“Because it Matters”
May 12, 2019
By NZB3
Newshub’s expose last night (12 May 2019) promised to expose “200 racists” that “the legal system is powerless to stop.” And, “the warning signs that ended in bloodshed.” They issued this tantalising promotion to ensure we would tune in.What host Paddy Gower showed the viewer was far, far, less than was promised in the lead-up. Just regurgitating online material to attack a single loose unit; Philip Arps. And it turns out this is not going to be a series about “stories that matter” (what does that say about the rest of your news?) This is going to be a series ALL about Right Wing Boogiemen. Week after week (weak after weak.)
Paddy apologised to the audience over again that tonight’s show was just a ‘case study’. He knows it is not what was promised. Probably has some other junk that gets his eyes all buggy and is pissed off that he couldn’t run it last night. The lawyers wouldn’t let him, I bet.
Hal Crawford (Chief News Officer at Newshub) is apologising too in this article! Sorry our story was so second rate. We promised journalism and gave the audience Paddy Gower throwing rotten cabbages at a man already locked in the town square’s pillory.Oh brave journalist!
“I know Newshub will be criticised for running this video. We will be accused by some of playing into the hands of the supremacists, and doing it cynically for our own gain.”
Nice try there Hal, spinning what we want to criticise you for into a different narrative that you can control. Public Relations is so much easier if you can place yourself into the role of asking the questions as well as answering them; The critic and the criticised.
For a short summary of the ‘news’ item just imagine Paddy Gower as a small boy. He runs up to a condemned man locked in a pillory in the town square where people have already been throwing rotten cabbages at him. Wee Paddy runs up, yells “This is the news!” then slaps the guy on the head and runs away!
That is exactly what Newshub did. A cowardly act playing at news journalism just to soak up a few more desperate points for the second NZ Commercial Radio Survey for 2019 currently under way. You will have noticed every TV and radio station going all out to skew attention their way while the survey is on. NZME has been flashing around an expensive-looking photo spread of all their radio personalities. There are TV adverts of DJs acting idiotically all over the place…
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note: TV ratings are year round overnight, just the radio is quarterly
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