MEDIA COMPLICITY IN THE JACINDA ARDERN DEBACLE
Let’s not downplay the role the media played in Jacinda Ardern’s resignation. Over a long period of time, they have systematically
Amplified the negative stuff 100-fold, instead of balancing it out with all the positive stuff JA and her government have achieved. They have also, like a pack of hyenas as a kill, determinedly sought to discredit Jacinda Ardern, despite her huge popularity, immense abilities, and global reach. Call it tall poppy syndrome if you will. However it is far more insidious and dangerous than that.
This media partisanship, spin and bias is enacted by various means – obfuscation, ommission, slant, innuendo, distortion, opinion, reckons, obsessive focus on the sensational etc – all the techniques an autocratic dictatorship uses to distort and ‘massage’ the message and disseminate propoganda.
Sadly, the fact is, we have ended up with a gutter press in NZ which is a serious and sustained threat to our democracy. Aside from the independent media (predominantly Murdich-owned), even publicly funded media are complicit! 
Ratings have eclipsed the principles of responsible journalism across the board
We need a code of conduct for the industry that sets standards and enforces them. We need a media watchdog with teeth. The BSA is, frankly, useless! Many of us, over the past few years, have tried to call these heinous practices out, have written letters of complaint to media outlets, copied them to the BSA and lobbied the Minister, mostly to no avail.
I encourage every person in this country who believes that media is the fourth estate, and should therefore SERVE THE BEST INTERESTS OF THE POPULACE, to ramp up their efforts to counter media spin this year. It’s no use sitting on FB all day having verbal spats with individuals who are irrational and brainwashed. Report them if they cross the line, but avoid engaging. In my experience, very few of them are open to changing their views. Similarly, spending time in echo chambers with others who hold similar views is comforting but actually achieves nothing; we need to direct our energy to where it can make a difference.
We need to effectively bombard the media with complaints which should be copied to the BSA and the Minister of Broadcasting, we need to actively boycott offending media, and we need to mobilize support for petitions and activism around this issue. More on this in the weeks to come!
Ensuring we have a fair, balanced, non-biased, non-partisan media will go a long way towards ensuring we end up with the better government in October 2023. I assure you, the alternative is too awful to contemplate and will set NZ back years, back into the 20th century!
Thank you for reading and go forth and fight the good fight 
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