Winston on the media

Winston Peters writes:

Over the past four years the sign-up of media outlets to receive $55 million of public funding through the Public Interest Journalism Fund has cemented that mistrust from the public for obvious reasons – most of which, it seems, is lost on the very media outlets that received those funds.   

It is a plain fact that for media organisations to be eligible for funding they had to sign up to certain criteria and conditions – including forcing certain narratives of the Labour government at the time. …

One of those conditions is based on a purely political view that is not supported by many New Zealanders or many political parties.  It states that the media organisation must “actively promote the principles of partnership, participation and active protection under Te Tiriti o Waitangi acknowledging Māori as a Te Tiriti partner”. And have a “commitment to Te Tiriti o Waitangi and to Māori as a Te Tiriti partner”.  

If they didn’t sign up to this condition, they wouldn’t get the money. 

How can a politically neutral and independent media organisation give balanced political commentary, analysis and in particular “opinions”, when this is the basis for the funds they receive for their very survival?  

This is the sinister incentivised seed that provides the platform for political bias. 

It is a preposterous state of self-denial when they cannot see that the contract they signed is a recipe for bias and corruption. 

It has created a media environment where certain leftwing political narratives and agendas have seeped into much of what the media presents to the public – where any opposing views are shutdown, cancelled and labelled as “far right” or “fringe”. 

This is spot on. The media should have refused funding which had Treaty partnership belief as a criteria for eligibility. If they had all stood firm, then the criteria would have gone, but they just took the money.