Media in the middle of angst over race

The week began with a former PM warning we need to take the heat out of race relations in politics - but it ended with a lot more of that. The media were right in the middle of it - and Māori journalists want an apology for the New Zealand Herald becoming a billboard for a controversial advocacy ad. 

Whenever the National Party’s contemporary godfather Sir John Key attends its conferences, whatever he says ends up as news. 

Last weekend, he said it was time to "take the temperature down a wee bit” on politics and race relations. 

“When you have your Budget Day and it's dominated by a race protest, or when you have your opening of Parliament, that's the case. Then you got iwi leaders walking out of meetings with the Prime Minister  . . . and then things like the Treaty Principles Bill that's really wound people up,” Sir John said on Newstalk ZB later.  

“I actually don't support that legislation for some pretty good reasons. So there's just a lot of stuff,” he said. 

There certainly is right now. Among other stuff was the removal of section 7AA of the Oranga Tamariki Act which was what prompted the walkout of Ngāpuhi leaders from the Iwi Chairs Forum hui two days earlier. 

Te Rūnanga ā Iwi o Ngāpuhi chair Mane Tahere subsequently told Te Ao Māori news there was more: the disestablishment of Te Aka Whai Ora, the seabed and foreshore judgment, and legislative changes to Māori wards on local councils.

Hear Mediawatch report on these issues in this week's show here 

“Parts of the government are obsessed with race, often to the detriment of its broader agenda. Act and NZ First seem never to miss an opportunity to discuss race relations, with National often stuck in the middle,” the Herald’s Thomas Coughlan wrote this weekend.

“Five of ACT’s 12 most recent press releases relate to race,” he said.

But when Sir John’s criticism of the Treaty Principles Bill was put to ACT leader David Seymour, he told ZB Sir John had been a PM in “simpler times”. 

Seymour then accused others of raising the temperature - including journalists.  

“I certainly object to some of the rhetoric  . .  particularly about my colleague Karen Chhour. It's certainly not acceptable for some journalists to ask the question if you deserve it because of your policies.”

The same day ZB’s political editor Jason Walls called out Te Pāti Māori when asked about the possibility of cooling down race relations. 

“There's absolutely no chance. It is basically their entire ethos to stoke this race relations fire.”

That’s a pretty reductive assessment of the party's kaupapa.

“Te Pāti Māori will say something outrageous, and then we'll get criticised for not covering it in a way that if the ACT Party or another party say something, we would put them on the front page,” he said. 

“But when we do cover it, we get criticised for stoking these race relations fires. There's really no winning, unless parties like Te Pāti Māori tone it down a bit.”

Seizing on startling or inflammatory comments by MPs is not usually something our media shy away from reporting.  

But it is indeed a dilemma when Te Pāti Māori refers to white supremacy or genocide to attack the government and galvanise their own support - and then news media get accused by ACT of either ignoring or excusing that if they don’t report it. Or accused by others of amplifying or encouraging it if they do. 

Children's minister under scrutiny 

Criticism and abuse of children’s minister Karen Chhour that cited her own Māori heritage also provided the media with a dilemma.

Last week, in an emotional interview on ThreeNews, it was obvious this had upset the ACT MP. But she was not specific about the sources of it.

It was also raised in a long interview on Stuff’s Tova podcast in which Tova O’Brien asked Chhour if she’d also be asking the ACT party and its leader to tone down personal attacks. 

It became confrontational when she sought assurances about the possibility of harm to young people in the new boot camps.  

“The Children’s Minister abruptly ended our interview in a bit of a huff,” O’Brien wrote in a Stuff story. 

The minister was very defensive in the face of persistent-but-relevant questions, but the interview had already gone on for almost half an hour when she ended it. Chhour earlier warned O’Brien time was tight and she would have to leave soon. 

Listeners were told the minister had refused another interview, but it’s harsh to ‘empty chair’ a minister who’s just sat in the chair for almost half an hour, beyond the time she'd said she could spare. 

No sympathy elsewhere at Stuff, though. 

'ACT: the party of crybabies' was “reaping what it sowed”, said Stuff's national affairs editor Andrea Vance.

 “You and your party are responsible for some of the most contentious and divisive policies of the past two decades,” she wrote, addressing Chhour personally.

“There are genuine victims in politics. But they aren’t in the ACT party. Supporters (and the media) buy into the drama and excitement - and the social media engagement it generates,” she concluded.

Controversial councillor targeted

A video by the ACT leader posted to social media also ended up as news on Tuesday.

“You can have a different view on Māori wards, but it's never acceptable to intimidate someone who's voting on behalf of the public,” said Seymour. 

ACT called on political parties to condemn pellets fired at the car of New Plymouth councillor Murray Chong. 

Legislation passed last week to let councils get rid of their Māori wards, but when New Plymouth District Council yesterday voted to retain its one, Chong abstained, saying he now feared voting against.

There's nothing new about politicians going straight to social media with their reactions - or for news organisations to then make news out of such posts, without saying where the comment came from. 

But if Seymour had made that comment to a reporter, the reporter might have asked if he was sure damage to Chong’s car was prompted by his stance on Māori wards. 

Councillor Chong - who has long been a controversial figure in Taranaki - later told RNZ’s Morning Report he didn’t know if the damage was related. 

“Enough's enough. It's not necessarily about the Māori wards - all I'm doing is speaking up,” he said.

New Plymouth mayor Neil Holdom told ZB councillors in the city do get a lot of threats - but about a lot of different things. 

Front page ad raises hackles 

Last Wednesday the Herald reported Starship hospital leaders saying the removal of Treaty of Waitangi provisions from child protection laws would make their job much more difficult. An article by Greens co-leader Chloe Swarbrick urged the government and the whole country to “own our past and do better”.

But all that was obscured - quite literally - by an ad that turned the front page into a pressure group’s billboard.

The wraparound ad - which urged readers to sign a petition to return the seabed and foreshore to public ownership and raised the prospect of closed beaches if that doesn’t happen - was placed by ‘one law for all’ lobby group Hobson’s Pledge. A full-page version also appeared inside other NZME North Island dailies. 

Māori journalists association Kawea Te Rongo issued a statement expressing “profound shock and dismay”.

It said the assertion the foreshore and seabed must be restored to public ownership “drives division and perpetuates racist rhetoric” as well as what they say is “a false narrative that the foreshore and seabed is owned by Māori”.

Kawea Te Rongo also said the Herald had given a platform “to sway public opinion against Māori interests" and it was now concerned about the impact on staff at the Herald.  

Co-Chair Māni Dunlop - a former Māori News Director at RNZ - compared it to the ‘Kiwi/Iwi’ political messaging of the early 2000s. 

She said the advert “trampled” the Herald’s recent special project Whenua: Our Land, Our History - which documented Māori land loss. 

Last Thursday, Kawea Te Rongo also urged NZME to take “a more responsible approach” to advertising - and to formally apologise to their Māori staff members, contributors, advertisers and audience.

A day later, Te Pāti Māori boycotted the Herald. 

NZME has in the past placed controversial advocacy ads backing causes, and even foreign countries, on the pages of its papers - and copped complaints from those who claim they’re propaganda. 

Less than a year ago, the Herald gave up its front and back page for an election campaign ad by the CTU labelling the National Party leader “out of touch and too risky".

On Thursday night, RNZ said the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) had received complaints about the Hobson’s Pledge ad. 

There’s nothing new about advocacy advertising in our papers - and some publishers risk offending some customers to the point it could cost them. 

Carmen Parahi is one of New Zealand's most experienced Māori journalists and editors. She told Mediawatch she was shocked to see the ad on the Herald first in a local 4 Square.

“To see that was a slap in the face because in Te Matou Pono - Stuff’s apology to Māori - we had already identified how the news media had caused discrimination and had been anti-Māori on the seabed and foreshore. (The Herald) failed its news room and its own staff,” she said.

From 2020 until earlier this year, Parahi was at Stuff, leading its companywide Pou Tiaki strategy all about improving representation of Māori issues. She was named editorial executive of the year in 2021.

In a statement to RNZ, NZME said the content was clearly labelled as a paid advertisement, and was one of “several thousand advertisements on NZME's platforms every week”. 

“Publishing an advertisement is in no way NZME's endorsement of the message, products, or services."

But few of those ads are political or seeking to harvest support for a controversial cause. Fewer still have taken over the front page.

“It was an anti-Māori ad. The public cannot discern the difference on a front-page wrap along with the title of the newspaper,” she told Mediawatch. 

“No-one is saying that you can’t run advocacy advertising but you have to ask whether you put it in a front page wrap. I have seen multiple people on social media posting their receipts for cancelled subscriptions to the New Zealand Herald.”

"Let’s face it. Newspapers are currently on life support and they need as much money as they can get. But I would caution all newspapers (against) wrapping your paper with a political ad.”