Summarised by Centrist
Labour Leader Hipkins criticised Winston Peters’ claims of government bribery in relation to the $55 million Public Interest Journalism Fund, calling them “unacceptable” and potentially illegal. However, research by Harvard Professor Rafael Di Tella suggests a link between government advertising revenue and media bias in favour of the government. Di Tella’s study found that newspapers receiving more government advertising tended to report less on government corruption scandals.
An OIA, covering to 31 December 2021 only, revealed significant NZ government spending on advertising in the form of almost $90 million on COVID campaigns. There is also considerably more for other government projects..
Prof Robert MacCulloch of Auckland University also notes that the Government has made it impossible to link the ad spend to specific outlets.
