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6:00 am, May 8th, 2026 - 57 comments
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Open mike is your post.
For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose.
The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the Policy).
Step up to the mike …
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/594582/david-vs-the-media-has-seymour-gone-too-far
First they came for the press and I didn't do anything because I'm not the press.
What does one do when they feel powerless to stop the decent into a libertarian he'll hole.
I hear you. All I can say, and its from my own personal
yearsdecades of battling (incl with young family working through the hell of rogernomics/ruthenasia )…. is keep fighting. Anything you do offsets at least some of it.Keep Aware, Sign petitions/submissions (many of which I find are easy to read and sign)
Keep Fighting : )
I am on the mailer for ActionStation..not all things I agree with (possibly others are same…we are all the same…but different : ) Anyway IMO this Link has a lot of Info to be Aware of. And much Kudos to the Authors and all involved !
A lot of "the Press" came for themselves. When even rudimentary analysis of once trusted outlets such as the BBC demonstrates complete and utter bias in regard to certain topics and once respected journalists turn into "opinionists” in order to evade the most basic standards of what used to be integrity, there does not seem to be anywhere to go.
That comment is Luxonian in its vagueness.
What "certain topics", what analysis, by whom?
Here’s the nub of it (from your RNZ link):
David Seymour is engaged in one-upmanship with Winston Peters and Pāora Goldsmith.
https://newsroom.co.nz/2026/05/08/hold-my-beer-seymour-takes-a-wild-swing-at-public-media/
I heard Andrew Geddis make that comment this morning: "…when politicians start attacking the media, they know they’re losing."
That's true in a sense, but I don't think it does full justice to the current situation. Because ACT, and the libertarian far right in general, have always wanted to attack (or capture) publicly owned media because of the standards of balance and fairness it tries to set for itself, and because of its common good purpose to 'inform. educate and entertain' (Lord Reith). Their goal is the destruction of the public sphere to ensure the unchallenged rule of private power through money. And they have wanted to do this not just when they are in electoral difficulty, but at all times.
"…at all times…"
Indeed. I'm reminded of the Unman from C.S. Lewis – a heartless, destructive force that pursues relentlessly. I'm not sure that I've remembered that correctly; I read Perelandra over 50 years ago 🙂 so will brush-up on the story this afternoon.
Also the shadow spirit that hunted Ged in A Wizard of Earthsea.
Very unpleasant characters.
All true!
Freedom of expression is a basic human right and nonpartisan but RWs have taken an absolutist view of this, which tends to be avoided (and criticised!) in better-regulated public media. Another RW objection is the use of taxpayer money for public media. And there are many other reasons why the RW dislikes public media. All this shifts up a few gears in an election year, as you say, and when their polling is under the pump.
Unfortunately, when the people running our public media organisations treat political neutrality as unnecessary they play right into the hands of libertarian politicians who object to the very existence of publicly owned media. I'm on the left and even I don't want "editorial independence" to mean the board's free to pursue a leftist political agenda, any more than it should pursue a right-wing one. It would be nice if the management of RNZ and TVNZ stopped making such fat, slow-moving targets of themselves.
‘So, when did you stop being politically neutral?’
On the same day they stopped beating their partner.
Neutrality is a paralysed state and renders the person all but useless.
Have your say, check your facts and pov.
You got it in one
I think that political neutrality is mostly a myth and mostly one that’s manufactured by the Right for the Right to attack anything or anybody whom they dislike and disagree with.
Public media should aim to be impartial, professional, accountable, etc. And, by and large, I think they are, although I can’t vouch for TVNZ because I don’t watch TV.
Yes. The American media should be neutral and give Trump fair go?
I don't think so.
Any agency that plays it that way will get slaughtered by the exploiters and bullies and thus fail to provide fair service to the general public.
Yup, calling out lies or pointing out BS claims that are not supported by evidence & logic, i.e., speak truth to power, is a core function of public media that often runs foul of RWNJs who’re misled and/or want to mislead. You’d think that public trust in public media would protect them from being delegitimised and defunded by the Right but this isn’t the case; more/higher trust intensifies the attacks and less/lower trust levels provide ammunition for attacks – they cannot win.
Laugh all you like, but if right-wingers were managing RNZ and appointed Mike Hosking to do Morning Report, the concept of "politically neutral" might suddenly appear more attractive than it does when John Campbell's being appointed.
If the shoe is on the other foot is a nice rhetorical trick.
Your premise of political neutrality is flawed and a [mostly] RW trope.
I’m not laughing at all!
Attempting to maintain political neutrality is the entire basis of the public sector, not a "right-wing trope," and asking people to think about how they'd feel if the shoe were on the other foot isn't a "rhetorical trick."
But you weren’t asking, you were stating, and it was hypothetical. You had accused “the management of RNZ and TVNZ” of all sorts and then presented an infamous RW shock-jock as argument. So, yes, it was a trick and bordering on being a straw man.
Claiming that public media must be politically neutral is definitely a trope that’s mostly used for RW attacks.
Here are the relevant web pages for TVNZ and RNZ:
https://corporate.tvnz.co.nz/1news-policies-information/
https://www.rnz.co.nz/about/charter
Neither claims to follow or advocate for political neutrality. Both stand for due impartiality.
I don’t want to divert to the public sector as whole but your claim doesn’t stand up with regard to TVNZ and RNZ.
Mike Hoskings and John Campbell are equivalent agents of truth and integrity?
I never knew…
100….Not out ! Happy Birthday Sir David Attenborough
: )
A truly Inspirational Man, who, in his (and my) lifetime has done so much, to show us our world…our Blue Dot, as it truly is. And the damage we have, and are inflicting on it…..
In the Link there are also some very nice Birthday notes from People I also respect….
Enjoy : )
The ploy is simple, flood the zone, the air zone, with pro-NAF noise; Hoskings, du Plussis, Plunket etc because background babble works, especially on a gullible audience. Throttle any broadcasts that don't do the same. Opinions are highly affected by white-noise that talks as much to your subconscious as it does to your wide-awake brain. It's as much about tone and cadence as content; nag, nag, nag will provoke discontent; that's why Luxon and crew have kept up their "Labour's Fault!!" message regardless of appeals to reason, logic and truthfulness; that's not how they're being advised to behave. The coming election isn't about weighing policies or behaviours, it's coming in at a gut-level and unless the Left has an similar comms strategy, we will lose. This practise will intensify/is intensifying sharply. One possible path for Labour, The Greens & Te Pati Māori must be door-knocking, face-to-face meeting with as many voters as humanly possible – person-to-person cuts through the noise of airwave propaganda. I expect/hope this strategy is well advanced with those parties. I think it's THE hope for success (Hoping Hipkins will "wipe the floor" with Luxon in some Leaders' Debates is a misplaced yearning; Luxon will chant his way through and be declared The Winner by the same broadcasters I mentioned at the start, thus compounding the effect).
In my opinion.
Well…that was a
streamFlow of Consciousness ! And I am being absolutely unIronic.Have you seen this? I did link further up…
I hadn't but I have now!
Interesting to know that those ploys will affect even the wokest of the woke; if someone is by-passing your conscious mind and fiddling-about in your subconscious, you'll have to take actions to neutralise the effects.
(The idea of Seymour skulking about in my subconscious is beyond distasteful 🙂
I trust those actions dont include, ahem, tin foil helmets ?
I have found throughout, an at times, Interesting Life, that having the Gift (no, not second sight ) of a sense of Humour is indeed priceless.
Keep up your comments : )
Tinfoil hats don't help coz your subconscious isn't in your head 🙂
Jung had plenty to say about this. His Red Book is a cracker read 🙂
I tried telling them…but the voices just wont listen.
Re Jung…I have read somewhat, but IMO, not for me.
So many Philosophers…..even Philosopher Psychoanalysts…enough to possibly make your head spin. (luckily not in an Exorcist way : )
Reading is Good for Knowledge. And IMO Knowledge is Good.
I think you have been thinking Mercurio. And about trust as others have referred to. I find I can trust to say 90%, the average person that I meet, my family, and on, to think differently to me. They are still filled with 20th century platitudes and beliefs. In their subconscious all will be coped with by new technology. It's only a matter of time and learning how to use it.
They haven't got to the stage of turning the thought to how it will use us. Which wouldn't be so bad, if we kept our enquiring brain cells alive, but new technology wants to do everything for us so we don't have to think, to calculate, to form motivation using our will. And all the time the ways that our culture and we, are affected by the media in general is around us and our reaction is to just enjoy or not, using the top or shallow part of the brain.
So stop watching tv, internalising the political sport and physical sport, the war games etc and see our fine selves being encouraged to debase ourselves watching torture, cruelty in the name of supporting our leaders' part in a powerful cabal. Read fiction and use your imagination with clues from the authors' detective stories.
And TV has portrayed our future, playing out our illusions for us to see and understand if we chose – see part of Majority Rule from The Orville Series 1 E.7 – 2.22m
"Read fiction and use your imagination with clues from the authors' detective stories."
I do like that!
Isn't everything fiction though? Or at least, should be regarded as such until proven otherwise 🙂
I'm of a mind to create now; search inside to find never-before-seen treasure then get it down on paper somehow.
It is amazing what the mind sees and produces when there is time left for pondering, loosely jumping around what is happening and what might be, and then what would happen as a result. And the bit about everything being fiction is shocking at first, and then one gets the idea and sees where a pinchbar might be inserted and exerted. But it is finding time to plan and implement and have ongoing measures to ensure the good result (and hard work) is not wasted. And that it is not mentioned much or at all to others who can 'pour cold water' or 'damn it with faint praise'; two great and true quotes or cliches.
Phew! Problem solved.
https://thespinoff.co.nz/society/08-05-2026/the-spinoffs-new-zealand-citizenship-test
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/politics/political-donations-national-reports-more-than-6-million-act-overtakes-labour/6CB2BILNBFGCFKAFF3DQJHT6BE/
Policy for sale.
To paraphrase Taika Waititi;
"We are corrupt as fuck"
Re “corrupt“, this just in – another good one from Sharon Murdoch.
https://www.bsa.govt.nz/decisions/all-decisions/grieve-and-ryburn-and-television-new-zealand-ltd/
So the question finally is who if anyone in New Zealand gets to regulate media and speech in this country?
And the very clear answer is: politicians themselves.
Minister Seymour is really really clear that he is going for John Campbell's job at RNZ, and for the CEO, and will sack the entire RNZ board if he has to. Also the government is consistently de-funding RNZ each year and sinking its lid.
The Prime Minister is really really clear that he is going for the job of the political editor at TVNZ Maiki Sherman. The Prime Minister has essentially withdrawn from all media except NewstalkZB.
The Speaker of the House of Parliament Jerry Brownlee is also clear that the ban for a week on Maiki Sherman can be put on any other apparently errant reporter.
And of course removing the Broadcasting Standards Authority puts social media news from Facebook or Bomber or Kiwiblog on an officially equal footing to RNZ or NZHerald.
That does to the press pool what inviting Newsmax into the White House press pool does: it liquefies solid truth into political napalm.
There are a couple of "if-onlys" to this: RNZ and TVNZ would under a Labour government have been a unified entity with far stronger resolve to resist political pressure. TVNZ actively killed that off. Now TVNZ is useful only for selling off as scraps.
If RNZ has been allowed to form a proper funded online presence instead of the shoestring we see today, we would not see their own core audiences ageing and declining.
The entity I would like to see sold state funding for is Scoop, who do us all a massive service of public and policy and interest group releases that we can all see with ease.
The entities who need to be fearing for their jobs next are Te Mangai Paho, New Zealand On Air, Maori Television, and the related entities.
… and Maiki Sherman has now resigned.
A pretty cold day for democracy this one.
Sad about Maiki resigning but fear a replacement to suit Seymour or Goldsmith.
By a previously unknown lick-spittle?
Or someone worse, plucked from the scabby underbelly of the National Party?
We wait.
With bated breath.
How dare a “Wahine Maori" think she can laud it over us powerful white men in government. That's the message it sends to me:
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/media-technology/594667/tvnz-political-editor-maiki-sherman-resigns
It is a mistake to jump to that sexist reaction as the first one. There are so many currents in our waters, that another rip will have bubbled up since then. The govt will want to ensure their dainty feelings are given top priority over those of any female. And the racist thing is a mistake also, Maori are equal with us in being human, but I think 'whites' are more equal than them myself, which is being slightly biased in their favour isn't it. This government will have demolished the country before the election the way they are going. Maori will be our shining light then if they can keep up.
We must have reasoned and clear regard for the loss of our Kiwi values and culture, not fractured splinters being thorns in our sides as we try to fight through the tumatakuru or matagouri like the early white colonialists.
If only, but unlike his deputy, MP DS is going nowhere – it's a sad state of affairs…
Gone
How do our ratbag CoC MPs get away with this – is it simply that they have deep pockets, or are 'deep pocket adjacent'? Entitled ‘Rt. Hon.’ ministers, making a mockery of their titles – wrecking while the wrecking’s ‘good’.
That’s not correct.
Scoop is a great source of news intelligence but it doesn’t provide context, connections, or comparisons.
So you can point to any other entity that does the same job as Scoop then.
Oddly framed question.
The short answer is No, but EveningReport does a good job of what it does although the new layout is terrible.
So, the coalition Government (CoC) intends, with their pending "move-on" legislation, to create an even more draconian situation that was in place when the anti-vaxxers occupied Parliament's grounds:
"“The orders could also apply when a person is or has been begging, rough sleeping, or setting up personal possessions, encampments, makeshift dwellings, or other structures indicating an intent to inhabit a public place,” the Cabinet paper states."
Any freedom/cooker/antivaxxers here might like to put aside their Jacinda-revulsion and comment. Or not.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/nz-news/360976005/cruel-or-crucial-simon-bridges-demands-urgent-clear-out-cbd-vagrants
Reform surging in UK local elections (https://www.bbc.com/news/live/c1428pev1n0t). Labour tanking, modest gains for Greens so far.
Can UK Labour be blamed for allowing a party led by billionaire-adjacent, ultra-libertarian, flag-shaggers and ex-Tory extremists to displace them? Was UK Labour inevitably acting as the future handmaiden for the far right when they eviscerated their own moral and intellectual substance by smearing and expelling Corbyn supporters from their party? It seems so – idiots.
Another successful Dirty Politics hit job – Maiki Sherman resigns. How is it that our politico-media nexus still allows this nonsense to happen in plain sight without an uproar? The book on how this stuff is manufactured was written over a decade ago.
Watch your back, Jack!
And we still fall for it.
/
Mountain_Tui
@Mountain_Tui
David Seymour when Kiri Allan opined on RNZ – Now Seymour's threatening RNZ and TVNZ; it comes a year after Winston Peters told RNZ he would defund them when they interviewed him The National government went on to cut $18 million from RNZ last year #nzpol #kiwi
https://xcancel.com/Mountain_Tui/status/2052519085007860005
Wad about to say the say ab. The scum nats have won again my hate for them grows.
I always thought Maiki Sherman came across as a Nat lover.
Quite right? Although perhaps not quite right enough.
God forbid more Kiwis start trusting public broadcasters such as RNZ! /sarc
Why don't we know what Lloyd Burr said to Maiki Sherman?
It's really odd…
Nah, there’s only one side to this story, the Right side.
Certainly the only one we've heard, but I'm hugely comforted by your confident assurance, Incognito. Now, the Right burn like a Guiding Light to me; I need not listen to the scurrilous Lefty malcontents and will dismiss their plaintive whining and wheedling as a Lord might send a rough and unkempt Commoner on his way.
I dislike those Chinese whispers and he-said-she-said. One voice, one story, that simplifies things.
It would have been a racist slur and it's possible others were involved.
There must have been people present who heard what was said that prompted Sherman's response. Are they too afraid to come forward and reveal it? These DP types are known for their bully boy/girl threats. Remember Cameron Slater.
Burr and willis are obviously complicit in the hatchet job on Sherman, there silence makes that obvious.