How to fix media distrust and our increasingly partisan culture
Focusing on the 'fundamentals' and quitting the race track
There are two interconnected issues that are plaguing our politics as a nation. Both are occurring across the nation, but neither have ever been as commonplace or as damaging as they are now.
As reported by Radio NZ, the fifth annual Trust in News in Aotearoa/New Zealand report found trust in news in general fell significantly, from 42 percent in 2023 to 33 percent this year.
Meanwhile, the proportion of the 1,033 respondents who actively avoided the news “to some extent” grew from 69 percent in 2023 to 75 percent in 2024.
Ignoring whether this is a fair reflection of the actual trustworthiness of general reporting, this has a number of quite dire ramifications for the general public and how informed they can be without the mainstream media to raise items otherwise obscured under layers of bureaucracy and spin.
While I comment and pontificate from afar, the breaking stories I have commented on are generally broken by actual journalists. We need the media… that being said, the trouble with entirely trusting the purity of the media is that there is truth to the idea that our national media are inherently biased. Most journalists themselves even acknowledge this.
The Worlds of Journalism Study, published in late 2022, showed a massive 81% of NZ journalists classified their political views as left of centre and only 15% as right of centre. This equates to a ratio of five left-leaning journalists to one right-leaning journalist.
Having spent an unhealthy amount of time around current and former journalists, largely political ones, I’m surprised it’s as high as 15%.
Whether this leads to reporting that is actively biased or not is subjective, but I do know that the 15% keep their views closely hidden from their colleagues out of fear that they will be boxed-in or ostracised.
It is my personal opinion that the country has not been well served by our media. This is not due to partisanship, but due to a narrow focus on personalities and issues that affect their small insular world.
The majority of our media is based in two cities, a handful of suburbs, and about ten pubs. Most journalists I know are in relationships with other current or former journalists. It’s a tiny, incestuous community.
None of this helps our national unity, not the inward-looking media or the extraordinary aggression shown towards journalists. Ultimately both sides have played a role in creating the second, far worse issue - that of hyper-polarisation in politics and society.
Politics have surpassed religion, in New Zealand, as a punishingly divided and heated subject. Like ‘the war’ with Germans, only here everyone is calling everyone else a Nazi, and no one wins.
Social media is not a good gauge of public sentiment, but it is a fair bellwether of the more extreme elements of both sides. Political commentary on places like X/Twitter have become venomous.
Having written for both The Spinoff and Newstalk ZB Plus within this year, I have seen and been reached by people who have raised disappointment with my not sticking to one side of the fence or the other. Several vehemently.
A former acquaintance we’ll call Matua (because that’s his name and being ‘punishing’ is part of this blog’s credo), in response to my Op/Ed for Newstalk ZB questioning whether Chloe Swarbrick could actually become Prime Minister, told me to “get fucked”. He later acknowledged that he hadn’t read the column, but stood by his previous statement re: “get fucked” because he was so incensed by the idea that I would dare critique a Green MP.
On the other side, I have had people have made rather unpleasant statements about my mixed-race leftist parents, my Māori heritage, and because I am proud of being Māori and have incorporated elements of my tikanga upbringing into my politics.
I attended my first political event, a Labour Party primary debate at a town hall in Wadestown, in 1992 to support a family member’s aspirations. I was four years old.
Growing up in and around politics, I’ve also known that being publicly political requires either steel skin or a smug self confidence that could be politely described as extremely narcissistic.
My main takeaway from that town hall meeting, and the nearly one hundred political debates and events I’ve been to since is that politics doesn't pay enough to make this worth it, you will lose friends, and the most successful people I know find the entire spectacle of party politics distasteful.
Your options are either accept that and become a proud partisan bull, or play so close to the chest that no one can accuse you of believing anything.
These are the two gravest issues we face. One fuelling the other, then being re-fed by the second - like an ouroboros of hatred. It doesn’t have to be this way.
Here is a third option - focus on the fundamentals. Outcomes and expenditures. Not glamourising or deifying politicians, but not unduly vilifying them either.
Treating politics as a horse race sells subscriptions, but guts trust, and it is not in the public interest. What nourishes democracy is accountability to campaign promises. Talking about things like surgical waitlists and understaffing. Honesty and integrity matter too, but those are quite wishy-washy concepts.
We need to ask ourselves, and for the media to ask our politicians ‘What do you think the role of the government should be?’ I admit that is a very broad question, but it is one that can elicit a vast array of enlightening answers. None ‘wrong’, per se, just different.
That is what we should be focused on, and I believe having those conversations will help raise the level of our discourse and illustrate where our similarities and differences truly lie.
Hopefully, by focussing on the tangible and the aspirational, but ignoring the personas and brands, we can get to a point where fewer people tell me to “get fucked.” That would be a win.
A great article. The problem with your last para is that the 81% of left-leaning NZ journos are not going away any time soon. They are so inculcated with the post-modern critical theory ethos prevalent in their education and training the likelihood of their being able to cope with the civilised expression of difference you suggest. You seem to have escaped that virus!
That is a good article, and tries to avoid taking sides. It is all to easy to be polarized, or just not engaged. We need more writers thinking independently.