Sent as a letter to the editor of Stuff and copied to us.
Dear Mr Crewdson,
With all due respect, your assertion in your article headed “Why Government Money Won’t Corrupt Our Journalism” that “our journalism will remain free from political influences” is the greatest load of tosh I’ve read in a long time given the volumes of Ardern/Labour-favouring crap you feature daily in Stuff’s papers. As Editor-in-Chief, I’m stunned that you’d pretend otherwise. For a long time now, Karl du Fresne, former editor of Dominion Post whose opinions today remain highly respected as ever, has made frequent comment on these very failings of today’s news-media.
In a lifetime of attention to dailies wherever I’ve been, I’m disgusted by the blatantly nonobjective coverage that has worsened and further worsened since 2017 after Peters “king-made” Ardern. Coverage that has constantly endorsed but seldom criticised the obvious and long-displayed ineptitude of the Labour/NZFirst/Green and Labour/Green coalitions – ignoring all the consistent failures to achieve beneficial or material results from stated objectives and “policies.”
Just think, when did your papers last feature a cartoon that didn’t knock National or ACT — or indeed, was in any way denigrating of Ardern and Labour?
I seek to be informed — INFORMED — as to the materiality and the beneficial actuality of government intentions and policies in hope of seeing realisation of positive results and benefits, but so often you’re damning objective readers with facile, Ardern-slanted nonsense.
I’ve penned more than 1000 letters to editor since the ’70s, virtually all of them published — but I do so no longer — discouraged by the transparent bias of your papers’ Leftist-promoting perspectives. In respect of my own letters to Dominion Post, only one out of the last 8 or 9 made it — so I must assume that the outstanding letter by Brian Kennedy on the same page as your article, made it only because it appeared to substantiate the thrust of your attempted points.
As current editorship continues to dismay and let down intelligent and reasoning readers, do you ever ask of yourself why this country’s readership of newspapers continues to fall at a time as critical as now, when well-informed, public-understanding is more essential and necessary than ever? Poor and inadequate journalism cannot be blamed on the fact of the Internet.
Jim Cable
See also this commentary on theBFD website
Many thanks Jim, I wrote a similar letter to the Editor of The Nelson Mail (Stuff)
when I cancelled my subscription a couple of years ago. I warned the Editor then that they treat our demographic with contempt very much at their own peril. To hear this particular Editor claiming that being subsidized with tax payers money to continue on as Labour/Green cheerleaders is not influencing editorial policy simply highlights the
shocking bias they blatantly display.
The problem isn’t just their being a paid propaganda vehicle for the Jacinda government, but they tell lies and engage in pernicious character assassination. A socially harmful organisation.
“….tell lies and engage in pernicious character assassination …”
The ‘Hate Speech’ Bill should be abandoned to be replaced with a Bill to make the above in-quotes indictable.
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