Money talks loudest in NZ

Continuing in our series of migrant tales, first hand accounts of the migrant experience of New Zealand taken from places around the net.

Today’s story was first published on a NZ emigrants’ forum which has since closed down.

In a thread dedicated to biases in the NZ press, the author tells of how journalists are kept from writing about the news and where the loyalties of their editors lie.

There is a far darker side to the media here that not many know. I have one good journo friend that was working for (name of NI newspaper redacted) who put it so perfectly as follows.

“It’s not that we don’t know it’s all going on, we desperately want to report on it. God knows we got into journalism to tell the truth, but the reality is far more depressing. I can tell you that myself and my colleagues have been informed in not so polite a way, “Report on that and you are out of a job, we need to keep the government and our advertisers happy in that order”.

It runs from the back door dealings of what the TPP really means, to National threatening to pull all advertising from (name of NI newspaper redacted) during the last election, to things simply disappearing from all news sources in a ghostly fashion (When you see this happen on google it is scary stuff).

So in essence it is a case of report all is well, keep the advertisers happy, keep the government spin machine running, make stories from nothing as if they have grave national importance and maintain the lie. Truth was a casualty of all journalism when it comes to the almighty dollar, it’s just far more obvious here.

But if you want any further proof I ask you this: Kim dotcom piece run by (redacted) to remove public opinion of him was completely biased and one sided. Then came David Bane (note that this is at the time of the payout). If you want further proof just watch those type of programs and ask yourself WTF? or don’t your brain may thank you.