CHRIS McVEIGH: Media bias in New Zealand yet again

If you took a double at the TAB, with the Pope getting married as one leg and Radio New Zealand admitting to a smidgen of left wing partiality as the other, you could be forgiven for thinking that the smart money would be on the Vatican gig bringing home the bacon first.

RNZ is in a permanent state of denial on this. Just recently their flagship Sunday morning show Mediawatch (itself often patronisingly smug about its ethical purity) ran a lengthy item purporting to analyse a recent BSA report which found that public trust in the media was dwindling. The item was notable for a number of reasons: they prefaced their discussion by telling us all that, while public trust in the media might be on the wane, RNZ was the most trusted of all. Secondly the presenter, the redoubtable Colin Peacock (the thinking man's Joseph Parker), adopted a tone of almost stunned disbelief when dealing with these allegations. But most importantly of all, the entire discussion completely missed the point.

In any examination of media bias on RNZ there is invariably a well justified feeling that the participants in the debate just don't get it. They burble away discussing such theoretical irrelevancies as mixing up facts and opinions or 'more transparency' (whatever that means) and greater 'journalistic integrity' (ditto) but never get to the heart of the problem, which is an unshakeable and unwavering world view to which all must subscribe and on which no dissenting voices will be tolerated. This world view is characterised by a number of immutable, totemic beliefs, chief among which are (in no particular order of importance): man-made climate change is an imminent danger to the planet and on this topic the science is settled; Donald Trump is probably the worst US President ever and anything he does should be treated accordingly; any conservative writer or spokesman is almost invariably 'far right' whereas those of the opposite persuasion are 'liberal' or 'progressive'; Jacinda Ardern is a really lovely person and was a kind but much misunderstood Prime Minister; the LGBTQ+ community is always to be encouraged and supported in everything they do;

Maori people can do no wrong or, if they do, it's because of colonisation; the Treaty of Waitangi was so brilliantly drafted that it means whatever Willie Jackson says it does; trans women should be free to join the girl guides; European history is irrelevant; Western civilisation is a contradiction in terms; black lives always matter; people who support Hobson's Pledge are probably crypto fascists; Islam is a religion of peace and Barack Obama walks on water. (Okay, so I made that last one up but you know what I mean).

In the wake of the recent BBC fiasco, involving a Panorama programme which included the deliberate falsification of a Donald Trump speech to present a distorted and inaccurate version of what the President actually said at the time of the Capitol Hill riots in 2021 (coyly referred to as a 'mistake' by BBC apologists), it is perhaps convenient to revisit the issue of media partiality in this corner of the world.

Observant readers of this website may recall a piece I wrote a few months ago ('Radio NZ' May 10 2025) in which I drew polite attention to RNZ's (ahem) occasional slippages of impartiality in their relentless search for the truth. So eager are they to 'speak truth to power' (as we are continually being reminded) that they sometimes seem to forget who are the powerful to whom the truth must always be spoken.

But it is their inability to see their own shortcomings in this area that is so conspicuously apparent to any outside observer. I suppose, in a perverse sort of way, we can only admire this resolute unwillingness to engage in the slightest hint of self doubt. There is something almost Shakesperian in their heroic absence of self awareness. It's like Macbeth wandering round Dunsinane insisting that the daggers all belonged to someone else.

Even when it's staring them in the face there is still this implacable refusal to accept what to everyone else is not just self evident but inarguably and patently so. Take for example the Public Interest Journalism Fund (a name dripping with euphemistic irony, if ever there was one). In the standard funding agreement for project based funding from this nakedly mercenary slush fund there is a clause which requires recipients to "...actively promote the principles of Partnership, Participation and Active Protection under Te Tiriti o Waitangi acknowledging Maori as a Te Tiriti Partner."

You might have thought that, in the interests of candour, news editors and others involved in accepting the State's largesse would bow to the inevitable and agree that acceptance of a grant under those conditions did involve a certain loss of editorial independence. After all how could a broadcaster or newspaper say that they did not accept that the Treaty was a partnership between Her Majesty Queen Victoria and the Maori people and at the same time maintain fealty with the above clause? Harry Houdini would've had little difficulty in recognising the various contortions adopted by journalists and news editors in endeavouring to escape from the plain meaning of this condition and rationalising it as not in any way limiting their independence. Listening to some of the patently absurd reasons given to explain away this self-evident problem, one was tempted to consign the arguments advanced to the "pull the other one" school of dialectical debate.

Of course this was a problem faced by other recipients of PIJF grants as well as RNZ but nonetheless its existence highlighted RNZ's inability or unwillingness to accept the dilemma. And, one must also readily acknowledge that RNZ's shortcomings in this field are also those shared by many other media outlets in this country.

But if you've ever had the misfortune to read or listen to any of RNZ's spokesmen when their integrity is impugned you'll have noticed the wide-eyed astonishment accompanying their rejection of any wrongdoing and their stalwart defence of their ethical probity.

If you harbour any doubts about this then ask yourself this question, when was the last time you heard any global warming sceptics being given uncritical airtime on RNZ? Or an argument questioning the view that Treaty of Waitangi was a partnership? Or that Donald Trump is a great Republican president? Or that Jacinda Ardern was a not very good PM? And, more to the point in this context, when did you last hear anyone at RNZ admit that this was a problem?

I'm waiting....

Chris McVeigh is a retired KC living in Christchurch. He was previously President of the Canterbury District Law Society and, in an earlier life, a scriptwriter and performer for the satirical TV programme ‘A week of It’