The Future of News Media

The title for this article is something of a paraphrase of the title of a book by Gabriel Sherman which later became a TV show starring Russell Crowe. The book was entitled ‘The Loudest Voice in the Room’ and told the story of Roger Ailes who was charged by Rupert Murdoch with launching a cable news network in 1996. That network was Fox News.

Introduction

The demise of Newshub has prompted a considerable amount of discussion by Mainstream Media (MSM) about the future of the news media. Of course, Newshub was only a part — but an important part — of a much wider ecosystem and occupied a position in the broadcast news space.  Newshub’s closure leaves radio news along with TVNZ and Maori TV as the remaining players for broadcast news. Or are they? Are they the only voices in the room? I think they would like to imagine that they are.

In this article I will discuss why it is that I make that suggestion. The background comes from a couple of articles that I came across on the Stuff website and the suggestion emanates from a throwaway line in one article and a cross reference to another.

The Source Material

On 2 March Tova O’Brien, Stuff’s Chief Political Reporter, she of “first Jessica then Tova” fame in the Ardern question selection process during the 1:00 pm Covid Updates, wrote an article which was critical of the Government’s response to the Newshub closure.

One suggestion that becomes clear from her article is that the new Government is part of the problem. For example she mentioned that the new Prime Minister refused the normal selection process for who would get the first live interview — a coin toss, for heaven’s sake — for making the choice of TVNZ for that privilege. This, suggests Ms O’Brien, is indicative of animus against Newshub. She suggested that:

“There is a perception held by some in this government – misguided and wrong as it is – that Newshub is too “gotcha”, they don’t like their style of fearless journalism.”

But her only evidence for that is the departure from the “coin-toss” selection process. The inference that she draws requires a pretty long bow.

She then was critical of Prime Minister Luxon’s reaction to the exit of Newshub when he said to Amelia Wade:

“Well look, I mean, the reality is that consumers are choosing their news and their media in lots of different channels and through lots of different multi-media outlets, we have a plurality of media voices in New Zealand that will continue.”

His tone, according to Ms O’Brien, changed a couple of days later when he said:

“What I'd say about the Newshub withdrawal is that it’s incredibly shocking and sad. I mean, like, it really is. Genuinely. And that's what I was expressing at the time as well.”

But Ms O’Brien picked up on the Prime Minister’s comment about a plurality of media voices in New Zealand and his defence of ministers going on Reality Check Radio or as Ms O’Brien calls it “conspiratorial Reality Check Radio (RCR)”. She went on to observe:

“So doing interviews with conspiracy theorists to ensure the plurality of media is maintained but unconcerned about the plurality being diminished in the face of one of the biggest media organisations folding”.

Ms O’Brien repeated her critique of RCR on the podcast which accompanied her article, stating that ministers had gone on RCR  “even after it platformed a far-right Austrian activist with links to the Christchurch terrorist attack.” She goes on to describe RCR as “whack conspiracy theorist Reality Check Radio” and is critical of the comments of the Prime Minister supporting his ministers engaging with a plurality of media when Newshub — and here Ms O’Brien gets maudlin describing it as a “mighty totara” — toppled.

Commentary

There are a few shadows dancing in the background to this story. The first is that Ms O’Brien writes for Stuff. If there is one thing about Stuff it is that it has been consistent in its derision of those with an alternative point of view or who have taken a contrarian stance to the “accepted narrative.” The description of such people or groups as “conspiracy theorists” is a convenient and derogatory label to pin on them. To enhance the derision by describing RCR as “whack conspiracy theorist” demonstrates two things.

The first is that Ms O’Brien is subscribing to the Stuff party line that extends back to the one-sided and biased ‘Fire and Fury’ documentary that was produced by a couple of Stuff journalists. Now that is just fine. We know the pedigree of that approach and Ms O’Brien is perfectly entitled to buy into it.

But the second and perhaps more important thing is that Ms O’Brien is anything but objective in her reporting of the Newshub demise and what she considers to be an unsatisfactory Government reaction to it. In fact in listening to her podcast which accompanies the article one is able to gain additional nuance and meaning from the tone and delivery of the audio.

Ms O’Brien spent a considerable amount of her journalistic life with Newshub. Clearly she learned much of her craft (if it can be called that) whilst with that organisation. From her tone and delivery it is clear that she is invested in the company notwithstanding that she is out of broadcast news and into the hybrid model that Stuff has become. Given that, are we able to expect objectivity? I hardly think so.

But arising from her comments, what would Ms O’Brien have the Government do? Come riding to the rescue with a rescue package? I doubt that she would be too keen on that if such a rescue package came bundled with conditions like the Public Interest Journalism Fund. But it came to my attention as I was writing this article that Radio NZ reported that:

“Officials warned the Government it may face requests to bailout media companies if it failed to progress a law forcing digital platforms to pay local media for using their content.”

The warning, from officials at the Ministry for Culture and Heritage, came in November last year, months before Newshub collapsed.

Ms O’Brien does make the observation that MSM came calling on the Government at the Select Committee hearing on the Fair Digital Media Bargaining Bill. I have already written on this topic and made my own submission on the Bill. But of more significance — and Ms O’Brien seems to have overlooked this — is that Mr Kynes of Warner Discovery observed that the Bill if enacted would not have made a single bit of difference to the plight of Newshub. That seems to conflict with the warnings of officials made in November of last year.

Of course MSM wants the Fair Digital News Bargaining Bill to become law. They will be able to scoop up millions in subsidies that they would not otherwise receive. Clearly MSM is of the view that it cannot survive in the marketplace without financial props from somewhere. Perhaps they should have a look at their business model and why it is that they are losing eyeballs on their content.

To make matters worse for the future of the Bill, Meta has announced it will withdraw from a similar arrangement that it has with Australian media, creating something of a challenge for the future. Indeed that action prompted media expert Gavin Ellis to suggest that these compelled steps like the Fair Digital News Bargaining Bill may not have a future. So one wonders where this line of Ms O’Brien’s argument might go, if anywhere.

But there is more to it than that. Let us have a look at RCR. It is an initiative of the Voices for Freedom organisation which was founded by three mothers — Claire Deeks, Libby Jonson and Alia Bland — respectively a patent attorney, lawyer and primary teacher by training, all three also having successful online businesses covering crafting and food making.

They formed Voices for Freedom (VFF) in December 2020, and campaigned for an alternative strategic response to COVID-19 than that employed by the New Zealand government and, in particular, a balanced targeted response based on science, government transparency and free and informed consent.

In March 2023, VFF launched an online radio station called Reality Check Radio (RCR). The group's three core leaders Deeks, Bland and Jonson each have a 33.33% stake in the company, which was registered as NZ Media Holdings 2023 Limited.

Notable hosts include former ACT Party leader Rodney Hide, former TVNZ broadcaster Peter Williams, independent media personality Chantelle Baker, and former Radio New Zealand broadcaster Paul Brennan.

Voices for Freedom have been accused of spreading misinformation about COVID-19 and vaccinations. Their critics have included FACT Aotearoa and the Disinformation Project. Indeed Kate Hannah of the Disinformation Project suggested that the leaders fitted a stereotype of right wing extremists and claimed to be able to identify white nationalists through imagery.

In the ‘Web of Chaos’ documentary — another production that echoed much of ‘Fire and Fury’ Ms. Hannah said:

“You can draw people in, in lots of different places and each of the platforms are used in different ways.

“You can see, I’m working on what is known internationally as the kind of trad wife set of viewpoints, which is white Christian, lot of pseudo Celtic, pseudo Nordic ideologies behind it.

“They use Pinterest and Instagram to draw in other women who are interested in interior design, children’s clothing, knitting, healthy food for children, and it does draw people in towards a set of white nationalist ideas.

“I mean, it’s relatively easy to see if you see a very beautiful, fair-skinned blonde or redhead child with beautiful braiding in her hair and some flowers just step back a little bit, which is really distressing because that’s my heritage cooking with the girls.”

Legitimising Dissent?

In her article of 2 March Ms O’Brien links to another piece by Glenn McConnell appearing, unsurprisingly, in Stuff on 27 February 2024 under the headline ‘The fringe radio station that chats with ministers and conspiracy theorists alike’.

Mr McConnell describes RCR as:

“an online station which spawned from the pandemic’s anti-vaccine movement, [and] has grown to become a platform for a range of fringe political movements.”

RCR, claim its founders, is an initiative of VFF that came into being to fill a gaping hole in New Zealand’s media landscape, as a media entity prepared to give a voice to other than just the mainstream-approved narratives.

“It has also played host to those not on the fringe including senior MPs from the coalition Government, including the leaders of ACT and NZ First and ministers from National.”

FACT Aotearoa (Fight Against Conspiracy Theories) Aotearoa claims that the Ministers’ interviews act to legitimise an otherwise extreme platform.

Interesting generalisation. So where is the evidence?

Mr McConnell refers to an RCR interview with an Austrian activist. Mr McConnell is careful to describe this person as “who it is reported had links to the Christchurch terrorist.”

It actually goes a little further than that. The Austrian activist, Martin Sellner exchanged “emails with the accused Christchurch shooter where they discussed meeting up for a drink, according to a report by Austrian public broadcaster ORF.”

ORF confirmed that the two exchanged emails for several months, from January 2018 to July 2018, and may have arranged a meeting. It seems too that Brenton Tarrant gave a donation to Sellner’s Identitarian organisation. It is unclear whether Sellner and Tarrant met up.

There is no doubt that Sellner has been labelled a white extremist and has been banned from the US, Canada, and UK. In the interview that he gave with RCR he was introduced as “among Vienna’s greatest” patriots, who wanted to “preserve culture”. During the interview, which was played on 23 February Sellner “rallied [sic] against Islam, asylum seekers, and burqas. He said he was not racist, but was leading a “a patriotic, activist, youth movement”.

Now it may be that it was unwise for RCR to have this person on the program. What is of concern is the reaction of FACT Aotearoa and one wonders whether Mr McConnell is in fact endorsing their message. FACT’s Stephen Judd — who incidentally is almost impossible to contact and comes out of his shadows only when he wants to — says that “offering an easy avenue for Sellner to broadcast extremist views “crosses the line”. FACT is urging politicians to boycott the station. Judd suggested that RCR was using politicians for its own image — to lend an air of credibility to its messages.

Truth to tell, it sounds to me like Mr Judd would like to censor RCR thus interfering with their freedom of expression. Mr Sellner’s message may be abhorrent but unless he was directly advocating violence he is entitled to express his views and RCR is entitled to interview him.

In his article Mr McConnell questioned whether MPs had legitimised the station’s messages. The article actually only deals with Mr Sellner and does not address any other “messages” or content that RCR had played so Mr McConnell is being rather vague in what he means by “messages”.

In some respects that suggestion is as misleading as the headline. Mr Sellner as far as I understand it is not a conspiracy theorist. He certainly has been labelled a white supremacist and holds extreme views which have got him banned from a number of countries. I am not sure that makes him a “conspiracy theorist”.

Mr. McConnell then turns to the issue raised by Mr Judd of FACT Aoteraroa — that NZ First, ACT and National MPs have appeared on the channel. 

As an aside RCR does not use broadcast wavelengths, does not have a broadcast licence and does not have a frequency in the same way that traditional radio stations do. RCR is an Internet platform and is not subject to the provisions of the Broadcasting Act 1989 nor does it come under the jurisdiction of the Broadcasting Standards Authority.

Mr McConnell makes the point that:

“Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters and ACT leader David Seymour are the most high-profile Government representatives to feature.

“During the election campaign, Peters built a strong relationship with RCR, whereas Seymour has often clashed with the hosts. Key points of contention for Seymour have been around vaccine efficacy, gender diversity and sex education, which Seymour defended.

“Police Minister Mark Mitchell and Education Minister Erica Stanford have also recently spoken to the station.”

Then Mr. McConnell poses the question: “Have MPs legitimised the station’s messages?”

There seemed to be a bit of ambivalence in answering that question apart from Erica Stanford who when advised that Sellner had been on the platform said she would consider whether to continue to appear on the “station”.

But in some respects Mr. McConnell’s question is absurd. RCR has a certain constituency. Members of Parliament can only survive by keeping their profiles high and by appealing to voters across a number of interest groups. Of course, if invited, they should consider taking the opportunity to getting their message across to the listening audience. That does not mean that they endorse the platform nor that they endorse the views of anyone else who has appeared on it.

Taking Mr. McConnell’s suggestion further, does the use of X (formerly Twitter) mean that a user endorses the views of the owner Eion Musk or of any of the more extreme users of the platform? Of course not! In the same way a politician who seeks exposure to the electorate does not necessarily endorse the views of the owners or of other users. Indeed, Mr Winston Peters, a trenchant critic of the media, is a brilliant user (some might say manipulator) of the media. He knows the value of publicity. Thus the example given demonstrates the fallacy of Mr. McConnell’s position.

Discussion

More importantly, however, are the assumptions that lie behind Mr McConnell’s approach and to a certain degree underpin those of Ms O’Brien’s article, and they go back to the suggestion that RCR is conspiracy theory radio.

It seems to be an automatic assumption that because RCR are a bunch of “whack conspiracy theorists” as Ms O’Brien would have it, anyone associating with them as participants or guests on a show are either supporting, endorsing or joining the conspiracy. That approach in itself seems to smack of a conspiracy in and of itself so it may be helpful to analyse the problem from the ground up.

The starting point is Voices for Freedom. As I have said the organisation started in 2020 as:

“a non-political organisation focused on protecting New Zealanders' fundamental human rights with a particular focus on freedom of speech, health/medical freedom and all freedoms under attack from an overzealous and oppressive Covid-19 response.”

There was an immediate problem with their existence and that was that the line of the Government of the day, repeated daily by Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, was that the only way to deal with COVID-19 was by the strategy adopted by the Government. This involved an elimination strategy and a vaccination strategy. The two were intertwined.

There were a number of problems about this approach, not the least of which were serious and significant infringements of rights guaranteed under the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act and, more significantly, an “ersatz” compulsory vaccination programme. I say “ersatz” because it was promoted as voluntary although there were certain industries where vaccination was mandatory and indeed, as the programme developed, certain activities from which the unvaccinated were excluded. This discriminatory policy was accepted as such by the Prime Minister.

As it turned out the vaccination policy was premised on a number of fallacies. The first was that the vaccination did not prevent a person catching Covid. It would only mitigate the severity of the disease. Thus, there was no way that the vaccination programme could enhance the elimination strategy. It would only mean that less people with Covid would use the public hospital system.

As it transpired, the elimination strategy fell by the wayside when it was realised that it was unworkable.

But the Government would not tolerate any opposition to its policy. It set up a number of methods by which it could get its message across, involving eminent scientists as well as demonising any opposition by classifying contrary messages as misinformation or disinformation, and groups who opposed or questioned Government policies were (some of them) labelled Conspiracy Theorists.

Enter Voices for Freedom.

The Mainstream Media picked up on these stereotypical classifications and when reporting on Covid activities conveniently used the classification to label contrarian views. The most outstanding examples came in the ‘Fire and Fury’ documentary which came from Stuff and ‘Web of Chaos’ which received funding from NZ On Air.

In time the Covid crisis came to an end but Voices for Freedom did not. Nor did the media classification of dissent or contrarianism as misinformation, disinformation or conspiracy theories.

Because an identifiable group — Voices for Freedom — set up an online radio platform (RCR), it automatically followed that the online platform would be infected with the same malaise as the original organisation.

Hence, the demonisation of RCR as “whack conspiracy theorists”, although there is no strong evidential foundation for this allegation.

A conspiracy theory is an explanation for an event or situation that asserts the existence of a conspiracy by powerful and sinister groups, often political in motivation, when other explanations are more probable.

The term is generally pejorative, implying that the appeal of a conspiracy theory is based in prejudice, emotional conviction, or insufficient evidence. A conspiracy theory is distinct from a conspiracy; it refers to a hypothesised conspiracy with specific characteristics, including but not limited to opposition to the mainstream consensus among those who are qualified to evaluate its accuracy, such as scientists or historians.

A look at the Voices for Freedom website suggests that it has issues surrounding the Covid vaccine, and it may be that there is some developing evidence for that concern.

There are links to interviews with a number of people who are known for their contrarian views. It provides information on how people may have input to the Covid Inquiry — in other words how to exercise a democratic right. Is that a conspiracy? It has links to RCR — not surprisingly — and a campaign against fluoridation of water. Such a campaign is not new and is hardly a conspiracy theory.

RCR does not hide the fact that Dieuwe de Boer interviewed Martin Sellner on 23 February 2024. The interview is available on RCR’s website. I listened to the interview. I don’t go along with Sellner’s views but the interview provides a background to Sellner’s Identitarian Movement and some of the motivations behind it. Sellner unashamedly acknowledges he is New Right. One of his concerns is migration, a concern which is shared by many in Europe. There is no doubt that Sellner’s approach is, to put it mildly, highly discriminatory based on racial and cultural characteristics. His worldview is not my worldview but there are two important points that arise from the broadcast. 

The first is that Sellner is entitled to exercise his freedom of expression. One’s commitment to freedom of expression lies not in hearing the things with which one agrees but recognising that freedom of expression extends to those things with which we disagree — as Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes put it “freedom for the thought we hate.” As long as Sellner does not encourage an imminent threat of physical violence he is entitled to express his view.

The second is that RCR is entitled to interview him and play that interview via their website. That is what media is about. Mr Luxon refers to a plurality of media and adapting that comment there are a plurality of views which may be expressed. Once again, if RCR is not enabling Mr Sellner to encourage an imminent threat of physical violence they are entitled to place his views before the public. But as importantly this does not mean that RCR endorses those views.

RCR actually responded to the Stuff critique. That response, hosted by Paul Brennan, can be found here. 

But there is something even more concerning about the approach that has been adopted by some of the players in this scenario. At a time when there are some very real concerns about the future of mainstream news media in New Zealand following the demise of Newshub, the rise of alternative sources of information such as Reality Check Radio and The Platform must cause some concern to MSM outlets.

This is exacerbated by the fact that public confidence in MSM has been declining for some time. Yet The Platform was able to announce that it had more YouTube subscribers than Stuff in less than two years since starting operation. Clearly that must send a message.

It seems to me that the demonisation of alternative media outlets like RCR and to a lesser degree The Platform arises from three things.

The first is jealousy of the new kids on the block who are sucking audiences and eyeballs away from “establishment” media.

The second is that online radio like RCR and The Platform demonstrate the available alternatives to the monolithic model used by MSM. They use a completely distributed model for both creation and distribution of their content which avoids the necessity (and expense) of centralised premises, offices and technology. These new platforms haven’t got it completely right but they understand the potential of the new technology and its disruptive capabilities better than MSM and that the medium is at least as important as the message, if not more so. 

The third is that these outlets are putting forward a narrative that is alternative to that of MSM and that is something that MSM who has occupied pole position in the information industry for so long cannot stand. So calling out RCR as whack conspiracy theorists is one way of achieving an objective.

And that objective, in my humble opinion, is for MSM to be the only voice in the room.

This article was originally published on David’s Substack, A Halfling's View on 10 March 2024. Subscribe to David’s Substack to read more.