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- Date published:
6:09 pm, May 15th, 2026 - 14 comments
Categories: chris hipkins, journalism, Media -
Tags: framing, media bias, political speeches
Some of you may have noticed that Chris Hipkins gave a speech in Auckland on 14 May, which was a pitch for longer-term, more collaborative infrastructure planning, bringing central government, local government, business and political opponents into the same room so that Auckland is not trapped in a cycle of cancelled projects and election-year “[dirty] laundry lists”. RNZ led with that substantive infrastructure angle, reporting Hipkins’ promise to work with political rivals and his argument that bipartisan planning is necessary if Auckland is to get major multi-year projects built. Similarly, Stuff’s account highlighted Auckland’s infrastructure impasse, e.g., Hipkins’ line that “parties campaigning on saying we’re not going to do that project instead means that nothing ever gets done”.
RNZ’s framing was comparatively neutral [take note, Winston Peters and David Seymour] and policy-focused on infrastructure cooperation, the second harbour crossing, and Hipkins’ stated rejection of project-by-project electioneering. In contrast, Newstalk ZB/NZ Herald-linked coverage relied heavily on Hipkins “taking a swing” over immigration, focussing on his criticism that coalition parties were “seeking to capitalise on disunity”, in relation to Christopher Luxon’s recent immigration comments. Neither of this piece pair contained the word “infrastructure”. This difference in reporting angles is noteworthy, as one presents the speech as a governance/infrastructure proposal and the other as a partisan attack in an [exaggerated] election-year immigration argument.
Selective emphasis in reporting can shape a reader’s impression. If a report leads with Hipkins’ attack lines while burying or supressing his [main] infrastructure argument, the reader is nudged toward seeing the speech as political point-scoring rather than a proposal for Auckland governance reform to fix its infrastructure. Newstalk ZB’s report did include Hipkins’ Auckland “step change” argument and his pledge to work with local leaders on Auckland’s regional plan, but its headline and opening paragraphs all framed the story around an [perceived] immigration conflict. RNZ and Stuff gave their readers more of the infrastructure content such as bipartisan planning, Auckland Council’s role, the harbour-crossing process, and Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown’s critique of central-government decision-making.
The author of the Newstalk ZB article took her headline prioritisation of the immigration angle to the max (and over the top) in her companion article in the NZ Herald. Here, the immigration dispute became the dominant frame, even though the speech was also, and arguably predominantly, about Auckland’s future, infrastructure, investment certainty, and bipartisan planning.
The Stuff piece went a bit further and merged Labour’s messaging with that of Wayne Brown, who said, in his idiosyncratic blunt & brash style, that Auckland needed to be consulted properly on major transport decisions. Arguably, that framing strengthened the public-interest value of the story beyond just ‘Labour propaganda’ to back-up the view that Auckland’s infrastructure governance is structurally broken.
I couldn’t read the NBR version of Hipkins’ speech because it’s safely protected from mass consumption behind a pay-wall, which is a pity. Tim Murphy at Newsroom had a particularly sharp focus on a possible post-election style of engagement across party lines and not merely a discussion of Hipkins’ comments on infrastructure cooperation.
A second conflict lens that was used for selective framing was the Covid-lockdown angle. Obviously, Hipkins had not raised Labour’s record and pandemic legacy in his speech but during the media stand-up after the speech it did come up, as one reporter [not from Newstalk ZB] asked a question about it.
Not one person outside of Newstalk ZB is continuing to raise that with us.
Although it was a valid question, using Covid as a dominant frame for a 2026 Auckland infrastructure speech risks retrospective reporting, i.e., the reader is encouraged to interpret a present-day policy speech through an emotionally charged past controversy. This becomes selective if the infrastructure substance is downplayed or treated as secondary. Unsurprisingly, the same adversarial headline was used for a Newstalk ZB interview that tried to pull back the story of Hipkins’ Auckland speech to Labour’s pandemic record.
Political opponents have an obvious incentive to criticise Hipkins’ speech. However, partisan criticism of Hipkins’ response to a single question after his speech completely overshadowed everything else that he’d raised. There is a time & place for those criticisms that are politically relevant, obviously, but they should be labelled as partisan reaction rather than allowed to become the default interpretive frame for unrelated speeches – such decisions (and headline choices) are made at editorial level. Given the recent attacks coming from Coalition quarters on [public] media for [perceived] political bias, this is hugely ironic.
The above shows how readers can receive quite different versions of the same event depending on whether the news outlet prioritises policy substance, Auckland governance, partisan conflict, or legacy criticism, for example. The Herald/NZME direct & indirect coverage clearly illustrates the difference between reporting what was said and choosing which part of that becomes the story. Immigration and Covid are both legitimate topics, of course, but when they dominate the framing of a speech centred on Auckland’s infrastructure and governance, the result is a narrower, more partisan-feeling account than the RNZ or Stuff versions and/or a completely different narrative altogether.
Ironically, it is the (imperfect) attempt by publicly-owned media to be balanced that makes politicians accuse it of bias. And this is a larger problem on the right than the left. Outside marginal independent media, the left does not have big media networks that sing from the same songsheet. The right do, and they become so accustomed to compliant media that they are shocked and outraged by anything else.
I think it would be mistake to think that the Left should have its own [intentional pun] big media networks that sing from a Left song sheet to counter & compete with the Right – it would be a [arms] race to the bottom, as populism and propaganda wars tend to be and possibly only result in more polarisation & division.
Many people tend to consume news from one or just a few sources, which are often affiliated, formally or informally. They may believe that those news stories are a true story (they often are) and the whole story (they often are not, leaving things out and/or de-prioritising/re-arranging aspects). With limited time and short attention spans framing matters a lot putting certain things in the foreground of people’s attention and thus leaving an impression in their [subconscious] minds that might stick. The effect might be small but over time it can be cumulative and become a stronger conscious judgement – this is more likely if they routinely go back to the same news sources and the same content creators and even more so if there’s a long-term editorial strategy at play.
I think the best way to change this is to make people aware of the phenomenon that’s happening to them, make them use a wider variety of news sources, and raise levels of scepticism and critical thinking so that people don’t turn into sheeple. This is not the same as trying to convert people and to encourage them to change sides, from Left to Right and vice versa. Framing things as Left and Right and corresponding Left vs Right narratives are holding us back, in my opinion.
I kind of agree with Incognito's last paragraph @ 16 May 8.30pm.
It's not actually possible to "make" other people do anything.
From some research I looked at several years ago, people tend to be influenced by others in their peer group/community with respect to how critical they are of what they read/see in the news.
So, maybe it's a good idea to engage with others, especially offline, by providing some critique of what is in the nes and social media.
Which comment were you meant to reply to? I don’t think it’s one under this Post.
Oh. It's your comment above @ 6.18pm, where you say:
I think the best way to change this is to make people aware of the phenomenon that’s happening to them, make them use a wider variety of news sources, and raise levels of scepticism and critical thinking so that people don’t turn into sheeple. This is not the same as trying to convert people and to encourage them to change sides, from Left to Right and vice versa. Framing things as Left and Right and corresponding Left vs Right narratives are holding us back, in my opinion.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/595446/protest-in-auckland-s-victoria-park-against-fuel-taxes
Here’s a question for you all: what is missing from this piece?
Well…IMO… It seems focused entirely on the present fuel problem…with no mention of Alternatives to
DinoPetroleum (ie Electrify NZ) and/or Sustainable Transport (ie Public Transport, et al)My take anyway….
Thank you for making a stab at it.
It’s a bit of impossible question to answer, of course; it’s not about the fuel problem per se.
Aha ! I see from both DMK's comment,and your reply where I went wrong.
And yes, my initial thought had been … where was Chris Hipkins/Labour…
But maybe wanted to avoid "Framing things as Left and Right" ? Even though my Political preference is indeed Left.
As an aside you might have seen, or not, I do indeed read wide ranging News sources for overview/balance… not limited to RNZ/Newsroom (my most often linked) but Guardian, BBC, CNN, Scientific American,Al Jazeera…ODT, Stuff and sometimes..The Herald : )
All good, you didn’t go ‘wrong’; I was fishing for a different angle.
I’d like to think that regular TS commenters such as yourself read more widely than the ‘average’ man/woman in the street.
Cheers for that….my other go-to is The Standard : )
That RNZ piece is in the category "Politics / Regions", and contains information about the what the Fuel Tax Protest NZ advocacy group wants ("Temporary relief is all that we're asking for," the spokesperson said), a summary of some relevant StatsNZ / Commerce Commission analysis, and what NAct (but not Winston First) ministers Willis, Seymour and Bishop think. No information on the stance(s) of opposition parties, so perhaps they weren't approached for comment?
Exactly!
For example, two days ago Labour released a statement that hasn’t been reported at all by the media, as far as I can tell, which is precisely the reason why I commented under this Post and not in Open Mike.
https://www.labour.org.nz/news/release-labour-will-scrap-national-s-fuel-excise-increase/
I strongly suspect they are fine with prices doing the necessary rationing.
Couldn’t possibly have a concrete plan. Too much parallels with Labour and covid.