In brief
- Business Desk wrote about NE in an article that also ran in the NZ Herald.
- It missed a lot of nuance and jumped to conclusions.
- They even suggest NE flirts with “conspiracy theories” for daring to discuss Hipkins’ visit to the World Economic Forum.
- The more MSM avoids serious topics like co-governance and equity, the more we will address them.
Parts 1, 2 and 3 (of our response) can be found here, here and here. As in previous parts, we continue to refer to Centrist and NZ News Essentials, together, as NE.
Link to The Curious Case of NZ News Essentials original article from 1 September 2023 on Business Desk (Paywall) here and the NZ Herald E-edition, p30, 4 September 2023 here.
A higher standard requested, please
The words that come to mind when reading the BD analysis about NE content are: lack of nuance, jumping to conclusions and general faulty reasoning. These are all too prevalent in society, but BD should have much higher standards.
BD makes enough mistakes that it is almost like it was designed for an assignment on finding all the things wrong.
It would be tedious to cover them all. The examples that have been chosen should be enough to get the point across.
Who hasn’t heard of the World Economic Forum?
Many know it just from the WEF initials. Yes, there are “conspiracy theories” that include it. But it is also a real organisation that has goals and objectives. The WEF is very definitely trying to promote a point of view, which it is perfectly entitled to do. But when Chris Hipkins attends or is bestowed with some kind of honour by the WEF, then that is something that may be of interest to voters.
Certainly it is more germane than a lot of the media promotion of what an ordinary, sausage loving, bloke he is. Reporting about Hipkins and the WEF in no way suggests NE is subscribing to any “out there” theories about the WEF, as BD intimates.
BD also says NE is internally inconsistent in giving approval to some articles in the MSM, yet also saying the same MSM is doing a poor job. We never said MSM can’t get anything right. We simply said they are pro-left, don’t challenge the government narrative enough, and use a filter we don’t like. We are selective about the material of theirs that we rely on, but certainly we think some of it is good.
Yes, we do spend time on topics, like co-governance or equity versus equality, that the MSM or left-leaning people may not. That does not mean we are encouraging a position, although sometimes we may be. Most importantly, it is about voters understanding and not just going along with slogans. If it seems to us they are getting enough in the MSM, then it will not be a focus for us.
We did not think that Family First’s advertisement “What is a Woman?” was a good idea. But we also do not think people who are pushing intrusive ideas on others, like biological men in women’s changing rooms, need to be protected from having hurt feelings. Or that, in a limited market for print media, the supposed competitors collude and block a paying customer (is that even legal?).
Tell it to the judge
BD mentions NZME is challenging NE on a trademark infringement basis. The argument comes from the fact a typical abbreviation of the name “NZ News Essentials” is NZNE. Indeed, BD uses that abbreviation themselves all throughout their article. We don’t think they can restrict people, including us, from abbreviating our name. And we don’t try to use it as a trademark. We’ll have to leave that to higher powers to decide.
