MEDIAWATCH: Media Council decision on Fire & Fury Docudrama a sham and whitewash

Fire + Fury is guilty of imbalance, not because they refused to platform these fear grifters and crypto-fascists, but because they utterly refused to look at the contributing factors that led to the violence at the Dumb Lives Matter Parliament Lawn protests.

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The appalling decision by the Media Council to whitewash Stuffs Fire and Fury docudrama last year is a disgraceful abuse of process and a slap in the face of actual journalism.

I agree with the Media Council that the makers of Stuff’s middle class docudrama ‘Fire + Fury’, didn’t have an obligation to interview the various fear grifters and bad faith extremists to give ‘balance’, but where the Media Council are totally wrong is in terms of the blinkered coverage of the protest itself by the docudrama!

Were there bad faith actors manipulating people’s fears and anger?

Of course there were!

But where is the focus on Mallard’s behaviour that whipped this up to the violence it eventually erupted into?

We escalated this because we got scared, journalists like the ones that made Stuff’s docudrama were personally frightened. The focus is only on those voices on the right who whipped this up but NOT on Trevor Mallard who escalated it!

THAT’S WHERE THE LACK OF BALANCE IS!

Middle Class Marx 2022

Of course Fire + Fury shouldn’t platform these lunatics, but you can’t focus only on their contribution while ignoring the ferociously stupid blunders of Mallard!!!!

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On the Thursday after the Wednesday attempt to push into Parliament, the movement had fractured and collapsed because of massive infighting between the leaders. AT THE VERY MOMENT THE PROTEST WAS FADING Mallard threw a temper tantrum and ordered the cops in while inadvertently streaming a live 10 hour recruitment video to the entire fucking country!

When that blows up and brings every angry lonely frustrated person with pain to Parliament, Mallard then turns on the sprinklers and plays loud music!

We wound those people up for 3 weeks and then screamed ‘Nazi’ when they finally react?

This is why Fire + Fury should have been sanctioned by the Media Council, not because they didn’t interview these fringe fear grifters, but because they refused to balance the docudrama with any focus of accountability on Mallard’s response and tactical failures!

What has been the impact of Fire + Fury?

On one hand it has exposed the attempts by Qanon antivax lunatics to infiltrate our local democracy (which saw barely a dozen of them elected so it’s questionable how much of an actual threat they posed in the first place)  but on the other hand it led to knee jerk reactions like the arrest of the CounterSpin Due who are now turning their prosecution into a show trial that will dangerously recruit more people!

Fire + Fury is guilty of imbalance, not because they refused to platform these fear grifters and crypto-fascists, but because they utterly refused to look at the contributing factors that led to the violence at the Dumb Lives Matter Parliament Lawn protests.

Fire + Fury  lets our side off the hook for radicalising this to where we are now and if we are blinding ourselves to how we contributed to theism then any draconian crackdown is acceptable because they are 100% to blame.

If middle class virtue signalling is journalism now, we are in real trouble.

 

 

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10 COMMENTS

  1. Well Gobbels will be happy with a result like that! The Neo fascist news influencer academics funded by the ministry of Propaganda and Public Enlightenments office inside the PMDC will also be happy with their funding and investment outcome.

    The sooner the neo libtards, the Labour party are fucked off out of government this year, the better for everyone.

    • As much as I’d like the final part of that to be true, because Labour suck I’m pretty sure National would just be worse on most of the important metrics.
      Cost of living crisis certainly would get worse at a faster rate imho.

      It’s hard to say I want Labour to win the election (which I don’t believe they will), even though they’re rubbish neo-liberals.

  2. These hacks are trying to rewrite history to suit hapless government dynamics. That’s what they’re paid to do, or they lose their funding and jobs. There’s much that needs to be unravelled about that melee down at Parliament, and it won’t come from wokesters creating their own “ truths”, but it is out there, whether they like it or not, and whether craven pollies want it to or not. Playing from the Harry Markle playbook soils us all, and it can backfire. Time for real people to stand up and be counted.

    • There is a genuine documentary (well at least part 1) re the Wellington protest on YouTube.

      For a little insight, below is one of the responses in the comments.

      Wow this film really puts you there. The story that has not yet been told … Until now . Well done !

  3. But where is the focus on Mallard’s behaviour?

    What you’re overlooking is it wasn’t Mallard’s actions that brought the crowd there, Martyn.

    It was Labour and their creation of a two class system. This was the beginning of Labour’s downfall.

    Jacinda went from being Labour’s best asset to now being one of their largest liabilities.

    Labour’s action during and after the protest further reinforced the outrage, distrust and dislike of the party.

    And they are either in denial or totally blind to this.

    This is largely why Labour are polling so low today and are continuing to fall out of favour.

    They are so blind to this that Jacinda’s expected replacement is the “river of filth” man himself.

    The result of Labour’s bad behaviour is they lowered the veil, publicly exposing themselves. While the mainstream media have largely lost the public’s trust. And both have done little (if anything) to repair this.

    So here we are with National and Act looking to win largely because people just want Jacinda and Labour out.

  4. The protest was a right wing tory, Act, anti Labour/ Hate Jacinda debacle. Full of right wing QNON mis information ferals. Winstone, Seymore, Matt King, Tamaki, Nazis, communists and other right wing loonies were in attendance. Luxon and Bridges were lingering on the margins. Mallards actions were minimal- saying that turning the taps on and playing bad music aggravated the situation is looney, natz dirty politics talk. Remember the cowardly gutless tories had placed women and their babies in the front line thus stopping the cops from dispersing the feral lot.

    Jacinda and Costar were the winners here – they deserve a medal.
    NZ mongrel press and the right wing were the losers.

    • Nikorima, you claim Jacinda and Coster were the winners.

      Well in so called winning, Jacinda has done massive (perhaps irreversible) damage to the left as a whole via creating the two class system and Coster has tarnished the reputation of the police.

      Furthermore, your claim the protest was an anti Labour/ Hate Jacinda debacle. Full of right wing QNON mis information ferals is incorrect. Yet, it is a good example of the fake narrative that Labour (with help from the media) has sown.

      Stop and think how Labour supporters (and there were many) at the protest would now fee after reading your comment The word alienation comes to mind.

      Do you think, after Labour labelling them in such a manner as yourself, they will still be Labour supporters now?

      Additionally, comments like yours doesn’t help repair the damage done and only fuels and continues the social division Labour created.

      The protesters were made up of a mix bag of everyday kiwis from all walks of life and covered the whole political spectrum. Moreover, for everyone that was there on parliament grounds, there were many more at home supporting them.

      They are us.

    • The idea that it was all just QANON derpoid righties down at Parliament grounds, is one of the most spurious things I’ve even seen anyone write.
      Were there elements of the fringe right down at the protest?
      Absolutely.
      There were also (admittedly smaller) elements of the fringe [anarchist particularly, in this case] left.

      The thing is, a huge portion of the population of protestors; especially at the start, were nurses and teachers.
      They’re not really groups of people that are generally known for being right wing.
      These people were genuinely angry because they’d lost their jobs for refusing to take a vaccine, despite the fact that the mandates were in direct contravention of the Bill of Rights Act 1990.
      See section 11: Right to refuse medical treatment: “Everyone has the right to refuse to undergo any medical treatment.”
      https://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1990/0109/latest/DLM225509.html

      I think anyone who isn’t just anti vaccines in general is going to disagree with the idea that vaccines are a type of medical treatment.
      Would you?

      It pretty much needs to be accepted that what the government did was a contravention of the Bill of Rights Act 1990, and in that inherently makes it an abuse of human rights.
      It’s surely unacceptable in almost any context, to disregard established and affirmed rights.

      It’s not like Labour were the first to contravene the Bill of Rights Act.
      National had already done it when they took the right to vote off prisoners.
      https://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1990/0109/latest/DLM225511.html
      But it’s still an example of an abuse of human rights; just like that was.

      We should be calling it out for what it is, regardless of our opinions on the vaccines themselves.
      I’m not even advocating that people vote National or ACT either; their only “solutions” to anything seem to just be austerity for the poor, and alleviation of financial risk for the rich.
      Honestly, I think it’s about time the left got behind the only actually electorally viable, economically left wing party we have, that’s even really talking in any depth about the issues faced by the working class and the poor; particularly those in emergency housing.
      I’ll leave you to figure out who that is on your own.

      I digress; an abuse of human rights, which is fundamentally what contraventions of the Bill of Rights Act are; should never be taken lightly, and the fact that most of the people I see in liberal left circles are actively shilling for it.

  5. “didn’t have an obligation to interview the various fear grifters and bad faith extremists to give ‘balance’, ”

    That’s true, but there were plenty of families, tradies and ordinary people they could have talked to… Of course, journalism shouldn’t be about ‘balance’, it should be about truth and that is where this ‘docudrama’ failed completely.
    Cheers

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