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If a Blogger accused immigrants of nicking houses & jobs off young native NZ'ers, causing them to leave the country, then we'd likely be prosecuted under anti-freedom of speech legislation. But seems our State-owned broadcaster, OneNews, can get away with it. After all, like the Reserve Bank, TVNZ can do what it wants. Its above the law. Its more than happy to blame immigrants for the exodus of NZ residents to Australia & beyond. Its headline today by Jack Tame is, "Record numbers are leaving NZ - who could blame them?" Tame says, "Facing pressure from business groups amidst a global labour shortage, the previous government responded by massively relaxing immigration settings" with the effect that, "Young NZ'ers now find themselves competing with more people for relatively fewer houses & relatively fewer jobs". I haven't ever seen an argument in economics that immigration causes emigration, but, hey, when did scientific evidence ever get in the way of a good story by our failing & non-trusted State broadcaster?


I thought the reason for higher rates of emigration from NZ was more to do with there being higher wages in Australia, like in nursing, teaching, policing & more. Another reason young people are leaving may be the relentlessly depressing & bleak outlook being espoused by NZ's media - parochial, small-minded, hateful toward the coalition of National, ACT and NZ First, which it views as illegitimate, and generally hateful to anyone who questions its relentlessly biased views on everything from the environment to race relations to Covid. Maybe young NZ'ers just want to be rewarded for doing well & working hard & not wasting their lives getting revved up by the endlessly boring political views of NZ's journalists? Maybe they want to be judged on merit & the content of their character, which means they would never get a job in the NZ media and most Wellington government departments. Maybe they're finding the debates here like listening to a stuck record from the 1970s. Chris Hipkins still hasn't got over the free market reforms of Sir Roger Douglas which happened 40 years ago. Imagine a US politician getting angry about Ronald Reagan, blaming him for everything wrong in America today? People would think he'd flipped. Maybe its for these reasons our youngsters are getting out?


Sources:


According to the respected Pew Research Centre, "In seven of eight [European] countries surveyed, the most trusted news outlet asked about is the public news organization in each country". For example, "in Sweden, an overwhelming majority (90%) say they trust the public broadcaster SVT". In the United States, according to a nationwide survey, the PBS, or Public Broadcasting Service, which is a publicly funded non-profit organization, has been named the most trusted media organization for the 19th year in a row.


Not in Aotearoa New Zealand, however. In this country it is now the privately-owned Otago Daily Times that is the most trustworthy news brand (according to the latest AUT Trust in News in Aotearoa New Zealand report). Here's the point - if a public broadcaster is loss-making - like TVNZ - and also has failed the public by broadcasting biased propaganda - then it does not serve any economic nor social purpose. The entire point of having a public broadcaster - even if not making a profit - is to give a balanced portrayal of news and events - to delve deeply into both sides of an argument - which privately-owned outlets may not be doing. If reporting politically slanted content that represents the agendas of its journalists - and so is anti-the public interest - is the broadcaster's motivation, then we should not be subsidizing it to do so. We've already got the likes of Stuff to do that "job".


TVNZ has not given the public a Fair Go. It should have been investigated by its own now-defunct show. It has engaged in the same dirty business as the folks who that show once investigated. It has pushed a dodgy, cowboy-builder product onto unsuspecting customers, namely you and me. But we have wised up now. The only reason former PM Helen Clark, labelled the decline of its Sunday shows as "shameful" is because TVNZ represents her own partisan political interests, which is the very reason it should be liquidated.


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