6/20). But, again, such extravagant language affords a further revealing insight into the real motives of the Rightwing media. At times, Tova O'Brien seems to have as her theme song Blondie lead vocalist Debby Harry's "One way or another . . . I'm gonna get ya . . . I'm gonna get ya!". Reporter Craig McCulloch on RNZ's The World At 5 gave a similarly biased, hyped-up item on the two women let out with Covid-19 (20/6/20). Sometimes, in turn, McCulloch seems to be imitating the style of his own favourite song "Rap God" by Eminem.

Given the neoliberally perverted performances demonstrated on occasion by RNZ and TVNZ, our existing publicly-owned media surely need a big shake-up to ensure the delivery of good, balanced information, analysis, and resulting public service! One could well imagine a public-spirited purge - bloodless of course (Lol!) - and replacement policy in these institutions to get journalists who would cover (and uncover!) the real underlying issues.

TVNZ at one stage, despite its commercialisation, showed it had some capacity for this alternative type of approach with its screening of Channel 7, conveying a lot of alternative news and documentary presentation. Please bring back this channel! And join this with complementary NZ investigative research and content on a commercial free TV1.

Compounding Contradictions For The Media

To return to the border controversy during mid-2020, we can refer to some of the exchange in Parliament. NZ First Leader Winston Peters starred as the best MP on robust defence duty for the Government vis-a-vis National and ACT. At the height of the controversy described above, he launched back at the Opposition. He cited the contradiction of the then National Leader Todd Muller wanting to bring back overseas students, especially from China, as a matter of urgency (Parliament TV, 18/6/20). Peters also cited the contradiction of National MP Gerry Brownlee for saying that keeping relatives away from funerals, hospitals, etc. was cruel while also sounding off about lapses of control at the border (ibid.).

Such contradictions, as we have observed, certainly did not bother the "Gotcha!" attack media. Patrick Gower, another TV3 former Political Editor and now the channel's so-called "national" reporter, was happy to join in. Gower, indeed, had been deeply involved in "Dirty Politics" against the Labour Opposition during the previous nine-year period of the National government. He was again on song with National. In criticising the Government, he even mirrored the content of questioning earlier done in Parliament by National MP "Mercenary" Mark Mitchell (ibid.; Newshub, op. cit.).

Gower's Glove-Puppeteering

By this time, the Labour-led government had felt obliged to implement further and stricter border controls. It had brought in the military to take charge. Air Commodore Darryn Webb was appointed as Head of Managed Isolation & Quarantine (MIQ) to oversee our border control, following the case of the two women with Covid-19 wrongly let out. ("Who Is New Zealand's New Border Master Darryn 'Digby' Webb?", Stuff, 17/6/20). PM Jacinda Ardern had openly acknowledged that the incident represented "an unacceptable failure of the system" (ibid.).

Air Commodore Webb had already been involved in border control management. He had taken part in Government repatriation planning efforts since the beginning of April 2020 (ibid.). So National MP Mark Mitchell saw an opportunity to try and cast doubt on Webb's capability for his new role (Parliament, op. cit.). TV3's Patrick Gower duly echoed Mitchell's angle of attack (Newshub, op. cit.). He portrayed Darryn Webb's "job now (as) saving the Government's reputation" (ibid.). Once more, note the usual "over-the-top" TV3 hyperbole!

National In A Spin!

Just think back to around the end of April 2020 when the then National Leader Simon Bridges copped a wave of criticism from the public for his opposition to the Government's extension of the Level 4 Lockdown. " . . Bridges was heavily criticised for his response to the Government's announcement . . ." (NZ Herald, 28/4/20). His accusation about the Government's alleged lack of preparation got well rubbished on his Facebook post (ibid.). Whereas National's de facto media PR agents had been doing their utmost to whip up a panicky perception of compounding crisis at the border, the public had so very hearteningly seen through the noxious hype. The latter were enthusiastically endorsing the Government's efforts to keep us safe from the virus.

While the media had endeavoured to pick dramatic turning points for the Government in the struggle against Covid-19, the really dramatic turning point obviously took place during this period when the joint National/media campaign had started to really unravel. Just after the first week in April 2020: "A poll (found) that 88% of New Zealanders (trusted) the Government to make right decisions for dealing with Covid-19, and 84% (approved) of the Government's response" ("The Covid Chronicles", op. cit., p88).

Simon Bridges, whose Party until then had been riding high in the polls, was clearly losing the plot. He was reeling along a raft of grossly inconsistent positions on control of coronavirus. Bridges had been banging on about how the Government should adopt the lighter Australian management strategy. In mid-April, he had urged it to remove restrictions accordingly ("Simon Bridges Urges Government To Lift Lockdown Next Week, Take Australian Approach", Newshub, 15/4/20). Meantime, ACT's Seymour and other National MPs like Paul Goldsmith were also strongly contesting the lockdown as they likewise argued that Australia's light-handed approach was allegedly producing similar results. Herd immunity should rule, eh!?

Yet earlier, just after the Government had tightened up quarantine requirements under Lockdown Level 4 during April, Simon Bridges had opined that this was: "Better late than ever"! (e.g., Newshub Late, TV3, 9/4/20). By May, in fact, international praise for NZ's management of Covid-19 had stepped up significantly. It was indeed even being lauded as the world leader for its success to date ("Global Experts Say NZ Government Best In The World At Covid 19 Communication" Newshub, 6/5/20).

The bulk of international commentary has proceeded in similar fashion up to the present. But media acknowledgement of this success has been sparing and grudging at best when compared with the treatment that a National government would have so obviously been granted. The record is damning. Former National PM John Key even got lavishly lauded for antics like being a clown on American TV talk shows!

Blatantly Biased And Hypocritical Posturings

Foreign control has been the mark of the mainstream media beast. This is most clearly and unambiguously demonstrated by the subordinate junior client role of Aotearoa/NZ within the so-called "Five Eyes" club, and the prevailing media endorsement of our very constrained condition. Most ironically, our lack of independence - and indeed moral bankruptcy! - was highlighted by a series of TV1 reports on Air NZ and this Government-owned (52%) airline's involvement in the war being conducted by Saudi Arabia on Yemen. Political Reporter Benedict Collins unleashed on the Saudi-led blockade of Yemen, scene of the world's worst humanitarian disaster, and Air NZ's participation in this brutal conflict (1 News At 6pm, 8/2/21).

The Gas Turbines unit of Air NZ has been doing servicing and repair work for the Saudi Navy, thus helping to enforce the Saudi blockade. Some informed commentators weighed in with apt criticism - Golriz Ghahraman of the Greens, an Amnesty International spokesperson, and defence/intelligence specialist Paul Buchanan (ibid.). This was all good as far as it goes. On the one hand, TVNZ duly deserves our thanks for finally exposing this governmental failure, given that NZ could be held guilty of violating international law on human rights.

On the other hand, the TV1 bulletin just cited - and ensuing such bulletins - were characterised by a cynically calculated hypocrisy. While the Saudis and their Gulf allies like the United Arab Emirates (UAE) got criticised, along with NZ, the real powers so deeply bloodied with war crimes against the poorest country in the Middle East avoided any accountability from Benedict Collins and TV1. The same goes in general for the rest of the NZ mainstream media. For example, an editorial titled "A Terrible Look For Air NZ" (10/2/21) in the Press, a long-time agency of American foreign policy propaganda, made no mention of the US at all!

Warmongering Malevolence In Action!

The US supplies about 75% of Saudi Arabia's military supplies and Britain some 15%. It is pre-eminently the Anglo-American axis, plus France, which guarantees the survival of the ruling class of this semi-feudal/totalitarian Kingdom and its oil wealth. "Saudi Arabia is the US's 2nd-largest supplier of oil, after Canada, and its No. 1 buyer of total US arms sales" ("Made In The USA: How The US Manufactures Death And Destruction In Yemen", Left Voice, 23/1/19).

The axis not only provides the weapons of war against Yemen but has also underwritten all the death and suffering with logistical and even targeting assistance ("America Is Likely Complicit In War Crimes In Yemen", Guardian, 3/10/19). Rampant, repeated and systematic blanket bombing has ravaged this tragically afflicted country, along with all the other coalition-imposed abuses.

Yemen's death toll from the war is now about a quarter of a million people of whom most comprise civilians, including thousands of children ("UN Humanitarian Office Puts Yemen War Dead At 233,000, Mostly From 'Indirect Causes'", UN News, 1/12/20). Again, most have died due to indirect causes meted out by the war. The Saudi-led and US-backed economic blockade has accounted for a multitude of deaths from lack of food, health services, and basic infrastructure like the provision of clean water (ibid.).

With the new Joe Biden Administration in America signalling a softer approach to the Yemen conflict, international peace/anti-nuclear NGOs stepped up their campaigns (see, e.g., WBW News & Action, "End War On Yemen", www.worldbeyondwar.org, 26/1/21; & WBW News & Action, "Ending All Wars, One At A Time", www.worldbeyondwar.org , 9/2/21.The Red Cross, UNICEF, Save the Children, Christian World Service and other aid and activist organisations are desperately calling for urgent donations to relieve the suffering in Yemen). But it has taken six years for TVNZ to work up a measure of concern about the war on Yemen and its huge human cost and, even then, blame was apportioned with the maximum of geopolitically refined self-interest!

Contradictions Of Geopolitics

It was revealed in a news item next day by RNZ that Air NZ had a number of similar military contracts with several other countries, including the US (9/2/21). So, the prime mover and puppet-master behind the Saudi geopolitical scene, the US is of course a customer of Air NZ. But no worries regarding Yemen and the US were expressed by either RNZ or TV1. Thus, the malign hypocrisy of our State-owned media flies full in our face! As it has for decades, with our collusion in the Indonesian genocide 1965-70, and all the many other documented war crimes of the Anglo-American axis . . .

Of course, the new Biden Administration is already demonstrating its self-serving and slippery approach to issues of human rights in its relationship to Saudi Arabia. In the very recent past, Joe Biden has lambasted Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, heir to the regime's throne, for the treacherous murder of dissident critic and Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Biden even condemned the kingdom as a "pariah" state.

But, despite a recent American intelligence report directly fingering the Saudi Crown Prince as the master-mind of Khashoggi's murder, the US is naturally standing by its defence and support of the kingdom. Mohammed bin Salman is also Sunni Saudi Arabia's mastermind and prime driver of its war on Yemen and the Shiite Houthi rebels. How then is President Biden going to enforce America's newly proclaimed weapon ban on the military supplies it sells to this regime with regard to use against Yemen? We can well be very cynical about all of this!

Cringing To Creeping Foreign Control

Meantime, TVNZ is essentially content to function as a propaganda agent for the American military-industrial complex - just as it always has! Some further recent TV1 items pointed up this deeply embedded syndrome. For instance, an item promoted space work for girls as facilitated by the US National Aeronautics & Space Administration (NASA) internships in conjunction with American Embassy PR, and starring as well further glorification of the pernicious Rocket Lab (1 News At 6pm, 24/2/21). So much of this stuff is just standard bullshit "stardust" hype with the underlying reality of the shift to space war preparations set to transform us all into real stardust!

Prime/TV3 news is locked into "death instinct" mindset. A startling illustration of this zombie stuff was a exultant celebration by reporter Lisette Reymer of Rocket Lab's Chief Executive Officer Peter Beck and the company's success in getting an $NZ5.6 billion share listing on the NASDAQ index (5.30pm Prime News, 2/3/21). Reymer portrayed the horrific reality of looming space-triggered warfare in the typical brain-dead fashion of the fantasies of human space travel a la Rocket Lab (ibid.). She urged Kiwis to follow in Beck's money-making footsteps. Doomsday is being welcomed as both heavenly and materialist bliss!

TV1 echoed the same sort of rapture heavenwards that night (1 News At 6pm, 2/3/21). Reporter Kim Baker-Wilson was in the same zombie mode as Lisette Reymer. RNZ's Morning Report featured similar sycophantic crap (2/3/21). The evils of hellfire are nowadays camouflaged in a fog of propaganda by such media agents! Again, the cynical calculated PR was glaringly evident. The TV1 item described Rocket Lab as a "NZ-founded company", while Prime even gave the impression it is NZ-owned. US-owned TV3 lauded Rocket Lab as launching into Wall Street! (Newshub Live At 6pm, 2/3/21).

Meantime, both TV3 and TV1, like most other media, studiously ignored a question in Parliament addressing Rocket Lab's military role. Green MP Teanau Tuiono put this question to Stuart Nash, the Minister for Regional Development. Tuiono asked about the scrutiny of Rocket Lab's upcoming launch of the Gunsmoke-J satellite payload from the US Army's Space and Missile Defense Command (24/2/21).

In answering the question about this weapons' targeting system payload, Minister Stuart Nash made clear that the Government's claimed scrutiny was just a lot of hot air (ibid.). When it comes to preparations for World War III, and general American State terrorism as facilitated by the space industry, the Government and the mainstream media pretty well sing in unison from the same song sheet. TNC Rocket Lab is even becoming more deeply embedded in the US with its stock market move, merging with an American acquisitions company. But the foreign controlled media here still celebrate it as an achievement of NZ entrepreneurship.

Media Mustering For Ultimate Mass Murder

Such presentation clearly shows how our mainstream media are mere functionaries of the American military machine and its drive to self-destruction. TVNZ has been permeated by similar zombie stupidity to TV3/Prime TV for so long it seems to live in a surreal "sci-fi" parallel universe. It embraces the deadly culture of NASA's exultation of evolutionary overshoot, drooling over the renewed race to Mars and the search for signs of ancient life among the rocks and dust.

For example, TV1 journalist Kim Baker-Wilson gave a rapturous report of the landing of NASA's Perseverance rover on the red planet. One enthusiast was even quoted as extolling this enterprise as a "game-changing mission"! (1 News At 6pm, 19/2/21). Besides getting rocks for the assay of ancient life, Perseverance was checking out any indications of water so vital for life itself.

Yet, ironically at the very same time, back down on planet Earth climate change was wreaking havoc. Global warming has so disturbed atmospheric jet streams over North America that in February 2021 the lone star state of Texas was suffering an unprecedented frozen disaster. Many of the oil state's inhabitants were severely stressed and struggling to get any fresh water at all! If humankind does not act in time, space warfare, or global warming, or a combination of such threats are destined to get us all. But we have a zombie capitalist media to deal with in the meantime.

Deadly Death Instinct On Display!

During February 2021, the Wings over Wairarapa airshow was interrupted by another Covid-19 lockdown to deal with the latest community outbreak. But TV1's Kristin Hall got in a plug, among other observations, about how a flyover by an American B-52 bomber from Guam would apparently help inspire budding aviators (1 News At 6pm, 27/2/21). Note that this flyover did take place.

To its credit, TV3 actually featured some critical comment as well about the appearance of this current war machine and its barbarous record. Its item covered some of the debate. Most significantly, the acting American Ambassador, a career US foreign service officer called Kevin Covert! - emphasised the strength of the bonds between the US and NZ (NewsHub Live At 6pm, 27/2/21).

Hey, get this, "Covert" is the name! We can be sure that the American Embassy will be fostering "covert action" in Aotearoa/NZ, just as it has done in the past when certain non-Government organisations (NGOs) and some politicians get critical of their "ops" here! Witness all the US-contrived efforts to try and sink our nuclear free zone initiative back in the 1980s when the David Lange-led Labour government was in power. The Reagan/Bush/Shultz regime tried hard to subvert our democracy!

Today, a gathering campaign against Rocket Lab is one obvious big concern for the Embassy. So, let's keep alert! We must remember that the international peace/anti-nuclear movements are taking on the whole worldwide momentum to global catastrophe, and all the vested interests committed to Freud's death instinct in evolutionary overshoot.

Meanwhile, too, again far away from NASA's landing on Mars and back down on Earth, the US had reached the chilling milestone of half a million deaths from Covid-19. Ominously, bizarrely, and so symbolically enough, NASA staff wore face-masks during the mission to land on Mars! The coronavirus plague outbreak has been precipitated by the human pillage of Earth's ecosystems.

Game Changing Challenges

In a clarion call for mass mobilisation to save a viable planet, David Attenborough picks out NZ as an international pathfinder in his very readable and gripping book "A Life On Our Planet: My Witness Statement And A Vision For The Future" (Witness Books, 2020, pp133/4). At one point, Attenborough poses the crucial question as to what is "the sum purpose of all humankind's efforts on Earth?" (ibid., p133).

He goes on to observe that: "In 2019, New Zealand made the bold step of formally dropping GDP (gross domestic product) as its primary measure of economic success. It didn't adopt any of the existing alternatives, but instead created its own index based upon its most pressing national concerns. All three Ps - profit, people, and planet - were represented" (ibid., pp133/4).

To continue with an extended but important quote from Attenborough's book: "In this single act, PM Jacinda Ardern shifted the priorities of her whole country away from pure growth and toward something that better reflects the issues and aspirations many of us have today. The change in agenda may have made her decisions more straightforward when coronavirus arrived in February 2020. She locked the country down before there had been a single death, while other nations hesitated, nervous perhaps, of the effects on the economy" (ibid., p134).

"By early summer, New Zealand had few cases, and could go back to work and mix freely. New Zealand may be a guiding light. Surveys in other nations show that people across the world are now keen for their governments to prioritise people and planet over profit alone. It is an indication that voters and consumers everywhere may be ready for a sustainable, and ultimately, as (University of Oxford economist) Kate Raworth terms it, a growth-agnostic world" (ibid.).

Frustrated Mixed-Up Media Fulminations!

Sure, we have had problems since with Covid-19. But the newly re-elected Labour government in 2020 was still struggling with a public health service that had been badly run down under the almost decade-long rule of the previous neoliberal National government. Our current Government has freely acknowledged the unprecedented challenges presented by the coronavirus and having to learn so much on the hoof as it were. It has had to deal with a complex and unfolding logistical nightmare.

But the Rightwing mainstream media were pretty well united on a one "track-mind" vis-a-vis our Left-leaning Government. The general media approach has been overwhelmingly critical and constantly carping rather than supportive whenever and wherever more appropriate. Given that there were always going to be plenty of problems to tackle, journalists could continually try and stir up controversies, sowing doubt and concern among the public. And they have done so systematically.

TV3's "investigations" reporter Michael Morrah even got so carried away with his channel's "Gotcha"-style at one stage that he called out our much admired and obviously very dedicated Director of Health, Dr. Ashley Bloomfield (daily press conference, 22/8/20). He actually suggested Bloomfield should resign on account of reported border failures!

It is certainly a most mandatory function of the media in a democracy to hold a Government to account. But the documented contradiction for the NZ media has been the huge contrast in its treatment of the political Right. What is so ironic is that this huge Rightwing bias has not been reflected in the commentary overseas. Even corporate and conservative entities have openly endorsed our Labour government for its outstanding accomplishments.

For instance, Anne Harris, Chief Executive Officer of Pfizer Australia, has lavishly praised our Government for its record on tackling Covid-19. Likewise, an Australian think tank puts NZ first in the class in this regard ("New Zealand Tops Lowy Institute List As Country With Best .Response To Coronavirus", 28/1/21).

PM Jacinda Ardern, of course, has got kudos from a host of quarters. She has been on the cover of Time magazine with the message "Know Us By Our Deeds" (March 2-9, 2020). Ardern has also been called "the best politician in the world" on the cover of the German magazine View (January 2021). The latter publication especially praised her Government's successful Covid-19 response ("Ardern 'World's Best' PM", Press, 22/1/21).

At home the ironies go on. While the specially commissioned Heather Simpson and Brian Roche report into the border testing and surveillance system was strongly critical in certain respects, it still found that NZ's response to the coronavirus had been "first class". Chris Bishop, National's Covid-19 spokesperson, has even acknowledged that the Government has done really well in containing the virus (Parliament TV, 17/2/21).

In yet another irony, a Press editorial in warning about a need for an improved "isolation system" declared that so far: "the NZ public has been very forgiving of minor (my emphasis) but preventable, errors in managed isolation", but things could change ("The Wake-Up Call Kiwis Needed?", Press, 26/1/21). Oh dear, one feels that a media, already verging on the edge of hysteria, could well go into anaphylactic shock!

Vested Interests Versus Public Service

In response to some backlash personal criticism, TV3 "investigations" reporter Michael Morrah even declaimed in his own defence that his company is not out to "make friends" with its reporting. Such arrogant hypocrisy cuts deep down into the self-serving image of this TNC. Sorry, Michael, the record graphically reveals that TV3 operates overwhelming in the vested interests of corporate globalism, of foreign control. From facilitation of National's "Dirty Politics" to the promotion of David Seymour and ACT, and from outrageous PR for Rocket Lab to all of the foreign policy propaganda peddled courtesy of CBS, etc., US-owned TV3 is an outfit that continues to have a negative impact on Aotearoa/NZ in so many ways.

Its attacks on the Green Party have been especially vicious, and so very revelatory of its underlying agenda. This kind of political posturing goes hand in hand, of course, with TV3's promotion and protection of ACT's anthropogenic climate change scepticism and general anti-environmentalism. TV3 operates hand-in-glove with ACT's Seymour on Covid-19 issues and related criticism of the Government.

Hey Michael, how about telling Rocket Lab's CEO Peter Beck that you are not out to make friends with him and do some investigative reporting on this warmongering TNC! Whatever useful journalism that Morrah has himself done from time to time, along with other TV3 reporters, the reality remains of a Rightwing American TNC intent on shaping our public culture according to its own precepts. We urgently need media with far fairer balance and public service ideals. Recently, the Government set up a $55 million fund (over the next three years) for public service journalism operating at the regional and community levels. There should be a range of initiatives and funding to sponsor better public good journalism across the board.

Forging Ahead!

Overall, in recent times, much of the mainstream media record on Covid-19, in association with the National Party, ACT, and other Rightwing groups, has been riddled with inconsistency, selective manipulation, and often nasty negativity. Monitoring, exposing, and contesting this syndrome represents an ongoing task.

In particular, we must break free of the commercialised, neoliberal model that has dominated and perverted our State-owned media to date. The overriding imperative is to help create a more participatory democracy, liberated from corporate and foreign control, in order to better meet and overcome the mounting challenges we face in the future.