When one side in a war is supported by the West, journalists attempting to report honestly risk their careers, while the public stands to lose the most.
Mick's former colleagues in RNZ need to be better scrutinized. We don't know where they stand as individuals, and we have to concede that some may have been concerned, alarmed, embarrassed and even ashamed by the course of events. However they have also been largely silent, and many (I suspect most) have turned themselves into shameless tools of the regime.
The purge of RNZ content and staff which took place last year under a Labour government was overtly political but so far as we know only delivered a single human victim (if we disregard the damage to RNZ's audience and beyond them the nation as a whole, which is the really significant fallout from this scandalous abuse of power).
Does that then signal an end to the colonialist regime's efforts to purge patriotic, democratic and plain decent people from the state service?
Sadly not. The Luxon administration brought in a strange and seemingly irrational plan to cut 7% from state service expenditures "across the board", that is across all departments of state (though exceptions will be allowed for the military and intelligence services). Those cuts are to be made without any regard to where there are inefficiencies or where services can or cannot be cut without unduly compromising the functions of government.
A 7% cut in expenditures may equate to cuts of up to 5% in staff numbers. So how will the sacrificial lambs be chosen? If we are to go on past experience of the New Zealand state, those most at risk of losing their jobs will be the ones who are judged to be "not team players" which almost invariably means those who have been loyal to their community, held to democratic principles, or otherwise displayed a degree of personal integrity. That is not just the predictable outcome of the expenditure cuts. It is the only purpose to or explanation for the particular manner of these cuts which makes any sort of sense.
We are now seeing (or rather not not being allowed to see) a purge on a much greater scale than the one that shook RNZ last year. The outcome will be a state service which is even more cowed and treasonous than what we had before.
So where does that leave us? We just need to hunker down and prepare for the explosion which may even come within the term of the current government. I used to have a non-committal attitude towards the good folk in our rohe who declined to surrender their semi-automatic firearms to the New Zealand Police. Now I think that we may have reason to be grateful to them.
I’m sorry for what you went through in the RNZ witch-hunt. My RNZ rose tinted glasses have been shattered with their disgraceful coverage of the Gazan genocide exposing their hypocrisy and journalistic malpractice. Prior to that I was a loyal RNZ consumer, believing it to be a reliable, credible source of journalism. The truth has been a shock. Apart from yourself and maybe a few others NZ is woefully served for genuine journalism.
I entered RNZ with a view to using its public-interest charter to engage meaningfully in my work and I tried to do that. One of the issues with the broadcaster is its management is largely a corporate mediocracy and this was reflected in the way they dealt with the Reuters issue and external pressure they were under from the likes of David Seymour. They folded immediately, didn't really have a handle of the issues and ended up reflexively accepting the 'Russia propaganda' framing and amplifying their voices. Through moral cowardice, ignorance and incompetency they damaged RNZ's own reputation as well as my own, while their internal audit exposed how their notion of due impartiality was a nonsense. It was an exercise in narrative control by an ideological aligned leadership.
Mick's former colleagues in RNZ need to be better scrutinized. We don't know where they stand as individuals, and we have to concede that some may have been concerned, alarmed, embarrassed and even ashamed by the course of events. However they have also been largely silent, and many (I suspect most) have turned themselves into shameless tools of the regime.
The purge of RNZ content and staff which took place last year under a Labour government was overtly political but so far as we know only delivered a single human victim (if we disregard the damage to RNZ's audience and beyond them the nation as a whole, which is the really significant fallout from this scandalous abuse of power).
Does that then signal an end to the colonialist regime's efforts to purge patriotic, democratic and plain decent people from the state service?
Sadly not. The Luxon administration brought in a strange and seemingly irrational plan to cut 7% from state service expenditures "across the board", that is across all departments of state (though exceptions will be allowed for the military and intelligence services). Those cuts are to be made without any regard to where there are inefficiencies or where services can or cannot be cut without unduly compromising the functions of government.
A 7% cut in expenditures may equate to cuts of up to 5% in staff numbers. So how will the sacrificial lambs be chosen? If we are to go on past experience of the New Zealand state, those most at risk of losing their jobs will be the ones who are judged to be "not team players" which almost invariably means those who have been loyal to their community, held to democratic principles, or otherwise displayed a degree of personal integrity. That is not just the predictable outcome of the expenditure cuts. It is the only purpose to or explanation for the particular manner of these cuts which makes any sort of sense.
We are now seeing (or rather not not being allowed to see) a purge on a much greater scale than the one that shook RNZ last year. The outcome will be a state service which is even more cowed and treasonous than what we had before.
So where does that leave us? We just need to hunker down and prepare for the explosion which may even come within the term of the current government. I used to have a non-committal attitude towards the good folk in our rohe who declined to surrender their semi-automatic firearms to the New Zealand Police. Now I think that we may have reason to be grateful to them.
Thanks for all the work you’ve done and continue to do. We need more journalists with your ethics.
Everyone needs to read this article
Thank you for this balanced information I've read so many things about the Ukraine & Russian war & this clarifys it
I’m sorry for what you went through in the RNZ witch-hunt. My RNZ rose tinted glasses have been shattered with their disgraceful coverage of the Gazan genocide exposing their hypocrisy and journalistic malpractice. Prior to that I was a loyal RNZ consumer, believing it to be a reliable, credible source of journalism. The truth has been a shock. Apart from yourself and maybe a few others NZ is woefully served for genuine journalism.
I entered RNZ with a view to using its public-interest charter to engage meaningfully in my work and I tried to do that. One of the issues with the broadcaster is its management is largely a corporate mediocracy and this was reflected in the way they dealt with the Reuters issue and external pressure they were under from the likes of David Seymour. They folded immediately, didn't really have a handle of the issues and ended up reflexively accepting the 'Russia propaganda' framing and amplifying their voices. Through moral cowardice, ignorance and incompetency they damaged RNZ's own reputation as well as my own, while their internal audit exposed how their notion of due impartiality was a nonsense. It was an exercise in narrative control by an ideological aligned leadership.