(Open Letter to the Minister for Media and Communications)
Dear Mr Goldsmith,
Thank you for your emailed letter of 9 September 2024, which came
out of the blue and was a pleasant surprise. I interpret it as an invitation
to pursue a conversation about the issues.
However, there are various ways of interpreting what you actually
meant. I will play it with a straight bat, as it were, and assume that
you said what you meant and meant what you said.
1. There is a serious self-contradiction in the letter: On the one
hand, you referred to the freedom of the media and the inability of
governments to influence media content. However, on the other hand,
you also referred to the right of the public to complain to the broadcaster,
and then to the Broadcasting Standards Authority, in relation to alleged
breaches of specified standards. However, it was the government of the
day which passed the legislation that enables that process to take place,
and your government is fully capable of amending or replacing that legislation.
2. I assure you that it is probably only a slight exaggeration to
say that I first had dealings of this sort with the media and the Broadcasting
Standards Authority before you were even born, so I write with a certain
experience.
3. I found that my complaints about Feminist or pro-Maori bias that
reached the Broadcasting Standards Authority were promptly dealt with
(and overruled) by the Feminist or pro-Maori members of the Broadcasting
Standards Authority, which made the whole process a farce.
4. There is a serious problem with the 20-day time limit within which
the public must make their complaints about broadcasts. This turns the
process into a Whack-a-Mole process, and ignores the fact that what
is routinely involved is a whole culture of anti-male and anti-Non-White
bias in the media (and education sector). See the relevant chapter in
my book: "Indoctucation by the Media-University Complex" (13indoct.html).
5. Again, I have a huge amount of experience with media bias (fake
news). See: ismedia.html
6. In my not-so-humble opinion, I suggest that the Broadcasting Act
be rewritten to deal with the problem of the totalitarian arrogance
of the media, which -- in effect -- set themselves up as an alternative,
inevitably Leftist government, in opposition to, or in collaboration
with, the elected government -- depending on whether that government
is of the Right or of the Left.
6. What is needed is a mechanism to deal with persistent and consistent
bias of particular sorts -- whether that bias is exerted by one single
person, or a succession or network or culture of people (including management)
in media organisations.
Yours sincerely,
Peter Zohrab
See also:
|
