Cynical deputy PM fans the flames of hatred

Ihave a lot to say about Winston Peters but I don’t know if it’s worth the column inches. Peters hates the media. What’s new? I could point out that he’s wrong about the media ignoring him on the campaign trail, a tired piece of nonsense that he pulls out whenever he can, usually accompanied by menacing noises about payback now he’s back in power.

The truth is he got more coverage than a 6% party merited.

But Peters knows this. He makes his claims because his supporters believe them and truth is no longer something they want to be proven or disproven by facts. Because the world we reflect back at them is one they feel excluded from and they blame us for that.

I could point out that the media are increasingly the target of ugly threats, and Peters is fanning those flames. I’ve had abuse shouted at me in the street by strangers, and emails warning me I’m on a list for trial and execution.

But I have to believe Peters knows this and his words are deliberate. He knows the power of language and the power of the platform he stands on now as deputy PM.

It just happens to suit his purpose to make the media an enemy of the people. And actually most people think that’s just fine. It’s just Winston being Winston, they laugh.

Peters is a critic of the $55 million Public Interest Journalism Fund that was meted out to media organisations after Covid, but he’s not alone there. Nearly every politician of the right is on that bandwagon.

But there’s a more menacing undertone to Peters using his platform as deputy PM to make extraordinary claims of bribery and corruption; there are echoes of the Trumpist “deep state” conspiracy theories, and we all know where that leads.

Most major employers got taxpayer funds, of course. Billions of dollars worth, in fact. So I’m not going to defend it. But here’s the why. The fear was that regional and provincial newsrooms would disappear given the immense financial pressures many were already under at the time. The money was administered through NZ On Air, which had no mandate to direct what journalists wrote.

Sir Ian Taylor, one of New Zealand’s most respected business people, a former board member of NZ On Air and a trenchant critic of the previous Government, explained it better than me in an opinion piece on Stuff yesterday:

“The only way journalists could access those funds was to have their applications approved by the New Zealand On Air board, a completely independent organisation. By making the claim that you can’t defend $55 million of bribery, our deputy prime minister just accused the full board of being complicit in this bribery claim” (Sir Ian has just resigned his roles on government-funded organisations because he doesn’t want to be muzzled from speaking out, which he fears will happen under Peters).

That’s the deep state part. Of course NZ On Air wasn’t part of a wider conspiracy. But it’s believed so widely now that the media were paid off by the Ardern Government it’s almost impossible to rebut.

But what’s this all about really? Why have so many powerful people bought into this argument? Because a weakened media is good for them. They don’t particularly like being answerable to the press.

It might surprise readers to know, for instance, that former prime minister Jacinda Ardern strongly disliked the media and rarely agreed to do one-on-one interviews. She preferred the cosy and unquestioning environment of Facebook and Instagram.

And that’s what this issue boils down to. Politicians much prefer uncritical platforms where they can frame the narrative without question or interruptions.

Social media makes it easy. If you’ve ever clicked on a video or post that promotes controversial views, you’ll discover pretty quickly that the algorithm keeps feeding you the same content. It’s a rapid slide into believing that everybody thinks like you.

In many ways, Peters is a man of the times, even though this is probably his last gasp at politics. Misdirection and misinformation are the new political weapons, and he was an early adopter.

So I don’t think he’ll pull back from his rhetoric. He’ll just use his new platform to further erode trust in the media.

So what can we do? We could ignore him, of course. He would hate that. What he fears most of all is irrelevancy.

But we in the media will continue to do what we’ve always done; we will cover the news that is important and treat him with the respect that his office is due.

Because we are better than that. Because we know that journalists who speak truth to power, who know how to sort truth from lies, are an important part of our democracy. And because long after Peters is gone, we will still be here.