Government accused of manipulating news with paid content on TVNZ and STUFF
August 24, 2023
By NZB3
Apologies to the street I was walking down early yesterday morning when I yelled out “I DID!” Had my headphones on at dawn taking a stroll while listening to Sean Plunket interview Chris Trotter on The Platform. One of them had said you’d be considered mad to think this was happening and nobody suspected it until now. I did! Anarchists have known all along: “The government pays the state-owned broadcaster to run news stories and interviews with hand-picked “experts”. Pure political propaganda.” Ref. Thomas Cranmer, Twitter/Z
Cranmer was responding to Parliamentary Questions put to Minister Meghan Woods by Simeon Brown which, in turn, Plunket put
“There in black and white is basically the price tag for editorial independence in New Zealand.” For $300,000 you can “buy Stuff articles. Display ads. Articles in Sunday magazine. You can buy stories on Neighborly. They will move heaven and earth for you. They wont call it advertising, you are buying the editorial content and you can do the same at TVNZ. You can buy a series of interviews on Breakfast television. You can buy time on Seven Sharp posing as news stories. And you can buy articles on One News if you’re a government department. It is remarkable. It is basically a blueprint for media corruption. For corruption of the Fourth Estate.” – Plunket to Brown, The Platform (August 2023)
As a State broadcaster, TVNZ have no right to put government muscle and money and authority behind any cause as a mercenary propaganda arm. Stuff do. They’re private and can do what they like. Sell out if they want to. Media Priests for hire. But who is buying? Labour 6.0!
“The allocated $300,000 encompassed a package of multimedia coverage across TVNZ. This included an hour-long prime-time climate special on TV1, online content hosted at 1news.co.nz and TVNZ.co.nz with a dedicated web page, digital banners, logo placement, and pre-roll commercials. Additionally, five articles on 1News.co.nz, five social media posts on platforms such as Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram, a week’s worth of interviews with climate and energy experts on Breakfast TV, a Seven Sharp interview with an EECA ambassador, and 12 months of on-demand hosting for the Climate Special on TVNZ+ were part of this media package.” – Chris Lynch Newsroom
“You would not think it a school librarian’s job to convince any of the teachers or departments that they had expertise, knowledge, and value. If they didn’t why did the school build that library and hire that librarian? If they don’t have those abilities fire them! So why is the Department of Internal Affairs running a morning-long seminar, a whole series of seminars in fact, to workshop librarians in being able to do this? For $10.00 a head.” – Promoting library expertise and value for teaching Aotearoa NZ’s histories, AHNZ (August, 2023)
The promotional stage is supposed to be at elections using highly-regulated campaign money and baby-kissing maneuvers and transparent bribes. It’s relegated to the realm of politicians.
The Public Service and its bureaucrats also have no right to put any of their budget toward propaganda. No self-promotion to make the people think your institution is good and great. They are supposed to already think this of their own initiative which is why your department, library, service etc. exists. These entities are to serve us not to come to life like Pinocchio and fight for their right to life in campaigns funded out of your pockets! Politics is for politicians not the institutions.
Why then, for example, is the Ministry of Internal Affairs funding libraries to self-promote? If people don’t want libraries they shouldn’t build them or keep them going. A library should not be self-promoting. It can inform people that it exists and when it opens and closes. Even tell people what events are happening and display its books. Sure. But self-promotion is crossing the line. That’s a sort of demonology where our tools try to come to life and make us feed and house them like entitled children.
Mind you, New Zealand long since crossed the line from gazetting/informing and self-promoting. We all know this really but Cognitive Dissonance lets it slip by. The mixing of policy and politics cannot be stopped and that’s why we cannot have a State. Does anyone really think Joe Ward promising a Battleship for the Empire wasn’t self-promotion? Ref. 1913: The Battlecruiser New Zealand a Gift to Empire?, AHNZ
Do we not see, for example, that the ACC has extended itself not just into covering “accidents” but to telling us to “have a hmmm” and change our behavior so that we don’t hurt their bottom line. Your shin pad is supposed to be there to allow protection while you play soccer but here it has come alive and started telling the player what to do and what not to do so that it will not have to do its own job!
I’ll go one further. Does anyone not know that Jacinda Ardern’s Labour 6.0 did not promote itself under the guise of yellow stripy COVID-19 propaganda? They had the same voice actors for this as for other promotional material for their governing. All linked to a wave of “sustained propaganda” with the same branding. Does anyone think Stuart Nash’s Labour 6.0 re-jiggered the Forrest Service for better government reasons rather than as a stealthy way to tighten their power over it? Does anyone still believe Grant Robertson’s Labour 6.0 did not print out 2 billion dollars (inflationary much?) under COVID-19 livery and branding but then simply spend it on whatever? Including massive media packages which the likes of Stuff and TVNZ happily gobbled up?
“Former deputy chief economic adviser to the Treasury, Tony Burton, said the Government’s move was an “abuse of process” as it is laid out in the Public Finance Act and that it had effectively turned Covid-19 emergency funds into “an election slush fund that will force the Government after 2023 to either put up taxes, borrow or cut spending”. – See 2012: Kiwiblog Foresees Labour 6.0, AHNZ
Yes, of course the Government uses its position to buy publicity for itself. Usually this is disguised as activity that the public is credulous toward and can believe is within the ballpark of legitimate and sincere government policy. The alternative is to accept that we are corrupt and function under a spoils system. Ref. New Zealand Still Runs on A Spoils System, VJM (2019)
Sean Plunket, Chris Trotter, and Thomas Cranmer are apparently shocked to learn what we all know deep down. For a brief period, to some, this matter became an object of which a few were conscious. Plunket claims to be surprised this discovery has not spread much further than his newsroom. But they will soon forget. They must. Our fragile Conformity depends on it or else our Civilisation will have to reset or die of revelation.
Simeon Brown, if anything, seems a little shaken to be interviewed on the matter. It’s not supposed to be a news story as far as he is concerned, just an in-House jab at Minister Woods. Certainly he doesn’t “intend” to bust the Double Think or even resolve not to carry on in exactly the same way as Minister when National 6.0 win the election. The entire matter was probably not really Brown vs. Woods but a little bit of a side-quest belonging to a couple of their respective staffers. The politicians simply read out the scripts written for them on the stage and pretend to be in battle while the true authors will be laughing it over in Bellamys that same evening.
Nor will Hillary Barry and Jeremy Wells or their posse of “reporters”/”sales” staff care that we now have the receipts of their propaganda gig. Having a strong shell of Cognitive Dissonance and delusions of their own important social roles protects them from having such a thing as a conscience. Besides, sometimes they create human interest stories for free don’t they? And this is how they’re paid for. So, the ends justify the means don’t they? Eg. This erroneous one about New Zelaland’s “first” submarine.
Kings and Priests have been doing this sort of team-up since antiquity. We have only found a better way to kid ourselves it’s not happening now. Ref. How ‘Attila’ and the ‘Witch Doctor’ Unite To Destroy Reason, Ayn Rand
Anarchism would be a great alternative to the pain of this State Matrix (Statrix) crashing down and being re-built in yet another a new version of servitude. While we have a State we will always those who wish to enslave us and willing participants who can make that look presentable.
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Note: To my surprise, RNZ and Newstalk ZB both did pick up this story. More than we had a right to expect. Hosking is apparently appalled and claims nothing like this would happen in his day. But when I saw this picture (left) only 2 days ago I immediately assumed it was paid advertising from Air New Zealand and that they’d paid for the in-studio photo op. What do you think?
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