There are Four Lights

How bad is the media attack right now?

In the Star Trek Episode Chain of Command, Captain Picard is tortured to make him claim a lie is reality, highlighting state truth over actual truth. For a 90s sci fi show, the acting in the episode alone was more than fans deserved, it was that impactful. As a metaphor, it’s the start of an explanation as to why our media has been under constant attack recently.

How Many Lights Are There?

And those attacks are all coming from one side of the political spectrum. They’re all coming from the right and they are all part of coordinated plan to delegitimise media and therefore the media’s ability to hold the coalition to account. There’s actually some historical precedent at play here, so we can recognise the patterns.

It starts with dividing media into two groups - patriotically loyal and subversively dissenting. Journalists who don’t tow the company line get framed as corrupt, elite or foreign aligned. We know that the Herald, Newstalk and The Platform would be considered loyal - their editorial decisions show an alignment with the coalitions rhetoric, they get preferential treatment for interviews and are used to signal boost the government messaging. Here you’ll find softball interviews with the PM where Mike Hosking tries and tells listeners the PM is unpopular because he is so good at his job and problematic data gets laundered to make the government look more appealing. But 1News reporter Maiki Sherman, she publishes a poll that leads to Luxon calling a confidence vote from his caucus, she allows her underlings to produce stories that show gangs now outnumber cops and it upsets the PM and Broadcasting Minister. Suddenly, out of the blue operatives on twitter known to play dirty are leaking half told anecdotes from a party a year ago that seem to miss important information that adds context that makes her look bad and then another wahine Maori voice in parliament is silenced. Mihi Forbes is denied access constantly and called a conspiracy theorist by David Seymour, the Prime Minister refuses to and be held to account by the like of Tova, Tame and Forbes. There is now a clear line of media the coalition see as loyal and a group they see as dissenting, and as long as the dissenting voices refuse to self censor for the benefit of the coalition, they will remain the enemy of the MPs.

Was Sherman the victim of not being loyal enough to the Coalition?

Then there’s the cultivation of crisis to create a parallel information ecosystem. Digital echo chambers - twitter where the hard right demand government departments stay and talk to them despite the waning audience and connections to disinformation and dangerous material many consider harmful to minors. Those are the reasons given by Parliament for example as a reason for leaving. But this is also the hellscape where the Benjamin Doyle beat up began that resulted in death threats. The place where the Golriz stories broke, which led to private citizens down the rabbit hole leaking private information to ensure she was punished, where players connected to right wing astroturf lobby groups have sent attack dogs after Chris Hipkins over a family matter, attacked Maiki Sherman and recently the origin of stories about a satirical parody creator known as Luxury Marmite Sandwich and gone after creators like Brie Elliot, Jordan Rivers and candidates like Tania Waikato and Michel Mulipola. Meanwhile, on Reality Check radio members of NZ First dribble about butter chicken tsunami racism, feed conspiracies and platform people who share views of the Christchurch terrorist. These parallel information and media systems have no scrutiny, unlike the broader press gallery and media mechanism, so bullshit can reign supreme with no actual pushback.

Then there’s the consolidation through crisis. This is where the tools used to ensure integrity in media and democracies are altered in the lead up to an election. This is your disestablishment of the BSA because one man in a loyal broadcast network was upset that someone was trying to hold him accountable for him saying what he likes to say which was offensive. This is funding being drained from RNZ and TVNZ last budget because of how tight the budget is (and who’s fault is that?). This is where the coalition puts on the boards political allies like Paul Henry at TVNZ to steer these organisations towards commercial efficiency, where updates to the already dodgy fast track approvals process removed requirements to consult with local iwi, the public or local authorities - essentially silencing them in the process, and using the Emergency Management overhaul to centralise decision making during a declared emergency with new, broader powers for government in a crisis that over rides local responses, or using urgency and bypassing select committee process en masse to avoid public scrutiny.

Then finally there’s using proxies to harass opponents. Media proxies signal boost attacks - when you see a pile on of a left wing MP for anything, you will see the same names attached almost every time and they’ll be amplified by a range of proxy groups - media outlets like RCR, The Platform, Newstalk and the Herald for a start. And social media proxies like the FSU, TPU, NZCPR, Hobson’s Pledge - a huge range of astroturf lobby groups set up just to signal boost and tell brown people to leave white people alone and go back to their own countries in various ways. This was actually Mussolini’s favourite step - he was a journalist himself after all and he knew that co-opting media was far more effective to control the public than total suppression.

You thought it was bad when Seymour called people who disagreed with him deranged and Winston called the BSA stasi like? Wait till there’s no opponents left

Here’s the thing - it’s really easy to go “here’s an odd correlation - our government is taking the same steps fascist governments did in the 1930s” and choose to believe it is just sour grapes from some woke lefty - it’s the reaction many in the coalition and their supporters want, the well resourced, well funded mob who would rather pay for their own media or buy to take over MSM to make it say what they want - which happened with NZME and was how the Platform and possibly RCR started. Disinformation researchers here have noticed it and they’re not pulling any punches - any government that makes it harder to vote - like the coalition did, that make it harder to be involved in the democratic process - like the coalition has, and makes it harder to trust media that holds them to account - like this government has - is well on a path towards authoritarianism. These steps I mentioned, think of them a bit like Andor - a show that was based on 1930s Europe but people in 21st Century America can see the relevance.

So what can we do to fight it. First - VOTE. Go to vote.nz and check your details because if you are not enrolled by October 25, you do not get to vote this year and that’s fucked up.

Secondly, identify the playbook - call out when someone shares content from a media proxy, or uses a crisis to exert power, or keeps pushing you to visit twitter and demand you call it X. This acts as kind of a pre-bunking by exposing the tactics of manipulation for others.

As the government de-regulates media accountability to please the worst people with microphones, we need to step up and hold them to account - there are other mechanisms in place for example to report issues with news, like reporting directly to the producer.

And support independent scrutiny - if you’re paying for the Herald, maybe pay for something not run by a Canadian conspiracy pushing racism apologist Billionaire tells you is news and put it into something like the Newsroom, the Spinoff or content creators you trust.

Go and reclaim spaces - control and unfollow content from creators and outlets that are clearly captured and loyalists, find online environments that share your views, push back on AI slop by reporting it and blocking it.

Traditionally authoritarianism and fascism thrive when people are disconnected and the bad guys control communications and messaging. We’re one term in to the most right wing government we have ever seen and they are eroding these elements we build trust on and create social cohesion through every chance they get - and there will always be some boot lickers who follow blindly and say dumb shit like “yay, let’s own the woke libs” but we can make sure they are not in charge this year by making sure we get out and vote - yes they made it harder to do that but we can still do it. And we really should before we’re left with nothing but David Seymour’s head on every screen telling us his Ministry of truth will protect us.

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UPDATE: About an hour after this was sent out, an OIA request was granted to let me publish this - communications between Paul Goldsmith and Christopher Luxon which shows Goldsmith is happy to call state broadcast reporters and put pressure on them to influence their editorial choices when he is unhappy. This could be seen as a breach of cabinet manual rules and laws that forbid cabinet members fromattemtping to influence editorial decisions on state media.