nz's slipping main-stream media

Saw this on kiwiblog.  I've not heard of Haimoana Gray before.  Poss too controversial for msm??

The bit in red is one of the most succinct things I've read in some time.



haimona.substack.com/p/are-gatekeepers-destroying-maori?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=1lrc55&triedRedirect=true





Are Gatekeepers destroying Māori media

Why Māoridom has a nepotism issue, and why it‘s going nowhere



HAIMONA GRAY

MAR 27, 2024



In the brilliant Spike Lee film ‘Mo Better Blues’, Denzel Washington's character - a jazz player struggling with the idea that the audiences for his proudly black art never seem to include any other black people - says, brutally, “if we had to depend on black people to eat, we would starve to death.”



This is how I feel about Māori media - if Māori were only informed by Māori media they would be intellectually starved to the point of mind rot.



They would also have to listen to a lot of white men telling them what's good for Maori. For them, but really for ’them’.



These shows exist to make left-wing pakeha feel good about themselves for tuning in. They do this by pitching shows directly at an audience that wants loud voices who will play the notes they expect to hear.



In a ‘Te Ao with Moana’ panel debate on “who sets the election narrative”, the panel of four people was half pakeha men.



This week's ‘Te Ao’ episode covered the Treaty Principles Bill. To discuss it they brought on former Treaty Negotiations Minister Chris Finlayson (pakeha man, but hugely respected in Māoridom), Matthew Hooton (pakeha man), Max Harris (pakeha man), and Heather Came (pakeha woman).



This is a show on Māori Television, which receives public funding to produce Māori focused content. This is also a show where host Moana Maniapoto asked (pakeha) NZ Herald senior writer Simon Wilson “is the media just talking to itself?”



I would answer with a resounding “yes, you are, and you're choosing to do so by prioritising ideology over Māori voices you or your audience might not agree with.”



If this was a one-off it would be unfortunate, but not proof of a clear systemic issue. Sadly, it is more the rule than the exception.



Over on iwi radio, Radio Waatea host and regular Radio NZ political panellist Shane Te Pou hosted his own Māori politics panel show earlier this year. Half of his four guests, Simon Wilson (again) and divisive shock-jock Martyn 'Bomber' Bradbury, are not Māori. They're also not all that different in terms of political leanings or life experiences.



It's not just that they are outsiders talking at Māoridom, their clear biases point in the same singular direction.



Re: News - the most recent of Radio NZ's expensive failed experiments in youth news - announced it was partnering with M9 for a Māori TED-style series. This would include nine Māori leaders discussing the role of Te Tiriti in the future of Aotearoa.



These nine guests included a current Māori Party MP, a former Māori Party MP, the son of a current Māori Party MP, a former head of Greenpeace who was forced to resign as Human Rights Commissioner for disparaging Police, and an anti-dairy farming activist.



Do you see a pattern? More specifically, do you see how this contributes to a racist idea of Māori as a hivemind?



While I'll never condone celebrating people losing their jobs, I'm not sure we as taxpayer dollars were getting any value from a media outlet so aggressively slanted and one which sees this as a balanced coverage of Māori thought.



An argument given to me by the hosts and producers of these shows is “well we can't find different voices” and “there aren't a lot of Māori who can speak eloquently about politics who aren't affiliated to a political party on the left - we must have you on!”



Spoiler alert: they never do.



If you had asked me a decade ago who should be in a panel of future Māori political leaders, I would have said two people I came across while at Uni - National MP James Rawiri Meager and Labour MP Arena Williams.



Both came up through their parties' youth political wings. Neither hard to find.



Arena now has a regular column in the Herald, it's not very good, but James is still under acknowledged and appreciated and it isn’t hard to figure out why.



While James’ maiden speech was correctly lauded for its eloquence, his most powerful message was that there isn't just one way to be Māori.



He talked about how he is from “simple straightforward people”, and that his father had never set foot on the North Island.



This is the real reason why James, who was long known about and rated highly by political dorks like myself - He is not the son of a current Māori Party MP. Not the heir to a Māori political dynasty like the Henare’s or Harawira's or Jackson's.



He does not owe his place in life to whānau connections, and therefore he is not on the radar of those who gate keep these shows and use their influence to advocate for their own politics and a Māoridom weighed down by nepotism.



In his speech James said, “members opposite do not own Māori.”



This is the issue facing Māori media - they have become so narrowly focused, so beholden to nepotistic practices, so ‘jobs for the bros’ it doesn't matter if the bros aren’t Māori and/or if the show is publicly funded to be.



They can't see how this is hurting Māoridom, that we are metaphorically starving our youth while feeding others to the point of creating a slovenly elite that's so out of touch it would rather hear pakeha voices in Māori spaces than Māori who may challenge them.



Full disclosure: I am not like James.



While he came from humble beginnings, I came from an incredibly comfortable childhood. From two highly educated senior public servants with deep political contacts across the left who have lived and been educated around the globe.



I am also not like fellow Māori David Seymour.



While he has talked about being treated as not Māori because he wasn’t raised on his marae, I was. In fact I was raised deeply entrenched in Te Ao Māori, surrounded by people who live and practice kaupapa Māori. I have never been anything other than staunchly Māori and was raised to understand that no one can ever rob me of my whakapapa.



I am not like these two successful Māori in other ways as well, but what we share is an acknowledgement that there is no right or wrong way to be Māori. That ignoring the diversity within Māoridom only hurts and divides us further.



We are not a hivemind, we share this wonderful culture and history, but we do not have to all see it the same way.



For me this is what tikanga compels me to do - challenge preconceptions and promote the interests of us all over the interests of my whānau and the bros.



I don't not see this reflected in Māori media, but half the time I don't see Māori on Māori media.



This is the issue - who gets to be Māori in the media is so deeply gate kept that the Māori experience is filtered through a lens so coloured by political bias and privilege that it bears no resemblance to the real views of many Māori.



This wouldn't be a problem if there was a diversity of opinions shown, but the regularity of Simon Wilson or Martyn Bradbury appearances highlight the sad reality that these are media pitching a singular point of view. One that is not Māori, just aristocratic.



That's the way these gatekeepers want to keep it.

Kate Hawkesby said Maori & Pacifica get special treatment for elective surgery waiting lists. The BSA has sanctioned her saying that is misleading and discriminatory.

When black is white and white is black.
Or do they not like the truth being broadcast?!?

Ethnicity is one of 5 scores to get up the waiting list, with priority given to Maori and Pacifica. So how can she be wrong?
BSA needs to be defunded too.

Radio host Kate Hawkesby's suggestion Māori and Pasifika patients are prioritised for surgery due to their ethnicity was misleading and discriminatory, the Broadcasting Standards Authority (BSA) has ruled.

Hawkesby made the comments in June 2023 on NZME talkback station Newstalk ZB, on which her husband Mike Hosking also hosts a show.

The claim about ethnic priority for surgical waitlists breached both the accuracy and discrimination and denigration standards, said the BSA, which has ordered NZME to air a statement summarising its decision and to pay the Crown costs of $1500.

An NZME spokesperson told Newshub the company accepts the BSA's decision but does not have any further comment.
During the broadcast, Hawkesby discussed Te Whatu Ora / Health NZ's new Equity Adjustor Score in the Auckland region, which uses five categories to place patients on the non-urgent surgical waitlist: clinical priority, time spent waiting, location, deprivation level and ethnicity.

The BSA ruled Hawkesby's claim Māori and Pacific people were being "moved to the top of surgery waitlists" gave the misleading impression that ethnicity was either the only or the key factor involved in the assessment.

Hawkesby also reinforced or embedded negative racial stereotypes with her comments, according to the BSA, inciting "potentially harmful comments" from listeners which were also read out live on air.

"Hawkesby's comments played into the stereotype that Māori and Pacific peoples disproportionately take up resources and are given undeserved special treatment in Aotearoa New Zealand's society, at the expense of other ethnicities. While not said explicitly, in our view, the exaggerated and misleading nature of Hawkesby's comments had the effect of evoking this type of prejudicial bias," the BSA said.

"The conduct was serious, featuring repeated and sustained inaccurate descriptions of the Equity Adjustor Score over the course of a one-hour broadcast, which in turn had the effect of embedding negative stereotypes about Māori and Pacific peoples. This was despite accurate information being to hand.

"There was a high level of public interest and some controversy in the introduction of the Equity Adjustor Score at the time, meaning while there was value in discussing and generating debate about the issue, it was important for reporting on the subject to be accurate.

"The broadcaster chose to frame an important news story in a misleading and inflammatory manner. The framing of the issue created an environment where potentially harmful comments from the audience were foreseeable, and the broadcaster chose to read many such comments out on air.

"As a result, the broadcast had the potential to cause serious harm, both to Māori and Pacific peoples - minority groups which already experience significant disadvantages in our community - as well as the audience more generally."

www.newshub.co.nz/home/entertainment/2024/04/bsa-rules-kate-hawkesby-comments-about-ethnic-priority-for-surgical-waitlists-were-misleading-and-discriminatory.html

the herald had an opinion piece today on the public's falling trust in the media

they said something should be DONE to stop trust falling further

then they blamed overseas fake-news stories

no mention was made of the left-wing bias that was turning off most respondent in the aut survey

denial

not just a river in eqypt

"250 amazing people have lost their jobs, they are all coming out now. They are good friends of mine but they are also good friends of all Kiwis. Everybody who has worked for TV3 since 1989 in news are friends of all Kiwis. We're losing something amazing today."

Paddy Gower today...

🤡

Zero self reflection or ability to read the room. What a pathetic and sad bunch.

Further to eri's post above.

First time to zb in about 25 years, but it's a special occasion.

He starts out ok.

Then hosk - 'What do you say the the listeners that text this programme, and there are lots, who say, 'you go woke, you go broke', you sucked up to the labour govt, you took the $55M, you deserve everything you get'?

Gower - 'well I tell them pretty much this mate, get stuffed'. 'But I'm not gonna sit here and listen to that kind of thing after I've slaved my guts out for 25 years putting damned good news out there'.

But then goes on to agree that the money 'flicked around by the govt' had a branding problem for all of us and there is a trust problem.

You get the impression he thinks he the oracle of everything media, but then hasn't figured out how to get advertisers to cough up the money.

Wonder if he's joined the dots between trust and advertising $$$ yet?  He mentions them both, but they seem solar systems apart in his puzzled little head.

www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/mike-hosking-breakfast/audio/paddy-gower-tv3-journalist-and-tv-presenter-on-the-closure-of-newshub/