The John Campbell question

Once again, state-owned TVNZ has obligingly provided a platform from which its best-known (and no doubt highest-paid) journalist, John Campbell, can flail the government.

This is extraordinary and unprecedented. The government’s most potent communications medium has been hijacked by one of its employees and co-opted in a highly personal political mission.

Campbell’s anti-government agitation is more than simply provocative. It can only be seen as a direct challenge to the government and a gesture of contempt to all the deplorables who voted for change because they didn’t like where we were going under Labour.

Campbell clearly decided on October 14 that New Zealand had made a grievous mistake in electing a centre-right government and set himself the task of leading the Resistance.

Someone in authority should have told him then that this was not his function as a journalist. If he refused to accept that, he should have been told to pack his bags.

That this didn’t happen tells us that TVNZ is happy for its Chief Correspondent, aka the nation’s Hand-Wringer-in-Chief, to continue his crusade.  Now we’re in the unfortunate situation where someone in government may be tempted to strike back, because no government is likely to tolerate a situation where one of its own employees is so feverishly working to undermine it.

Journalism is in a potentially perilous situation here. Battles between the state and the media rarely turn out well.

The danger of vindictive politicians punishing troublesome journalists hardly needs to be pointed out. But Campbell has put us in this invidious position by brazenly abusing his power and thus inviting retribution. A combative politician like Winston Peters, whose early role model was media-baiter Robert Muldoon, would need little encouragement to retaliate.

The finely balanced relationship between journalists and the government, whereby politicians accept the inconvenience of a critical press as the price of an open democracy, is at risk of being destabilised when one side is seen as wilfully defying the established norms – which is what Campbell has been doing with his series of assaults on a government that’s ideologically not to his liking. 

The danger for the government is that unless it acts to deter egregiously partisan journalism from its own media outlets, Campbell and others like him – including some in RNZ – will feel emboldened to continue.  

As a product of the corporate world, Luxon will be familiar with the management maxim that “What you accept, you approve”. Well, it applies here.  As long as Campbell and others like him feel empowered to attack the government with impunity, National and its coalition partners can expect to endure a prolonged and self-inflicted form of Chinese water torture.

Lest this article be misinterpreted, I’m not presenting an argument for more pro-government journalism. That phrase is a contradiction in terms, because it is not the function of journalists to support governments.

Neither am I rushing to the defence of this government because I support it. I didn’t vote for it and I have little confidence in it, but the government was legitimately elected and it deserves a fair shake. It's impossible not to be struck by the sharp contrast between media attitudes toward the previous government and this one.

Rather, I’m appealing for a return to traditional journalistic values of impartiality and balance, the decline of which can be blamed for steadily diminishing public trust in the media. Contrary to what budding journalists are taught in universities (of which Campbell is a product), journalism is not activism.

Campbell’s attacks on the government – and in a broader sense, the sustained offensive from the media at large since last year’s election – place National and its coalition partners in difficult territory. Convention says the government shouldn’t interfere in the editorial decisions of its media outlets. Any such intervention would be portrayed as an intolerable attack on freedom of the press.

There would be uproar from the media and their academic fellow-travellers. Those with long memories would recall the bad old days of the 1960s, when the New Zealand Broadcasting Corporation was firmly under government control.

Fear of such a backlash is what Campbell and his bosses will be counting on to prevent the government from acting, but there comes a point when Campbell’s moralistic crusade becomes so brazen and arrogant that it can’t be ignored.

The question then becomes, what would be an appropriate response? In different circumstances, a stern word in private with TVNZ management might have done the job. But Campbell’s adversarial attitude to the government is so public and so obvious that a low-key strategic retreat is not possible. We’ve moved beyond that point. In any case, TVNZ is complicit in his misconduct.

Besides, this is an open democracy and the conduct of government affairs shouldn’t be carried out via covert, Yes, Minister-type manoeuvrings. If action is to be taken, it should be done in such a way that we can all see it.

That points to the nuclear option: a brutal, decisive and very public sacking on the basis that Campbell has betrayed the fundamental duty of impartiality that the public is entitled to expect of journalists in a state-owned media organisation.

If the TVNZ directors objected – as they would presumably feel bound to do, given that they have at least tacitly condoned Campbell’s activism – then they should be encouraged to go too.

In those circumstances, the government would need to be cleaner than clean in its appointment of a new board. Nothing would destroy its credibility more surely than the recruitment of political favourites and brown-nosers.

All this must sound odd, coming from someone who has written two books about the importance of media freedom (the only ones, to my knowledge, that examined the issue in a New Zealand context). The suggestion that a journalist should be fired because of his political views goes against the grain. 

But media freedom cuts both ways. Journalists must be able to report vigorously and fearlessly on matters of public interest. Generally speaking, in New Zealand the law allows them to do so.

But if the media are to retain the trust of the public, they must demonstrate that they can be relied on to report on issues of public interest in a fair, balanced and non-partisan way. Once the media betray that trust, they put their protected status at risk.

It goes without saying that Campbell is as entitled as anyone to say what he thinks about the government. The crucial difference, in his case, is that his personal opinion is seen as carrying the weight of a major state media organisation which is supposed to be apolitical.

He would be in a very different position if he worked for a privately owned media outfit, but employment by a state-owned organisation imposes a special obligation of impartiality. TVNZ is owned by the people, whose allegiances and sympathies cover the entire political spectrum. It takes a special type of hubris to assume that being the Chief Correspondent (whatever that title means) for such an organisation entitles him to impose his own narrow political biases on his audience.

Mention abuse of media power and people tend to think of press barons such as Rupert Murdoch, but Campbell is guilty of abuse in a more subtle form. In fact it could be argued that Murdoch is a more honest abuser of power because he doesn’t seek to disguise his actions behind an ostentatious façade of morality and compassion.

Campbell presents himself as the conscience of the nation, but by positioning himself as the implacable opponent of a democratically elected government, he’s effectively spitting in the faces of the majority of his fellow New Zealanders who voted for it.  He clearly regards himself as above them and above democracy.

He appears to interpret media freedom as giving him licence to wage a divisive and potentially disruptive political campaign, with the backing of a powerful state institution, against a government that he doesn’t think deserved to be elected. It needs to be made clear to him and TVNZ that his position is offensive and untenable, even in a liberal democracy. If that means sacking him, so be it.

 

And they wonder why media credibility has nosedived ...

 

Readers may have noted David’s comment yesterday under my post about the Stuff documentary Fire and Fury.

David, a journalist of long experience, remarked on the current media witch-hunt for local body election candidates suspected of holding the “wrong” views on issues such as vaccination. As an example he cited Masterton mayoral candidate Tina Nixon, who was “outed” - along with several others - by the Wairarapa Times-Age for having “links to alternative politics or conspiracy theories”.

The page 1 story (above) was based on unsubstantiated claims by an activist group calling itself Fighting Against Conspiracy Theories Aotearoa (FACT). No one from FACT was identified.

The story was presented in a melodramatic fashion under the headline “Who is pulling the strings?”, complete with a graphic depicting puppet strings.  Most of the candidates named had no chance to respond.

Today on page 3, the Times-Age followed up its story with an apology (below) which acknowledged that it didn’t give the named candidates a proper opportunity to respond to the claims against them. As David noted in his comment yesterday, the shadowy FACT has also apologised to Nixon on its website.

To its credit the Times-Age stated: “Publishing the story without sufficient opportunity to respond falls short of the expectation of responsible journalism from our paper.” I would go further and suggest the decision to run the story at all was questionable, given that it implies the beliefs attributed to the candidates are a threat to society and therefore not ones that can legitimately be held in a liberal democracy.

There’s a second mea culpa on the paper’s editorial page from journalist Mary Argue, who as the recently appointed chief reporter acknowledged responsibility for the way the story was covered.

Good on her, but I don’t think she should bear the sole blame. Argue hasn’t been with the Times-Age long and only a year ago, judging by something she wrote for The Spinoff,  was still a journalism student. No one with her limited experience should be in a position that requires tricky editorial calls.

Meanwhile, other media outlets continue to go after local body candidates who are deemed political harijans. The Dominion Post locks on to an anti-vax GP and Morning Report asks whether the media should be doing more to expose others of her ilk – to which journalism professor Jim Tully, who can be relied on to say exactly what RNZ wants him to say, unsurprisingly agreed.

If people like Fire and Fury narrator Paula Penfold genuinely want to know why so many people no longer trust the media (although somehow I doubt that she does), she could start right there.

 

Robin Bromby looks in the rear-vision mirror

Robin Bromby was the chief  reporter of The Dominion when I worked there as a very green young journalist in 1969-71. Robin, who remains actively engaged in freelance journalism in Sydney and has written several books (including a very good one on the decline of newspapers), sent  the following recollection in response to my post on the backlash against the media.

It may be of interest to those now deeply concerned — as they should be — by the state of the New Zealand media to have a snapshot of how different things were in Wellington 53 years ago. In 1968 I was transferred from The Dominion to its then Sunday tabloid, The Dominion Sunday Times, edited by the now late Jack Kelleher (who had been chief reporter on the daily when I was hired as a cadet there in 1962). Kelleher was a very devout Catholic and so I remember being surprised in 1968 when he told me he wanted a three-part series on abortion. (He didn’t have to move from his desk to instruct staff: the Sunday paper was run out of one modest room which accommodated three reporters, three sub-editors and the editor, the entire full-time staff of what was a national newspaper.) I was not given any instructions as to what the series should conclude apart from getting all sides of the issue. Actually, the series did not (so far as memory serves me) advocate either side’s case but presented a range of comments and facts. It ran in the paper over three Sundays pretty well untouched as it was written. On reflection, I assumed that Kelleher had strong personal views on the subject — he never voiced them to me, hence the assumption — but certainly did not impose them on the finished version of the series.

How different would that be today?

We were all aware of the strong ties to the National Party of those who controlled what was then the Wellington Publishing Company, but the Sunday paper at that time ran a good number of critical reports on the Holyoake government, including another series Kelleher got me to write investigating a government board chairman where grants were being given to associated parties of that person. Unfortunately, after Jack moved over to editing the daily paper his successor was less adept at judging the allowable boundaries and, after I wrote a piece highly critical of Robert Muldoon in 1969, I was reassigned back to the daily after, no doubt, all hell broke loose behind closed doors. But the next year Jack promoted me to chief reporter of the daily — where again he again gave me a reasonably free hand. The daily’s staff were by and large of the left — very much the soft left, of course — but looking back it seems remarkable that there was so little conflict between the functioning of the newsroom and management. But I guess that was an era when it would never have occurred to a reporter to push an agenda. We were there to break news and report it, not to comment on it.

(Robin's book Newspapers: A Century of Decline is available on Amazon. The editor who replaced Jack Kelleher at The Dominion Sunday Times was the late Frank Haden.)

On freedom of expression and that $55 million media handout

 

It seems I’ve achieved the great distinction of being deleted from Reddit. A friend emailed me recently to advise that my Spectator Australia article – ‘NewZealand is being transformed, but not in a good way’ – had been uploaded to Reddit several days previously, but had then been taken down. A notice explained: “Sorry, this post has been removed by the moderators”. This was followed by what appeared to be a standard explanatory note: “Moderators remove posts from feeds for a variety of reasons, including keeping communities safe, civil and true to their purpose”.

Who are these moderators? They’re not identified. Neither did the weasel-word explanatory note say exactly what the problem was with my article. I’m left to conclude that the anonymous moderators deemed it “unsafe” – but in what way?

We should be very suspicious of the word “safety” when used in this type of context. It has become another cover for the Stalinist authoritarianism that infects public discourse and seeks to silence and marginalise dissenters. “Unsafe” used to apply to situations where one’s health or physical wellbeing was at risk. Generations of New Zealanders grew up being told that it wasn’t safe to play with matches or go too close to the water. Then we started hearing the phrase “cultural safety”, especially in the context of health care. An invention of neo-Marxism, it broadened the definition far beyond its traditional and accepted meaning. Ensuring “cultural safety” became a coded synonym for purging the health system of supposed institutionalised racism. Notions of power and identity were central to this approach. Nursing students who pushed back against the doctrine, insisting that the same standard of care should apply to all patients regardless of ethnicity, paid a price for their defiance. Some readers of this blog may recall the celebrated case of Christchurch Polytech nursing student Anna Penn, who was branded as “culturally unsafe” – a term then new to most of us – by the polytech’s kaumatua in 1991 for daring to challenge the denial of her right as a woman to speak on a marae. Penn failed the “culture and society” component of her course and was subsequently described in a vindictive Polytech report as having demonstrated “such flaws of judgment and behaviour that she would not now be welcome back as a nursing student”. (She later graduated in Brisbane.) Soviet-style suppression of dissent was emerging even then, and today is nowhere more rampant than in the health sector, where the New Zealand Nurses’ Organisation – to take just one example – has been convulsed by bullying race politics.

Since the Penn affair, this highly inventive concept of “safety” has widened even further, to the extent that it’s now invoked if there’s a risk that some fragile soul might feel offended or psychologically damaged by something written or said. But in the case of my Spectator article there’s more to it than that, because talk of “safety” is, of course, a red herring. The only threat my article presented is that it challenged the woke Left’s attempt to control the public conversation.  That’s what we’re really talking about here.

And how interesting that the sanctimonious moderators should mention the need to keep things civil. Let’s examine that for a moment.

My article wasn’t abusive or insulting.  It didn’t use offensive language, it didn’t attack anyone personally and it didn’t seek to incite hatred, violence or ridicule. It merely expressed opinions that the people who control Reddit think should be suppressed.

Yet the same moderators who took down the link to my column, supposedly out of concern for safety and civility, were obviously untroubled by some of the comments that appeared beneath it, which they left on the page. These included one (anonymous, of course – aren’t they all?) that attacked me in terms so coarse that I refuse to dignify my attacker’s words by reproducing them here. Civil? Pffft.

This was my first encounter with Reddit, and it seemed to validate my impression that much of what we inaccurately call “social” media is a seething, toxic snake pit. Reddit, which Wikipedia describes as a social news aggregation and discussion platform, is supposedly the world’s 18^th most visited website. But like many “social” media platforms it seems infested by angry, raging cowards hiding behind puerile pseudonyms.

It probably doesn’t need to be said that I won’t lose any sleep over my article being pulled, and still less from the accompanying comments. When something I’ve written provokes a keyboard warrior into anonymously responding with infantile vituperative, I take that as a moral victory. But the deletion of my article, and the conveniently vague and self-serving justification given by the Reddit moderators, says something about the profound change in the tone and scope of public conversation in New Zealand.

At the dawn of the Internet era, we were encouraged to think of social media platforms as anarchic and liberating. They were supposed to free us from the shackles of the “old” media, where editors (who were routinely caricatured as old, conservative white men) served as gatekeepers controlling the dissemination of news and comment. That promise now stands exposed as fraudulent; a giant con. Many social media platforms have turned out to be far more controlling and authoritarian than the despised “legacy” media they displaced, which were committed to principles of fairness, accuracy and balance.

As Chris Trotter (an old-school socialist, but a courageous champion of free speech) wrote recently, “citizens determined to spread ‘unacceptable’ ideas can no longer rely upon the major social media platforms for their dissemination. Increasingly, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram are ‘de-platforming’ individuals and groups (including a former President of the United States!) whose beliefs have been anathematised by the woke”.

There’s an irony here. The young(ish) entrepreneurs who control social media, such as Mark Zuckerberg, are infinitely wealthier, greedier, more powerful and more controlling than the reviled press barons of old, the sole survivor of whom is Rupert Murdoch. They exercise their power in a way that acknowledges no public accountability or responsibility for the consequences of the harm they do. They use their resources to influence public opinion in a far more direct and active way than the “old” media. Yet they seem magically immunised against criticism.

The crucial difference, presumably, is that in age and appearance they are not dissimilar to the commissars of wokeness. They wear jeans and tee-shirts rather than suits and ties, and they give the impression of being anti-establishment (which they are, though not in the sense that the term was originally used a generation ago). Perhaps this makes their ruthless style of capitalism acceptable.  

Unfortunately the malaise isn’t confined to social media. In a recent blog post about Magic Talk’s sacking of John Banks, I wrote that both the range of subjects New Zealanders feel free to discuss, and the language they may use in discussing them, is constantly being narrowed down. Authoritarian wokeness is increasingly crowding out alternative conservative views, even where those views may represent mainstream thinking.

Since Banks’ sacking, of course, Sean Plunket has been added to the list of deplorables – not because of any fresh complaint against him (the one upheld by the Broadcasting Standards Authority in December related to a broadcast last May), but because Magic Talk, panicked by pressure from woke vigilantes and virtue-signalling advertisers, threw him under the bus.

Peter Williams, as the only surviving high-profile conservative host at Magic Talk, must now be feeling rather lonely and exposed – the more so since deputy prime minister Grant Robertson announced he would no longer be making his regular weekly appearance on Williams’ show because he objected to the host’s valid questions about the so-called Great Reset, which Robertson huffily dismissed as a “giant conspiracy theory”.

Jordan Williams of the Free Speech Coalition called the decision petulant and suggested Robertson should harden up. “Maybe Mr Robertson should seek the advice of Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern who has fronted often extremely hostile interviews with Mike Hosking,” Williams suggested. “Would she enjoy such grillings? Unlikely. But the PM clearly understands that she has a duty to not only address misinformation, but to engage with Kiwis on the other side of the political fence.

“We counter bad ideas with better ideas, and address misinformation with facts. This is why free speech is so central to democracy: bad and false ideas can be freely aired precisely so they can be addressed by more informed speech.”

Amen to all that. But perhaps the most disturbing aspect of Robertson’s decision was the timing, which made it look like a calculated attempt to undermine Williams (who, incidentally, is no-one’s idea of a far-Right ranter) when his position already seemed precarious following the defenestration of his fellow hosts. That would be contemptible.

It’s in this worryingly censorious environment that the government recently announced funding of $55 million for the news media. Broadcasting minister Kris Faafoi framed the decision as one driven solely by noble public interest motives, aimed at helping the media through a rough patch. But an alternative view is that virtually all politicians secretly dream of controlling the media, and it’s possible this government has cynically chosen an opportune moment to ensure the industry’s co-operation in achieving it.

Don’t be fooled by seductive talk of the government wanting to subsidise “public interest” journalism. Any journalism that provides citizens with “the information they need to make the best possible decisions about their lives, their communities, their societies and their governments”* is, by definition, public interest journalism.  But when used by left-wing academics in journalism schools, the phrase has a much narrower and more ideological meaning. In that context, “public interest journalism” is code for journalism that attacks power structures – that “comforts the afflicted and afflicts the comfortable”, to use a definition much favoured by those who see journalism principally as a form of activism, and who believe the only journalism worth supporting is that which has an ideological purpose.

So here, for what it’s worth, is my take on the proposed government media bailout:

■ If I could be confident that the government was truly and wholly committed to a vigorous, balanced, independent, non-partisan media;

■ If I could be confident that media owners were capable of resolutely asserting their independence while simultaneously accepting state funding;

■ If I could be assured that most media bosses weren’t already ideologically aligned with the government on such crucial issues as climate change and hate speech;

■ If I could be confident that media bosses were truly and wholly committed to the principles of editorial balance and freedom of expression;

■ If I could be confident that government politicians could be trusted not to exert influence over where the money went, and what type of journalistic activity it supported;

■ If I could be confident that government appointees charged with deciding how the money should be spent could be trusted not to worry about getting offside with their political masters should they give it to the wrong people;

■ If my confidence in the media were not already gravely undermined by journalists who consistently confuse journalism with activism and advocacy, and who bombard us relentlessly with their own opinions;

■ If I could be confident that some of that $55 million wouldn’t be used to further swamp us with fashionable wokeism;

… then I might think the proposed state bailout of the media was a good thing. But that adds up to a lot of worrying “Ifs”, and somehow I don’t think my misgivings will be easily assuaged.

*The definition comes from The Elements of Journalism (2001), by Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel. I’ve yet to see a more succinct description of what journalism should be about.

That media feeding frenzy: what's the point, exactly?

Coverage of the National Party leadership contest has taken up acres of newsprint and hours of airtime. Political scientist Bryce Edwards’ daily online compendium of political news and comment this morning listed 48 items about the challenge to Simon Bridges; yesterday there were 39, and that excludes much of the content on TV and radio. Yet most of it is utterly pointless, because by this afternoon we’ll know the outcome and all the feverish analysis, speculation and comment will be redundant.

Of course the public has an interest in knowing the majority party in Parliament has been destabilised by a leadership crisis. It’s also entitled to know more about the leadership challenger, who was a political Mr Nobody – at least in the eyes of the public – until a few days ago. But beyond that, much of the coverage has served only to fill space and excite political tragics.

All those opinion pieces in print and online, all those radio interviews with political commentators (some with their own undeclared interests), all those ambushes of National MPs by over-stimulated TV reporters demanding to be told who they’re going to back (while knowing there’s virtually zero chance of getting an honest reply) … it’s all as evanescent as a puff of smoke.

It’s hard to see what pressing public interest is served here. There’s little evidence that the public shares the media’s excitement, since the public – if they’re interested at all – realise all questions will be answered later today. There’s even less evidence to suggest the media feeding frenzy will influence the outcome of the caucus vote. So what’s the point?

The answer, of course, is that it feeds the commentariat’s need for drama and excitement. The Covid-19 pandemic, which has generated headlines almost non-stop since February, is tapering off and something needed to be found to fill the void. The Reid and Colmar opinion polls that showed Simon Bridges and National tanking came along at just the right moment.

Oh, and here’s another thing. Morning Report today had seven items on the National leadership crisis, including interviews with commentators Matthew Hooton and Ben Thomas. Later, someone emailed the programme objecting to Hooton being presented as an impartial political commentator, which he’s not. But who the hell is? Virtually all the “commentators” regularly trotted out by the media, from Hooton on the right to Chris Trotter on the left, are contaminated by their political leanings and connections. Some are actively involved in politics up to their armpits. They may all contribute their own particular insights, but few can claim to be pure and detached. Who knows what private agendas they might be running, or whose interests they might be covertly promoting?

Arguably the least dangerous are those whose political affiliations are well known, such as the two already mentioned. More worrying by far are those whose loyalties and agendas are not disclosed, yet who are presented as objective observers. I suspect this group may include some political journalists, whose relationships with the politicians they report on – and on whom they depend for information – are by their very nature opaque. I’m reminded of my late colleague Frank Haden’s useful dictum: doubt everyone with gusto.

Time to dial back the anti-Trump vitriol?

(First published in The Dominion Post, January 26.)

The late country singer Waylon Jennings once wrote and recorded a song with the splendid title Don’t You Think This Outlaw Bit’s Done Got Out of Hand.

It was a wry comment on the consequences of being identified as a key figure in country music’s outlaw movement, so named because it rebelled against the white-bread conservatism of the country music mainstream.

A magazine article about Jennings had referred to his cocaine use, which resulted in federal drug agents raiding the studio where he was recording. That was the genesis of the song, which included the lines: “Someone called us outlaws in some old magazine/And New York sent a posse down like I ain’t never seen.”

It wasn’t exactly Jennings’ most memorable song, but its title sprang into my head a few days ago while I was reading the latest frenzied denunciations of Donald Trump. 

I loathe Trump, as does virtually everyone I know. But things have got to the point where it’s fair to ask: Don’t you think this Donald Trump bit’s done got out of hand?

The unceasing barrage of anti-Trump vitriol in the media has reached fever pitch, but you have to wonder what it’s achieving. The polls show virtually no decline in the number of American voters who approve of him, while the number who strongly approve of him remains steady at 28-30 per cent.

Meanwhile, inconveniently for Trump despisers like me, economists are talking about the “Trump bump”. The American economy is humming along merrily and there has been a rise in consumer confidence.

Some anti-Trump comment is right on the nail. An example was Tom Scott’s cartoon three days ago which had Trump saying: “Fake news says that I am a narcissist, which I am not. But if I was, I would be the best narcissist ever, period, no question!”

It perfectly encapsulated the US president’s combination of vanity and oafishness and might even have coaxed a grudging smile from Trump fans.

But mostly the condemnation directed at Trump is preaching to the converted. After all, the people who are appalled by him made up their minds long before he got to the White House. Constantly disparaging and ridiculing him may reinforce their sense of moral certitude, but there’s no evidence that it will change anything.

In fact it may be counter-productive, because those who support Trump look at the outpouring of loathing in the media and take it as proof that he’s the victim of a conspiracy by elitist journalists who are overwhelmingly biased against him and interested only in publishing material that reflects badly on him.

Some American journalists are wise enough to see this. On America’s National Public Radio last week I heard Michael Woolf say that the US press was behaving hysterically and making a fool of itself. “As we go after his [Trump’s] credibility, our credibility equally becomes a problem,” he said.

Woolf is no cheerleader for Trump. He’s the author of the recent best-seller Fire and Fury, an exposé of the president’s bizarre behaviour in the White House. 

It was also on National Public Radio (which, incidentally, wrings it hands in anguish over Trump 24/7) that I heard an even more damning condemnation of the US media from another journalist, Glenn Greenwald.

This might seem surprising, since Greenwald is a hero of the Left. He collaborated with National Security Agency whistle-blower Edward Snowden and came to New Zealand for Kim Dotcom’s much-vaunted “Moment of Truth” event, which was supposed to turn the tide against John Key’s government immediately before the 2014 election.

I can’t imagine Greenwald is a fan of Trump any more than Woolf is. But to his credit he exposed the fact that several major American media outlets, including CNN and CBS, published a false story implicating the Trump camp in a Russian hacking operation.

The media outlets portrayed the story as a smoking gun and claimed it had been verified by multiple sources. But a crucial date proved to be wrong, which completely nullified their account – and when it became obvious they had got it wrong, they tried to wriggle out by broadcasting a grudging, half-hearted correction.

According to Greenwald, it was the latest in a series of serious mistakes made by journalists reporting Trump’s suspected links with Russia. He says the US media are in such a frenzy to “get the goods” on Trump that they are willing to violate the principles of good journalism, thereby confirming public suspicions that they cannot be trusted and inviting Trump’s taunts about “fake news”.

If Waylon Jennings were still around, it would make a great song.  I’ve got just the title for it.

FOOTNOTE: An anonymous commenter took a whack at me on Stuff yesterday for making the supposedly “obligatory declaration for media types” of disclosing my loathing for Trump. Well, I do loathe Trump. Would this person have preferred that I was dishonest about admitting it? Didn’t the rest of my column serve as a warning that “media types” – that includes me – risk having their journalistic judgment distorted by their aversion to him? And didn't I acknowledge that the US economy was thriving, as this commenter was anxious to point out? Sigh. You just can’t win. 

The crisis in the print media - and what's at stake

My apologies to anyone who followed a link here expecting to see my Listener article on the crisis in the print media. After posting it, I realised I might be depriving the Listener of revenue from anyone wanting to read it behind their paywall. And since they paid for me to write the story, that wouldn't be fair, so I've taken it down.  You can see from this that I'm still getting to grips with the digital environment ...