Friday, September 30, 2022

When political journalism morphs into crude emotional blackmail

Broadcaster Sean Plunket might have been taken aback to discover he was the subject of the second item on Newshub’s 6pm news bulletin a few nights ago. Then again maybe it was no surprise, given that few people are more keenly aware than Plunket of the mainstream media’s eagerness to marginalise – even demonise – anyone who challenges ideological orthodoxy. His key purpose in setting up his online site The Platform, after all, was to counter the ceaseless barrage of woke indoctrination from media outlets that have abandoned journalism for activism.

On this occasion Newshub not only decided that Plunket’s supposedly heretical opinion about the Christchurch mosque massacres was the second most important news item of the day, but that it was a matter of such gravity and national importance that it justified taking up nearly three and a half minutes of the bulletin.

It didn’t matter that a large number of Newshub’s viewers had probably never heard of Plunket and would have been scratching their heads wondering what the hell political editor Jenna Lynch’s garbled and overheated report was all about. Plunket is well-known in media and political circles but his public profile, especially beyond Wellington, is limited. Moreover, he doesn't hold a position of public responsibility; he's a private-sector media presenter and commentator with a relatively small audience. But the reason this obviously didn’t matter to Newshub was that conventional news judgment didn’t enter the equation. This was not a news story but a carefully orchestrated hit job, the clear purpose of which was to hector politicians into declaring they wouldn’t appear on The Platform again.

In other words the bigger objective was to torpedo one of New Zealand’s few outlets for legitimate voices of dissent. Plunket should take it as a great compliment that he’s considered such a threat that a far bigger, more powerful rival wants to shut him down. He must be getting traction.

And what was the egregious act that justified Plunket being presented as some sort of public enemy – a man whose views are supposedly so offensive that Lynch effectively insisted that politicians shun him?

He said the mosque killer was not a terrorist. While this is an opinion not widely shared, it’s hardly a capital crime. As far as I’m aware Plunket hasn’t sought to excuse, diminish or justify what Brenton Tarrant did. That would justifiably have prompted outrage, but Plunket has acknowledged that Tarrant was a mass murderer and described his crime as heinous.

He just doesn’t think Tarrant meets the definition of a terrorist. It would have been helpful if he had expanded on that by explaining his understanding of the word. But the important point here is that Plunket has said nothing that minimised the enormity of what Tarrant did. It appears to come down to an argument about language: was it an act of terrorism or one of mass murder by someone who, although held to be clinically sane, would be categorised by many people as deranged?

For what it’s worth, I disagree with Plunket on this. But I was curious to understand his reasoning, so I asked him to explain it to me. And while most people might challenge his take on the mosque massacres, his view is one that can be legitimately held.

Plunket sees parallels with the Aramoana massacre perpetrated by David Gray in 1990, which he reported as a 25-year-old journalist. He points out that both crimes were committed by socially isolated men – lone wolves – with access to guns. Another common factor which he thinks is significant is that they had no familial relationships to keep them grounded. (Both of Gray’s parents had died; Tarrant’s had split up).

He says there was no obvious reason for Gray’s actions and while Tarrant wrote a manifesto, it wasn’t a coherent political statement. (Plunket says he hasn’t read the manifesto but has spoken to people who have.)  In his own words, they were both nutters with a gun.

The standard definition of a terrorist is someone who commits violent acts in pursuit of ideological or political goals. Plunket obviously believes Tarrant didn’t match that definition. He prefers the term mass murderer.

More controversially, Plunket asserts that Tarrant wasn’t racist and he wasn’t anti-Muslim. “He just wanted to kill people and create chaos”. The government, he says, made Tarrant a terrorist for political reasons – to justify restrictions on freedom of expression under the guise of preventing hate speech.

The problem I have with that interpretation is that regardless of whether Tarrant’s manifesto was garbled and incoherent (and I haven’t read it either), there appeared to be a clear ideological motivation for the massacres. For all that Tarrant may have had in common with Gray, this vital factor distinguished the mosque killings from Aramoana.

After all, why else would Tarrant have targeted Muslims? For argument’s sake, he could just as easily have killed Mormons, Catholics or members of the Destiny Church – or come to that, spectators at a sporting event or people milling around in an airport terminal. But he carefully sought out Muslim temples; he knew where they were and what time worshippers would be there. That makes him a terrorist.

So I think Plunket is wrong on this. The judge who presided over Tarrant’s trial would doubtless say so too. Justice Mander described the shootings as a terrorist act and said Tarrant’s ideological motivation was readily apparent.

Nonetheless, Plunket is entitled to think otherwise. In a free society we are entitled to get things wrong and to hold opinions that other people vehemently disagree with, just as long as we don’t incite violence or harm.

That brings us to the nub of this issue. The real outrage here is not Plunket’s opinion, but Lynch’s attempt – condoned if not encouraged by her bosses at Newshub – to shut him down. That’s a flagrant misuse of media power and an attack on free speech.

Lynch, who is shaping up to be as malignant as her predecessor, Tova O’Brien, commenced her piece by referring to Plunket as a “shock jock” – woke code for any broadcaster the illiberal left doesn’t approve of. Her item included a brief comment from the sister of a massacre victim who appeared dismayed that anyone could think the shooter wasn’t a terrorist and who said she didn’t want politicians “enabling” voices like Plunket’s. (I immediately wondered whether she had come forward of her own accord or been approached by Lynch. Plunket told me Lynch admitted to him that it was the latter.)

Then Lynch ambushed Chris Hipkins, Christopher Luxon and David Seymour, all of whom have been interviewed by Plunket, effectively challenging them to declare that they wouldn’t appear again on The Platform – the implication being that if they didn’t comply, they would be endorsing someone who was in denial of what happened in Christchurch.  It was a crude form of emotional blackmail, played out in full public view.

Lynch even tried to draw in Jacinda Ardern, clearly hoping for a prime ministerial directive that her ministers should boycott Plunket, but all she got from the prime minister was a snide crack about not wanting to get involved in a “misguided publicity stunt”. Unfortunately this throwaway line was aimed at Plunket when it could have been more accurately applied to Lynch.  

Lynch must have been bitterly disappointed that Plunket refused to back down when confronted with his supposed heresy, and indeed doubled and then tripled down (Lynch’s words) by repeating it, to her apparent astonishment. Plunket obviously hasn’t read the rule book. Ego-driven political journalists with a distorted sense of their own authority aren’t accustomed to their intended victims standing up to them. They prefer to extract a grovelling mea culpa and claim a scalp to hang on their belts – and all too often that’s the outcome. But not on this occasion.

It was an abuse of media power as naked and explicit as any I’ve seen, and a striking demonstration of the threat posed to free speech by activists posing as political journalists. Lynch ended her piece by speaking live to camera with a patronising and vaguely threatening remark that “politicians should proceed with caution here” – in other words, they should think very carefully before dealing with Plunket. But the day our elected representatives take their cue from hubris-afflicted media assassins like Lynch will be the day democracy can be declared irrevocably dead.

Disclosure: The Platform occasionally re-publishes posts from this blog free of charge and I have been interviewed by Plunket and another of his presenters, Rodney Hide. I have no other association with Sean Plunket or The Platform.

34 comments:

  1. I understood Plunket's discussion to be about the wider context of terrorism, and the use of Tarrant's crimes for cynical political grandstanding. The "misguided publicity stunt" being Ardern's self promotion on the global stage.

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  3. I too watched this item with growing outrage when it first played. The approach is analogous to bullying in that it will keep going until someone stands up to it. Politicians therefore need to draw clear lines rather than be deliberately vague or craven in their responses. To be firm is to allow their lines to stiffen the resolve of us plebs who find ourselves in a weird new and antagonistic universe and who are casting around for some anchor points.

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  4. I read the manifesto before it was banned.

    I do consider Tarrant to be an ideologically motivated terrorist.

    Although much of his manifesto was silly, and seemingly designed to play to 4Chan culture - a website that many on the censorious left have been working to shut down - the idea that people should live in their own nations, ethnically speaking, seemed to be one of the more genuine positions he took.

    But that too, I think, was an excuse for him to kill people. He spent much of his time playing violent video games. Obviously, anyone who can kill like he did is a psychopath, with trouble telling the difference between reality and fantasy because of a profound lack of empathy.

    I maintain that there is something wrong with the whole picture. Were there others who led him along a proscribed path, having identified his personality and psychological type? Was he encouraged over a period of time to believe he was on a secret mission? Was he - to wildly speculate - made to believe that a certain faction of Islam was responsible for something that happened to him in one of the countries he travelled to, perhaps even one represented in New Zealand? His "not guilty" plea made me ponder these and other questions.

    I don't believe the whole episode should have been censored. I don't believe anyone would truly be inspired by this husk, this excuse, for a man. Whatever reasons he gave for his actions were likely conveniences. His manifesto is the opposite of heartfelt. It is the disjointed, cold, derivative work of a man attempting to appeal to an audience as sometimes as nasty as 4Chan. The problem is, most of those people are joking.

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  5. I read the manifesto before it was banned.

    I do consider Tarrant to be an ideologically motivated terrorist.

    Although much of his manifesto was silly, and seemingly designed to play to 4Chan culture - a website that many on the censorious left have been working to shut down - the idea that people should live in their own nations, ethnically speaking, seemed to be one of the more genuine positions he took.

    But that too, I think, was an excuse for him to kill people. He spent much of his time playing violent video games. Obviously, anyone who can kill like he did is a psychopath, with trouble telling the difference between reality and fantasy because of a profound lack of empathy.

    I maintain that there is something wrong with the whole picture. Were there others who led him along a proscribed path, having identified his personality and psychological type? Was he encouraged over a period of time to believe he was on a secret mission? Was he - to wildly speculate - made to believe that a certain faction of Islam was responsible for something that happened to him in one of the countries he travelled to, perhaps even one represented in New Zealand? His "not guilty" plea made me ponder these and other questions.

    I don't believe the whole episode should have been censored. I don't believe anyone would truly be inspired by this husk, this excuse, for a man. Whatever reasons he gave for his actions were likely conveniences. His manifesto is the opposite of heartfelt. It is the disjointed, cold, derivative work of a man attempting to appeal to an audience as sometimes as nasty as 4Chan. The problem is, most of those people are joking.

    SO the answer is: you're both right, depending on the angle.

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  6. Maybe Jenna is trying to live up to her name:

    Lynch by name, lynch by nature...

    Jenna's problem is that because a person may have been terrified, the perpetrator must have been a terrorist. The judge no doubt saw the narrow scope of the victims (all Muslim, in a mosque) and drew his conclusion there.

    The trouble is, many violent acts overseas have been called "lone wolf" and "not related to terrorism" when there was just as much justification for labelling them so. No limited to shouts of "Allah u akbar!" right before the event.

    In any case, why Jenna has a hard-on for Sean is anyone's guess. Maybe they crossed paths before and she wants some sort of revenge. Who knows.

    At the end of the day, Karl you are right, it certainly doesn't warrant this crusade. Am I allowed to say "crusade" these days? Who knows. Maybe Jenna will visit me too

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  7. Let me add, having looked at 4Chan periodically, Brenton Tarrant is considered to be an idiot. Posters think he is a loser for taking 4chan too seriously. The moderators claim he was involved with 8Chan - another website - and never with 4Chan.

    Sometimes people post "hero Tarrant" memes. But it's a joke... the sort of joke that Tarrant didn't get.

    There are psychos on 4Chan. But it is primarily a site where people are dedicated to slaying sacred cows, not people, with extreme expression. From that perspective, many 4Chan posters have a lot more in common with grotesque absurdists like George Bataille or the Marques de Sade. It is 80 percent idiocy, but I would fathom that more 4Chaners would know who the aforementioned are than would Stuff journalists.

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  8. I too flicked through the manifesto and like you I found it rather sad and disjointed. It was online for a while here and in Australia and maybe still is.

    Like Plunket I don't think of him as a terrorist, merely a murderous nutjob looking for attention and a mosque and it's inhabitants guaranteed him that exposure.

    I'm sure I recall something about him not actually disliking muslims but he wanted maximum exposure and knew killing them would reasonate around the world.

    However, the issue really is how the threatened little miss at TV3 with a smug attitude directed her vitriol at someone she feels threatened by. As Karl says, Sean should be honoured as it shows he's making an impact.

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  9. I also saw Lynch's report. I thought at the time Lynch's intent was to discredit Seymour and Luxon. At the same time slot TV1 were running an opinion poll story showing a National/ACT Government. I am not sure what Plunket gained by even raising the issue.

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  10. I would consider Tarrant a terrorist because he pitilessly killed many innocent people and sowed fear and division among New Zealanders which Ardern, the Greens and the media almost immediately began to feed off, and which they have sought to use to deprive us of our basic democratic freedoms. The Woke are in effect the beneficiaries of Tarrant's terrible actions which they have used to accuse thousands or ordinary New Zealanders of "white supremacy" and "hate speech". Who knows, Ardern's rabid attack on free speech ("a weapon of war") in her UN General Debate statement last Friday may well have allowed the terrorist a silent smirk of satisfaction in his sparsely furnished cell. Think of how generally content and happy we were as a country on 14 March 2019 and then step back and look at us now.

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  11. I haven't read the "manifesto" mainly because it doesn't interest me.

    I also turned off the live feed when it happened (I can't remember how I got it in the first place).

    I agree with Mr Plunkett.

    If what I read immediately after the event what Tarrant did was not "terrorism" but, in fact, the reverse.

    Terrorism is someone attempting to change the actions of others through fear of violent consequences if the change is not made.

    This contrasts, for right-wingers at any rate, to the normal process of convincing people by political means that your way is the best way. The disgraceful treatment of Philip Arps suggests it is only the right in New Zealand that are prepared to use this measure.

    Tarrant was reported as attacking the mosques in an attempt to get muslims to create terrorism in retribution, not to create fear induced change in anyone.

    The exact opposite of terrorism.

    Phil Blackwell

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  12. "Think of how generally content and happy we were as a country on 14 March 2019 and then step back and look at us now."

    Think how generally content and happy we were as a country until 23 September 2017 when "what's in it for wynston" decided to go on a bauble hunt.

    A country so content that they gave the leading party almost enough to continue to govern but a rabble of disjointed fools took the benches instead and look where we are today 😢

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  13. Karl,

    On a different topic I have noticed a couple of news items in international media sites this week condemning Jacinda Ardern's speech to the UN. Jacinda apparently describing the internet as a weapon of war and calling for state censorship. Any thoughts?

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  14. Haven't read it Phil. I carefully ration my exposure to anything likely to create vexation.

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  15. @Gary Peters

    I tracked down Tarrant's posts online under various handles shortly after the event. He was a pretty pathetic individual, always reaching out but not connecting in various forums, from investment forums to the Lonely Planet.

    I can't check now, obviously, but I feel he at least presented himself as believing that all nations, as defined by ethnicity, should stay in their own countries. At the extreme end, that seems to come under the banner of identity extremism, and provides a political motivation. Sadly, we cannot be sure, however. That's wrong. It means everything written about the event and him is largely speculative, and more easily manipulated to a political purpose itself.

    Like I wrote, much of what he write was supposed to be funny (it's not), but I somehow felt he might have been sincere in respect of this one, in the context of his comments while in Pakistan on social media like Facebook (which I caught before they were taken down) and other comments he made.

    I haven't seen the livestream, except for the beginning when it was playing automatically when you scrolled through some social media immediately after. And I would never watch it.

    I've met people who were there that day and that is enough for me. There's something odd about the whole thing, but those people definitely died. I find the contention that they didn't very upsetting. Calling people who went through that liars is horrific.

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  16. @Gary Peters

    I tracked down Tarrant's posts online under various handles shortly after the event. He was a pretty pathetic individual, always reaching out but not connecting in various forums, from investment forums to the Lonely Planet.

    I can't check now, obviously, but I feel he at least presented himself as believing that all nations, as defined by ethnicity, should stay in their own countries. At the extreme end, that seems to come under the banner of identity extremism, and provides a political motivation. Sadly, we cannot be sure, however. That's wrong. It means everything written about the event and him is largely speculative, and more easily manipulated to a political purpose itself.

    Like I wrote, much of what he write was supposed to be funny (it's not), but I somehow felt he might have been sincere in respect of this one, in the context of his comments while in Pakistan on social media like Facebook (which I caught before they were taken down) and other comments he made.

    I haven't seen the livestream, except for the beginning when it was playing automatically when you scrolled through some social media immediately after. And I would never watch it.

    I've met people who were there that day and that is enough for me. There's something odd about the whole thing, but those people definitely died. I find the contention that they didn't very upsetting. Calling people who went through that liars is horrific. Again, I blame the general gag order, the extraordinary gag order, which still has not applied in respect of similar event elsewhere. Why not? Isn't it a new standard? Why only here? And only in respect of this event, not, for example, the Auckland stabbing?

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  17. It was an act of domestic terrorism but it wasn't an act committed by a terrorist organization. That is: A known and committed hierarchical body set up with the sole purpose of spreading fear and uncertainty amongst civilian populations as a means of disrupting the political power balance.
    I'm sure Ms Lynch is a lovely lady but if a journalist is dictating who should or shouldn't appear on radio or TV, doesn't that make them a useful tool, not a journo?

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  18. The UN speech mentioned above is worth a look :
    https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1575188754071171072?ref_src=twsrc^tfw|twcamp^tweetembed|twterm^1575188754071171072|twgr^17c41582c4ff91d6990fbe922c4b821deb2e7244|twcon^s1_c10&ref_url=https://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/

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  19. The fact that Lynch mentioned Plunket's name and that of The Platform to a large number of people who have possibly never heard of him is a huge own goal for Lynch and will have done Sean an immense lot of good - akin to free advertising. I am sure many now will have found his website and channel and be avid listeners.

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  20. Thanks for posting the link to Ardern's UN speech Don. All New Zealanders should view it. She is clearly a megalomaniac who believes she is the sole arbiter of truth. Very disturbing indeed, as many overseas commentators have noted .

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  21. Is a murderer mad or bad? A question that is often asked – very particularly with murders that don’t quite make sense to ordinary folks. In the very old days, of course. things were easy : if you killed somebody intentionally you would lose your own life – irrespective of your mental state. Then society became more enlightened and realised that many murderers are psychotic and do not realise what they are doing. It then became a question whether the murderer should be locked up for life in a mental institution or in a prison.

    Sean Plunket compares Tarrant with David Gray, the Aramoana killer – and is unsure about where to place him. I agree with Plunket – I am unsure whether he can be described as a terrorist. I suggest we should return to putting such controversial cases before a jury to decide in a court of law. Since the 1992 mental health legislation change, sentencing courts must defer this to psychiatrists to determine. And these are bound by legislation to decide this exclusively on the question whether, at the time of the murders, the accused was aware that his heinous action was illegal – the question of his volition. In my opinion this is far too narrow consideration – and one the murderer himself would mostly disagree with.

    Most people think such murderers want to be acquitted because of mental illness – but that is rarely the case, I believe. However, to be fair and just while sentencing murderers we must disregard the murderer’s own opinions of himself and his actions. Lionel Terry (described in Wikipedia as a white supremacist, q.v.). was furious that he wasn’t hanged – but committed to Seacliff Hospital for the rest of his life. Anders Brevik likewise (so I have heard) would not hear of it. Tarrant wouldn’t either, I presume (??).

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  22. This was clearly a hit job on Sean Plunket. Karl, you were 100% correct in your assessment. Well done! The absolutely critical thing for me was that (rightly) Sean didn't back down. Never back down. It's only feeds the ego of the journalist and the media mob.

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  23. Like Jenna’s story on the Mahuta family government contracts that they finally had to cover as it got to a point they couldn’t ignore it anymore. She made out like it was some conspiracy bubbling away in right wing racist social media.

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  24. It is a matter of context or interpretation as to whether this was "mass murder" or "massacre" or "terrorism"
    It obviously was mass murder (like Port Arthur etc), but the targeting of a particular religious group gives rise to the label "terrorism".
    Fair enough.
    However, I note that in England and Europe, whenever an Arabic person goes on a killing rampage shouting "Allah Akbar" the authorities very often go to great pains to state that this was not "a terrorist attack". It's often put down to "mental health issue" or some such obfuscation.
    The issue here though is the outrageous targeting of Sean Plunket for merely stating an opinion. This sort of vindictive attack by Alt-Left journalists of individuals is outrageous.

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    1. Yeah, good point.

      I think the poster some comments above is correct in stating that terrorism is an act committed in the name of or by someone connected to a designated terrorist entity.

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  25. Doug Longmire - a "mental health issue" is not necessarily an obfuscation.

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  26. I enjoyed reading through the opinion piece from Karl and the comments which followed. Standing out for me were:
    1. Tarrant's confusion between fantasy (video games) and reality. (During my military training, I once had the thrill of successfully bursting automatic weapon fire from a GPMG on distant board targets and it was an exciting time. However, I doubt if killing real people would give me the same pleasure.)
    2. The western press, particularly in UK and Europe is frequently downplaying 'terrorist attacks' as isolated acts of rage. (Should we continue to do downplay acts by 'Muslims'? Is the west being too fair? Paul Joseph Watson claimed that non-Muslims killed by Muslims outnumbered Muslims killed by Non-Muslims by 100 to 1. Was Tarrant trying to correct the alleged imbalance?)

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  27. Our inability to legally read and dissect Tarrant's manifesto largely inhibits rational debate in on this issue. I don't think banning the document from the public discourse helps anyone, it creates a vacuum which is then filled with conjecture.

    Sean's viewpoint is, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, entirely valid.

    It conflicts with the narrative the PM would spread with the help of compromised mainstream media.

    Plunket is a threat because he is playing with a straight bat and offers a platform for contrary voices with legitimate positions.

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  28. @Papayan

    Afganistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya...

    Are you sure?

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  29. I see that Jenna has moved on from Sean and is now after Wayne Brown for somewhat accurately describing Simon Wilson as a bit of a prick.

    Like the Platform Brown, will probably get more customers (votes) from the publicity.

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  30. Bill Moore said:
    Having long ago abandoned the po-faced crew on TV One I am stuck with Three to feel my addiction to a 6pm dose of TV news but its political coverage is dire, not only because of frequently bizarre news judgments, but also the pronouncements of Jenna Lynch and others. Both are obvious in the appalling item you have dissected. Like Tova O'Brien before her, Lynch has apparently been granted permission to set reporting aside to make time for telling New Zealanders what to think – and now to warn politicians to be on their best behaviour or face the consequences. Whoever is in charge of her ought to be ashamed, but won't be unless the ratings plunge.
    If Lynch wants her opinions to be front and centre she can always follow O'Brien and Sean Plunket into the talkback world, where the job entails saying dumb things, and listening to others say them too. What fun.

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  31. My understanding of this manufactured saga is that it originated with Sweet Cindy's "Christchurch Call" diatribe at the UN. Sean Plunkett followed up with an attempt to determine what this "call" means, and to debate the definitions of "terrorist" and "mass murderer". And yet still avowing that Tarrant was a nutter with a gun who committed a horrible act. Lynch's response was no more than I expected from New Zealand State media.

    The barely veiled threat to any politician who has the temerity to have a an interview with Plunkett on his show is a disgrace to journalistic integrity. It exposes Lynch to charges of incompetence in that she doesn't understand her role as an objective reporter in a liberal democracy. Clearly the Public Interest Journalism Fund is working to plan.

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  32. Incisive analysis ... spot on. Said it before & I'll say it again ... Wokedom bears little resemblance to the Social Democratic left I was brought up with. More an elitist Vanity Project underpinned by a remarkably crude distorted worldview, a highly selective morality & a marked authoritarian bent - the latter a corollary of the professional-managerial class's ruthless self-interest.

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  33. Right wrong or indifferent. The attack on Sean Plunkett is evidence of the fact that the extreme left, wokesters, adherent to the thoughts of Chairman Ardern, are rattled. Free speech or exchange of ideas or opinions fly in the face of the controlled media Ms Ardern strives for.
    I believe the generally lethargic NZ public are finally waking up to the fact that we have a dictatorship in sheep's clothing. " A kind government Yes! but what kind ?

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