Murdoch attempts to enter the fray - and unrelatedly Jacinda resigns
And yes, it's an election year - what a surprise
Amongst the flurry of sub-par offshore “journalism”, leaked quotes from Harry Windsor’s book, and all manner of fluff pieces, the annual media silly season has also seen some stage setting for the election year that is now upon us.
Evilcorp arrives …
Murdoch’s News Corp has announced it’s intention to try and impact the New Zealand news scene, mainly through publishing more articles about New Zealand in The Australian, which are no doubt likely to be then happily republished by everyone from RNZ and NewsHub to Stuff - just as the low calibre garbage over the first weeks of January has been.
Given the damaging impact Murdoch owned media have had on elections in the US and the UK in particular and until the most recent election, also in Australia, this is something not to take lightly.
We need to be alert for this content and do our best to counteract it with fact checking and y’know, the truth, over what is likely to be vitriolic headlines and misinformation.
For some background on the history of Murdoch, his empire and his connections to New Zealand, this piece by Toby Manhire in The Spinoff makes informative reading.
Journalists opinionate
And secondly we are starting to see columns from the likes of Stuff Political Editor Luke Malpass outlining exactly what he thinks Christopher Luxon should do to gain power at the 2023 election.
What we haven’t seen is the equivalent articles outlining what Jacinda Ardern needs to do to retain her role as Prime Minister - despite the country performing better economically than the majority of nations under her leadership.
Update: Jacinda Ardern Resigns
I had this half written post sitting here in hiatus - and then yesterday something truly momentous happened. One of those things I reckon for many of us will be a bit like the ‘what were you doing when you heard Princess Diana had died’ moments. Our Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern used her first press conference of 2023 at the Labour Party’s summer retreat, to announce she will be stepping down as PM in February and resigning from her electorate MP role in April (so as not to trigger a by-election).
To say the country was shocked is an understatement. From what I could see online and around me, people tended to fall into one of two camps - those of us (hopefully the majority) who were surprised, saddened but yet totally understand her decision to step away from a very toxic environment that has taken a significant toll on her personally over the last 5 years as Prime Minister. The other portion of the population (sprinkled liberally with offshore trolls) went into celebratory mode with various versions of ‘don’t let the door hit you on the way out’ but in far less pleasant terms on the whole. Some of them chose to hunker down even further and suggest Jacinda still needs to be punished for the ‘genocide’ she supposedly inflicted on New Zealanders.
Of course there is no basis in fact for their claims, in fact the death rate in NZ since Covid arrived has actually been lower than it was prior to, but hey why let facts get in the way of your conspiracy fantasy.
So here we are … in a transitionary place while we wait for the Labour Party caucus to select her replacement. If they can’t agree with a 2/3 consensus, then selection will be taken out to the wider party.
How is it going to play out - and what will the remaining pre-election months look like in Aotearoa New Zealand?
Time for a Hikoi of Love?
A thought in progress … more on this in my next post.
Kia kaha everyone and a huge thank-you to Jacinda and her whanau for her contribution to the lives of New Zealanders - even the ones with no gratitude who have benefited nonetheless.