Tag: National Party

It was graphic election night coverage and a touch of déjà vu

It would be far too boastful to use the phrase ‘great minds think alike’ but the Herald’s Simon Wilson and I had the same thought on the general election result: There is a parallel with what happened in Britain in 1945. British voters turned their back on the man who had led them through the Second World War, and New Zealanders wanted to turn their backs on storm and pestilence.

Wilson commented that Churchill’s rival, Labour leader Clement Atlee, promised a welfare state, and that looked like the kind of peace voters believed they deserved. In 2023 “it has meant that one thing trumped everything in this election. We want to forget. Move on and forget. Don’t tell me about the pandemic, I have to find the money to feed my family.”

I think he’s right.

Winston Churchill put on a stoic public face after his defeat by Atlee (despite his private anguish), and on television on Saturday night Chris Hipkins did the same in acknowledging National leader Christopher Luxon’s victory. Continue reading “It was graphic election night coverage and a touch of déjà vu” →

The media pack smells blood

The media wolf pack knows when it smells blood.

Unfortunately, its sense of smell is not so well developed that it can differentiate between a mortal wound, a non-life-threatening gash, and a paper cut.

When it is denied a kill, the more excitable members of the pack howl in disappointment while the grey-muzzled old-timers who have trotted along at a more leisurely pace look knowingly at each other.

We saw the pack in action last week when it sniffed the blood of National Party leader Christopher Luxon following a couple of gaffes and an apparent plateau in the polls.

That culminated in pundits at opposite ends of the political spectrum acting as if they were closing in on a kill. Continue reading “The media pack smells blood” →

Post-lockdown NZ media revert to attack journalism

Journalists endanger one of the cornerstones of their profession when they lose sight of the fact that politics is a contest for power. And in New Zealand right now their vision is blurred.

Emboldened by opposition politicians eager to exploit real or imagined weaknesses in the post-lockdown management of Covid-19, some news media are indulging in a blame game.

They are the eager messengers of ‘knocking stories’ that seek to reverse public perceptions that the Government and its ministries did a good job in containing a virus that is decimating other countries.

Not that the Labour-led government did everything right. It didn’t. However, in the giddy pursuit of accusations and culprits, journalists are losing their sense of balance. And, in the process, public confidence in our health systems is being undermined. Continue reading “Post-lockdown NZ media revert to attack journalism” →