News stories don’t just pre-exist somewhere out there, walking around intact and whole, waiting for an equal chance to step through the door of a media outlet and into the public arena.
They exist in tiny bits and pieces, among heaps of junk and distortions and agendas — and the bits are selected, assessed, ranked, and assembled, according to the rigour and professionalism, or the whim and worldview, of the journalists and outlets involved.
Barry Soper chose to construct a pretty ugly beast out of their scraps. The Herald chose to parade it. Then they stepped back and let everyone else feed it, until the whole thing became something big and real-seeming enough to cause genuine uncertainty and fear, and to prompt genuine attempts to do the proper journalistic work of understanding what this new health initiative is all about.
This article comes out as a butthurt whinge, to be bluntly honest.
Whether the reporting on this was fair is a matter of opinion, whether it was factually accurate isn’t. We saw our media absolutely bend over backwards to portray Marama Davidson’s actions in the best possible light, the author of this seems to have expected the same treatment by our media, and is shocked and appalled they didn’t get it.
Fuck em.
Depends what you consider is included in “factually accurate”. In my mind, framing something in a particular way to push a certain narrative falls under factual accuracy. The herald article was clearly written to pursue a particular angle, and they ignored or minimsed certain facts to do that.
I’m not sure what media you’re reading!
https://i.stuff.co.nz/pou-tiaki/131641753/marama-davidson-right-about-prevalence-of-white-male-violence-says-academic
This media. Where the author absolutely goes out of their way to paint Marama’s comment in the best possible light, with the kindest possible interpretation of her words, then goes on to write a pile of absolute drivel about colonialism, and how white women don’t go to refuges?
Also Once were Warriors gets mentioned a bizarre number of times.
Let’s be honest, Marama got much kinder treatment from the media than a white cis man would have gotten.
White cis man are so persecuted aren’t they? We really should shape our society to make sure white cis men get more advantage. I don’t know how then can cope with so much oppression.
Keep arguing in good faith, there’s a good munter.
I don’t think there’s any dispute the herald reporting was factually accurate. The issue is that it was very heavily biased and was obviously designed to be inflammatory clickbait.
Eh, the main reason for the outrage, in my view, is that usually they’re doing this to favour the point of view the author holds.
Having the media not on their side must have been a shock to them.
In this case the reporting was neither fair nor factually accurate.
In order to be factually accurate it has to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. It didn’t do that. It presented a half truth and the racist public devoured it because it reinforced their “white replacement” persecution complex.
What half truth is that, hammer boy?
Besides, imagine how long every news article would be if they had to contextualise everything. At some point, you need to assume a certain amount of prior knowledge.
the claim that the policy was changed to hurt white people.
A certain amount.
Who claimed the policy was changed to hurt white people?
For a start, you did.
Who is “us” if not Pakeha?