Here is the transcript
So, let's get into this, shall we? Um, I was watching the collective last night and uh the lovely uh Paul Barlow uh
0:07
brought up some research that he was citing. Uh, and what I didn't realize at the moment and I realized since talking
0:13
to him last night this morning is that the research is his research that he has done some research which is a structural
0:19
analysis of nonparty political actors in New Zealand media uh called the asymmetry of influence. Uh there is some
0:28
very interesting you know topline information that we heard about last night I wanted to drill
0:34
into a bit deeper and I thought the best way to do it is to get the researcher on himself. So let's welcome to the show
0:39
Paul the other one Barlow kir how's everyone doing tonight?
0:45
Well I mean I'm doing okay but there's some heavy [ __ ] out there at the moment that does make you kind of go
0:51
I mean how often can you say what is happening in this world? What is happening to this world? you know, how often can you say that and just continue
0:57
on? Um that shooting, for example, you know, the reason it's worldwide news, well, there's two reasons. One is that
1:03
it's focusing on a Jewish community and the anti-semitism label has been put on it, rightfully so. Like, let's get that
1:10
clear. But the other thing, the other reason it's been put on is because it happened in Australia. And over the weekend, the 370th
1:17
mass shooting of the year happened in America. So, we don't talk about that one, but it happened in Australia. So
1:23
the world is talking about it. Not the only reason, but one of the reasons it's being talked about is it's it's um it's
1:30
atypical. That means opposite a atypical is opposite and typical. It's atypical for places outside of um America. Uh
1:38
yeah. So So I'm I'm I'm doing good. I'm busy. Looking forward to getting a
1:44
break, but the world is [ __ ] Yeah.
1:50
Yeah. So you should enjoy the break while you can because next year is going to be an absolute mess.
1:56
It's a mess now. It's going to be even worse next year because we have the election. Yeah. Are you in case anybody wasn't aware?
2:02
Are are you suggesting that the world's going to be worse than [ __ ] Is the world ending next year or something? What are you suggesting? Oh, it might actually be an improvement
2:09
if it did in some ways. Um there'd be less people around to bugger things up if that happened. Uh, I I think next
2:15
year is actually a really important one for us to learn about how we get manipulated because I think that's
2:20
something that we're lacking at the moment. It's something I noticed during the local body election. People are I
2:27
hate to say it, but people are dumb. Um, a person might be smart, but a group of people are dumb. You take the number of
2:34
people in that crowd and you divide that number by the average I average number of the lowest person's IQ. You know,
2:39
they're not a smart thing, a group of people. And elections show us that over and over because people get listen to
2:46
messaging from politicians, from media, from you know friends and family that's highly skewed and it's really
2:53
frustrating to see. It's really smart really engaged people get it wrong and
2:58
being fed stuff that's wrong. So for me, I think that's a really important thing for us to worry about next year, just in
3:04
general, not just in terms of media, but knowing that there is an election going forward and that there's at least two
3:10
parties that we've got there who are nasty, nasty organizations that go out of their way to vilify and
3:17
harm specific community groups. And that's not the sort of thing we want to see in this country. And currently, they're partners in the coalition. So I
3:24
think yeah, it's going to be a big long one for us next year. Now, you showed some research last night
3:30
um about media in New Zealand. I've got the research that you've written. Uh this doesn't have the graphs and stuff
3:36
on it. So, do you want to share any of your stuff from your end or should we just talk to it? I'm I've got all the
3:42
stuff. I might need to bring it up and share it from my end because I don't have it in front of me right this second.
3:47
Okay. Um yeah, it's this is how prepared I was. I was actually at Costco this
3:52
afternoon when you sent out the link. I've been that disorganized today. the asymmetry of influence. Uh tell us when
3:59
you're doing research like obviously uh top secret highlevel influential research. Do you go out asking a
4:07
question and then that's it or do you go out looking for an answer like I I already know you don't do the latter
4:13
because that would be that means you would skew it. That wouldn't be the way to do the research. But you can start off with a
4:18
supposition of what you're you're going to be looking for. For me, I've always known that our media is right leaning.
4:25
It's just something that I've always been brought up with when I've studied it because I I have a masters in film
4:30
and television uh from wine and a bachelor of arts with honors from the University of Wdo and screen media. This
4:36
is this is my academic background that that I've been dealing with for years. And when you go through and you learn
4:42
how to recognize what is actually right-wing media, how it focuses more on individual responsibility and and on
4:48
corporate information over collective responsibility and outcomes. You can see that our media has always kind of leaned
4:56
that way, but it's felt in the last sort of 5 to 10 years like it's been shifting
5:01
to me. So, I wanted to see whether or not it was me getting a little bit older and a little bit more cynical or whether
5:07
or not it was actually something that we could measure and we could work out what it was that was causing that to happen.
5:12
Um, and there were a lot of factors that that sort of played into it. Co was a really big one. for example, it was this
5:18
flash point for people where, you know, suddenly there's the the public interest journalism fund. So, you know, it's a
5:24
conspiracy just bribing the media. And before that, we were getting a lot of influence coming in from the states that
5:30
was starting to get people to question how media works and the narratives and things like that. But we were also
5:35
seeing these lobby groups like the taxpayers union and the free speech union that was set up specifically to
5:40
push certain narratives that tie in most closely with the ACT party. There is
5:45
actually I think it's something like seven or eight different members from the 2002 ACT party list who are now
5:53
directly involved or have got some kind of linkage with disinformation groups or far-right media outlets. So you've got
6:00
like the the Newman's for example, Frank and Muriel who were on that list. They run the New Zealand Center for Political
6:06
Research. Uh you've got Steven Franks uh the the lawyer. He was the person who trained up Jordan Williams. So from him
6:13
you get your free speech union, your taxpayers union. Um there was Joanne Reer. She currently runs a conspiracy
6:20
page in Hamilton called City Watch uh which four of their new counselors have
6:25
been regular commenters on. So there's a a weird network. Roden Hyde, you know,
6:30
leader of the party in 2002. He's a host on Reality Check Radio. So, there's all
6:36
of this long-term influence that's been feeding into the way that we see media now that's been pushing the media to the
6:43
right, and people don't realize it. It's the the frog in the boiling pot sort of scenario. So, I wanted to measure it
6:49
more than anything. I wanted to see just how bad it was. Um, it's funny to hear you say, like,
6:55
obviously we don't disagree with you. Um, it's funny to hear you say that you've always known the media to be sort
7:02
of rightcoded, right leaning, right-wing, whatever, because that's obviously not the narrative that many inside the media or many commentators
7:09
outside the media pointing in would have us know. So, no. Without even looking at the research as
7:16
you've grown like in the last 20 years, what kind of things do you see that lead
7:21
you to the conclusion I think this is right-wing coded? So a lot of it because I grew up in in a
7:29
rural area it's national hard a lot of the local media that we had then which
7:35
we don't have now because you know the media sphere is shrinking that was focusing a lot on your individual
7:41
responsibility and individual actions as well as your corporate you know the dairy factories doing this way anchors
7:47
having this happen font is the the big thing um it it was very much right coded
7:53
because you're dealing with the right audience you farmers and rural folk and and that kind
7:58
of thing. But that local media feeds into our regional media which feeds into
8:03
our national media. Um it it's all part of a process that we call the propaganda
8:08
model and where individual media information comes from in the morning and how it feeds through to the day and
8:14
impacts us what we see at night. But because we've had that loss of local media, we've had to amalgamate things a
8:21
bit more, which means the information our regional media and our national media are putting out now is a lot more generalized. But there's no resources
8:28
for it. The staff aren't there. And so you have groups that come in going, hey, here is something that I prepared for
8:34
you earlier. You don't have to do any work on it. Just go and present it as is. And that's where places like the TPU
8:41
have stepped in and actually pushed us to the right. And people don't realize it because they're just presented with
8:47
stuff that they've been trained up on to believe is completely impartial and has been well researched and has been put out and looked after by media who knows
8:53
what they're doing. Sure. You got any thoughts before we get into some data on that? Oh, I've got so many thoughts. Um,
9:03
like this is something that is a relatively new change in my experience.
9:08
like we didn't seem to have the plethora of uh think tanks and public policy
9:16
commentators and and that sort of thing even I don't know 15 years ago, 20 years
9:22
ago. Um and and like I I also want to acknowledge it's it's seeing that and
9:29
its effect on on the media is what has essentially given birth to projects like
9:34
BHN like what you're doing that there is there is a reaction to it
9:41
that is only 5 years old tops of left-wing
9:46
commentators going we kind of need to put our thumb on the scale here to get it back somewhere. and it seems to have
9:53
really hit a vein with our listeners of like this is what is missing from
9:59
traditional media at the moment. Um, so yeah, I mean I think this is a is
10:05
a is a really valid thing to look at because we are a a smaller country, a
10:11
smaller sphere of influence in the media and I think in a lot of the bigger markets and that sort of thing. What an
10:17
excellent place to test to test in New Zealand.
10:22
Um it I I know when you talk about things like the Atlas group, there's always going to be people on the right
10:27
who sit there to go, oh yeah, conspiracy theory kind of thing, but there is very much a dedicated streamline of the way
10:33
that Atlas connected groups in this country in particular work and approach the media. So I think at the very least
10:39
that's something that people need to be aware of that there are those connections and it sort of filters down
10:44
as well to places like organizations like groundswell you know they are very
10:50
pro the way that they want to do farming um and they might deny that they have
10:55
those links to to these other atlas linked organizations but you know the website was set up by the campaign
11:01
company by Jordan and his group uh the groundswell people paid I think it was
11:06
3000 100,000 to the um campaign company to campaign on behalf of political
11:12
parties during the last election. So there's this this influence that's coming through in other lobby groups and other ways that people don't realize.
11:18
And because we're such a small market, people don't know that it's there, which is the really frustrating part. We've
11:25
always all been taught, you know, media is what's presented on TV. And for a vast majority of the time that most of
11:31
us have been alive, that's what it was. News was 6:00. you know, you sat down, you watched Simon, he told you what was
11:36
going to happen, and because he said it was going to happen, that's what was reality. But it's it's certainly changed
11:43
a lot since then. Um, I've got something to show you,
11:48
right? Just kind of talking about you you mentioned just then about sort of uncritically platforming things. I I'm I
11:57
don't know enough academically whether this is true or not, but answer me this
12:02
question. This is I'm making an accusation, but I want the experts to try to fill this out. There was a story on stuff today talking about the gunman
12:10
in Australia and it said this, you know, uh Nave Aram 24 was apprehended at the
12:16
shooting alongside one other alleged shooter. One of these individuals has died. Full stop. This mast head
12:22
understands Acram is not the deceased. Now, I thought that you're supposed to
12:27
replace the word this mast head as in whoever's printing it. This mast head.
12:32
So it should be Stuff understands Akram is not the deceased. Speaking with this mast head, speaking
12:39
with Stuff as police surrounded her house. And it looks to me like not only are we
12:45
talking about necessarily kind of a right-coded narrative being pushed through, but they are literally just cutting and pasting without even reading
12:52
them and putting them up on the website. Now, now I'm not 100% sure on that, but
12:57
that's why I pulled this up cuz it looks to me I've never seen anything any article anywhere in the world ever use
13:04
the word this mast head referring to itself. That's where you put the name of the publication in there. So this was on
13:10
stuff this morning and if if what I'm saying is correct and I'm saying if and correct me if I'm wrong but if if if
13:15
this what someone in stuff's done is they've literally got something off the I don't know the TX whatever they use
13:21
these days and just gone copy paste paste go live haven't even read it to
13:27
change the wording of it at all. First of all is that right about how they're using the words this mass and and if it
13:33
is technically yeah technically this mass is the name of the paper. Um so so that would would
13:39
make sense and and sharing news stories isn't new. You know you've got Reuters, you've got the Associated Press. Um they
13:45
do content for all over the world. Oh, they do it here ODT shares with New Zealand Herald. Herald shares with ODT.
13:50
Like R&Z goes on stuff that happens all the time. But to that hasn't even been that hasn't even been read.
13:57
No, it's just been cut and paste. That's actually one of the problems that media has when it comes to something dramatic
14:03
like this happening. You want to get the information out. You want people to be informed and the public want to be
14:10
informed, but you don't have the information. It creates what we call an information vacuum. So, that's where it
14:15
gets filled in with other stuff. Um, and so you're rushing to get things out. It's where Brian Tmaki, for example, put
14:21
out his [ __ ] about immigration after the attack last night. Um, because it's Brian Tmck. He's a horrible violent
14:27
person who has called for violence and had violence done in his name. But this is a bad thing according to him and we
14:33
should do what he says. Um, David Seymour put something out about it as well. Um, and the comment section that
14:39
David Seymour h has following his comment is full of horrible racists,
14:46
anti-Islamic stuff because it's David Seymour's followers and they're filling in the information vacuum that's there.
14:52
When a newspaper is doing something like that, it's because they want to get the information out. They should know to
14:57
change it, but it might be something that's just happened so quickly they haven't had a chance to do it.
15:03
So, it's this drive to be first. Yes. To get this stuff out there. Whereas the
15:08
truth actually like when you're talking minutes, you don't need to be first. You need to be
15:14
right. Like we often talk here, Paul, about bias. Like I don't care about bias as long as you're accurate. I care about
15:20
accuracy. We We have a bias. We're open about it, but as long as we're accurate,
15:26
then the bias doesn't matter. Yeah. That's actually also a really uniquely leftwing, right-wing mindset.
15:33
When you're talking to somebody on the left, they understand that there is a difference between bias and facts. When
15:39
you talk to somebody on the right, they tend to get the two confused and they seem to think if your facts don't agree
15:44
with what they believe, then you are clearly biased against you. It's a really interesting dichotomy to sit down
15:50
and watch and and you can see it when you're talking to people about you simple things, you know, left right stuff that they will sit there and get
15:57
the two very heavily confused. Yeah. Um I would like to have a look uh more in
16:05
more detail at some of your research and stuff now because one of the most important things I heard last night and
16:11
obviously it's a snap a small snapshot of your overall work you've done in this is the locations or outlets is probably
16:20
a better word the outlets the media outlets that receive information from both
16:26
political sources and non-political sources and then how that information
16:32
especially from the non-political sources gets used to drive the narrative
16:38
of that media outlet. Um so maybe we can speak to the outlet specific saturation
16:44
estimates. Explain what you did, how you did it and what you found. Okay. So what
16:49
happened was every month in every week there would be one day that I'd sit down and basically go through and count the
16:55
stories very manual labor kind of thing. And what I found is that when you're
17:01
dealing with political parties, most of the outlets are actually pretty even in how they get that information out. How
17:07
they present it different, but it's even in getting that information out. So, so the Green's press release gets
17:13
used, Axe press release gets used, Labour's press release gets used, Tati Maldi's press release gets ignored. I
17:19
mean, sorry, used. Yeah, exactly. Like it to be fair, Tati Mai was actually the the outlier when it
17:25
came to the political party research that isn't in the report. Um they have nowhere near the reach in terms of the
17:32
other parties and it was the only political party that actually had less content used than the taxpayers union.
17:40
Right. Wow. Okay. So that's when you're talking about polit the political source being a political party.
17:47
Yes. Pretty even across the boardish. Yes. And then you go to the political sources
17:52
that are not political parties. What are we seeing and hearing? We see a massive over reliance on the
17:59
taxpayers union and cur because they've created this media content piece that they literally hand
18:05
to these media outlets. But they've also created an ecosystem that means that when they get a phone call from a
18:11
producer going, "We need somebody here to talk about this thing you've presented to us." They've got somebody
18:16
there in a minute. They've got it prepared and organized and they've got this whole ecosystem set up so that they
18:22
can be seen as the people setting the narrative. And from there, everyone else is running to play catchup. They're
18:29
really heavily used on outlets like uh News Talk and the platform because they're talkback. You know, it's
18:35
constantly needing somebody to fill in a space to talk to something. And if you've got somebody who's willing to
18:40
stand and do that in a at the drop of a hat, they're going to be the people that you get on. So, they're the ones that
18:46
end up being platformed. And it helps that they are in the same ideological sphere. You know, the News Talk and the
18:52
platform are both very much right-wing outlets and they're very much wanting to talk about the narrative that's being
18:57
put forward by the TPU. The Herald's a little bit different and that's mostly because it's print first before it goes
19:04
out into into um any kind of talkback or or video stuff. But that's changed a
19:09
little bit more recently with the introductions now with Ryan Bridges, whatever their their breakfast show is.
19:16
Same with Radio New Zealand. Right up until about six to eight months ago, they were actually more in line with
19:22
what we were seeing with stuff. And now they've moved a lot further into taking things directly from these organizations
19:29
and printing them verbatim without push back. And the one that they tend to use the most is actually the New Zealand
19:34
Initiative. So they're printing a lot of their stuff. They're putting a lot of their stuff online as here's a piece
19:39
from the New Zealand Initiative, here's research from the New Zealand Initiative. and there's no counter to it
19:45
which becomes really problematic. But if you talk to RNZ about finances for example, nine times out of 10 they'll
19:52
get a quote from somebody like Nikki Noboats and then they'll go and talk to Craig and they'll get a counterpoint.
19:57
They're quite good at that sort of balance, but they're getting worse at
20:03
really partisan information going out. Whereas stuff is actually really good at going and getting that balance and not
20:09
taking the bait quite so much as the rest of them. So, Stuff is our technically our most trusted news
20:15
source. It's our largest read news source and it seems to be the one that has the least amount of uh falling for
20:22
the clickbait from the right. That's fascinating because of course uh people on the right and I'm thinking of
20:28
a particular uh melted pile of pancake batter. Uh all they ever talk about is the woke
20:33
stuff is the wokest and no, how do you trust them? They're woke and they got public money and they're woke. Look, I'm
20:38
a I'm a bit slow. Uh Paul, um I need you to explain one thing to me.
20:44
Sure. So what we're looking at right now is this graph that says taxpayers union, free speech union, sorry, taxpayers
20:49
union, free speech union. Let's put those speech marks around that. Uh when outlets refer to nonparty pressure
20:55
groups, out outlet is the blue. Uh now the 0 20 40 60 80 across the bottom.
21:02
Just explain what that is. So are you saying Okay, so this is the thing that I need to clarify. Are you
21:07
saying that 80% of the information that the taxpayers union, the free speech union provide to New York ZB, they then
21:13
use or are you saying that it drives 80% of their narrative? It drives 80% of their narrative.
21:21
What or it's mentioned in 80% of their content. So it it's use usually designed
21:29
to drive the narrative. Yeah. It'll be Kerry Woodham sitting down going, "Oh, did you hear about the Free Speech Union? So and so is being cancelled
21:35
because of such and such." which is how the free speech union gets its information out there. It tends to work
21:40
very much on that, you know, let's create a little bit of controversy and then that's going to get us coverage.
21:46
The taxpayers union is the one that tends to be the most consistently mentioned because every month there's
21:52
that poll is what it boils down to. And sure, the poll is discredited and Cury is not actually part of the regulatory
21:58
group anymore and they've been fined or pulled up for just last year on misleading questions and going against
22:04
the rules of that group or claiming to still be under it. It's a bad poll, but it's the thing that leads the news every
22:10
month because it's consistent. When TB3 sort of had its little issues and got handed over to stuff, their polling
22:17
stopped. TB and Zed's polling hasn't always been the most consistent. TPU
22:22
shows up and here's a carrier poll every month. So, here's something consistent that media can deal with. So, what it
22:28
does is it means that there will be stories that get referred back to it. You know, oh, you know, Christopher Luxon, how are things going? We saw the
22:35
latest Curia poll and you know, everybody seems to love you for some reason on the Curia poll. Uh versus this
22:40
is the Curia poll and here's the lead story. So, it ends up in about 80% of all of their content where they mention
22:47
a non-political organization in terms of politics. So where they mention where
22:52
they mention a nonpol so 80% of stories where they mention a non-political or 80% of their stories
22:58
it ends up being 80% of their stories mentioning politics and non-politic
23:05
groups so do we know what that would be like overall like how many stories are they
23:10
doing I guess what I'm going is how much influence are these guys having on these narratives because 80% of the stories
23:16
might be different from 80% of the stories about you know, political issues.
23:22
Yeah. So, it it actually depends on the outlet for how it impacts the narrative. Something like News Talk ZB, it really
23:29
heavily impacts that because it's structurally tied into how talkback works. You know, you want to get that
23:35
interaction. You're trying to get people riled up so people continue to listen. And here's something that's kind of
23:40
inflammatory that also agrees with what we're saying. Um, what happens here is that union reps tend to go on both News
23:47
Talk and the platform and they use targets that they're aiming for that the
23:52
host then come into. So, you know, Chippy, for example, he's been out there talking about a CGT and oh, how terrible
23:57
is that? With something like the Herald, it's a little bit different because it's written first. It it it's text first
24:04
more than anything else that goes out. So they've got the structural symmetry that you find with talkback, but they
24:10
have more time to be able to go through and make sure that the information they've got is as accurate as they want
24:16
it to be. So that's why they have less influence than the two talkback platforms on there. So yeah, it is it is
24:23
different for each one of them. Radio New Zealand, for example, their written content and their broadcast content can
24:29
quite often be very different. So it's about trying to find a balance in there as well. the um the I mean like not to
24:36
talk about like what do you say I'm talking about behind the curtain or whatever it is but that's such a copout from News Talks ZB I mean I can speak
24:43
from experience I had to do sixhour talkback shows in the middle of the night I never once had the opportunity
24:50
to get a taxpayers union speaker on I had to find my own stuff and create my own content so it you know what it just
24:57
goes to show it goes show it goes to show if that's the case that they're doing that for talkback it goes to show one of two things for the platform is
25:03
They don't have a big enough audience to run it run a a talkback show. Uh uh but for New York Zeb it just shows
25:09
laziness. Laziness because it's not necessary taken over by Jim Grennan.
25:16
So So since you were there, it's been taken over by a hardright Canadian who paid for Shantel Baker.
25:22
He was her big sponsor. Yeah. So you've got somebody there who we know is willing to pay for disinformation,
25:28
who wants things handed to him easy, who is looking for ways to cut cut costs. And here comes Jordan with a whole bunch
25:34
of information built to for him on a platter. Why wouldn't he use it? Um, I want to say one other thing then,
25:41
Chewy, I'll shut up and you can take over. So, what we're saying literally is
25:47
someone like Sean Plunkett screams from the rooftops. We can't
25:53
trust that because it's public money. Money is coming from the public to fund
25:59
those stories. Whereas what you're telling us is 80%
26:04
of the non the nonpolitical party political influence that's going
26:10
into a place like the platform is coming from Atlas money is coming from rightwing money. So apparently what he's
26:18
saying is public money that is out in the public that you can see how it's
26:23
being used and spent because I have to show you is untrustworthy and backroom handshakes
26:31
secret wink wink nudge nudge that money is fair
26:37
just goes to show the lunacy of the whole thing. Shall we sir? Mhm. If you want to see a really good example
26:43
of this in action actually. Have you seen the media watch piece in the Herald today? No.
26:48
Yeah. Um so they're talking about bias. They are accusing TV and Zed of bias because
26:55
TVN did a um outside study on the bias of their presentation and the OMBbudsman
27:02
decided that they needed to update some of the information that they've put out there. The report will never be released that there's too much commercially
27:08
sensitive stuff in there. But the framing that the Herald specifically has used on this is screeching about how the
27:15
competition is clearly bias in their in their the way that they deal with things. The actual article will tell you
27:22
that most of the things that they are tweaked are minor and they included making sure you've got more diversity,
27:27
equity, and inclusion in your actual reporting to get a fairer understanding of what was going on and to make sure
27:32
that you're talking to more communities who could be impacted by various stories to make sure you get a fairer chance of
27:38
looking out there. So, the big scary headline because it's premium, it's behind a payw wall, most people are
27:44
going to base their reaction on that versus the content of the story. And it's just another way that this bias
27:51
gets put out there in an asymmetrical way that feeds the audience because the audience is going to make up their mind based on the headlines 85% of the time.
27:58
Agreed, Chewy. Um, so I got two things that I want to mention. Um, first of
28:03
all, sort of looping back to that whole this mast head report sort of thing. Um,
28:10
I agree something like this kicks off and it it is a rush to just get information out there. Um, but I have
28:18
seen many examples of stuff just running with whatever the Sydney Morning Herald
28:25
is is putting out. Mhm. Um, and some of the reporting that they've been doing has been incredibly
28:33
sloppy just from a like an editing and grammar point of view right through to the factual information. Um like that
28:41
sentence that you highlighted uh Pat um referring to the the shooter's last name
28:47
and they're a father and son peering and then they say last name is
28:54
believed to not be the one that's deceased. Well, they're they're both called Acrim. It like it was
29:01
this this is a sign that nobody is looking at it. like they're not nobody at the Sydney Morning Herald is is
29:07
running through it going, "Yes, this is factually correct and makes sense. Put it out." Nobody from staff or the New
29:13
Zealand Herald is casting their eye over it to to clean it up or clarify some points. And I saw another really good
29:20
example of this uh over the weekend um with a local uh I think it was stuff um
29:29
just taking verbatim with no push back the official US government line on the
29:36
seizing of the oil tanker uh off um Venezuela.
29:41
There were there was no critical thought that just went into it. That just mean, yep, it was an illegal um freighter and
29:47
it's been taken and that's just what we have on the statement. We're not going to look any further into it. Um we are
29:53
just going to what to my eyes look like we're just going to repeat the narrative
29:59
to justify going to war again. Um and that sort of stuff when you see
30:05
it does breed a distrust in the media like because you're like well where's
30:10
the other side of this? I want to I want I want at least some push back so I can get a sense of of where things lie. The
30:18
other thing I want to mention as far as uh what you've got there about who's getting their stories from where?
30:26
Is this kind of like more factual news reporting or are you considering the
30:31
opinion piece writers? So it's it's a bit of both to be honest.
30:36
So opinions are something that a lot of people mistake for news, but when it comes to overall content and overall
30:43
narrative that's going out there, it combines the two of them. But the the scary part is if I'm told, look, this is
30:49
the opinion of of the TPU, then I know what I'm reading. It's when they present content from something like the TPU as
30:56
news uncritically that it becomes really problematic because clearly it's been made with a very specific bias and very
31:02
specific perspective in mind. And we don't have anything on the left that does that. All of our content on the
31:08
left tends to be reactionary. It tends to be downplayed a little bit and it
31:13
tends to be factual. So it's boring and we need to find a way around that.
31:19
Um certainly in that opinion space I think of Hawksby
31:26
Hawksby and Hoskings. So you have you have a husband and wife combo that just
31:32
have a headlock on column inches and air time.
31:39
Uh that will just you got two columns for the price of one often.
31:44
Yeah. Interesting way within the NZDME ecosystem. You can go to the Herald and
31:51
you might have a premium Hoskings hot take minute or or one from from his wife
31:56
or you can go to News Talk ZB and get a whole bunch of them for free. But News Talk ZB is slightly further to the right
32:03
than the stuff they're presenting on the Herald. So they're going to give you the further right stuff for free over the
32:10
not quite as far right as the free stuff that you pay for. And so it drives
32:15
people there. It's a really fascinating funnel system to drive people to the far right who then don't realize that
32:22
they've shifted that way. And that makes it much harder to get to them and try and sell an idea like a universal basic
32:28
income or a CGT or, you know, not being a [ __ ] to people because that's very
32:34
much the attitude that they're being fed for free that they're told is news. Yeah. Um the chat's mentioning Barry
32:42
Soer and obviously Heather Depy Allen as well being another couple that are
32:48
dominating that opinion space as well. And it almost seems like are they a couple or more like a a carer
32:55
and an elderly gentleman? I'm just I would say a couple in the same way as
33:01
uh the best example I've seen. you see it in nature. Um the the deep sea angler
33:06
fish uh where where the uh the the one animal
33:12
you see is actually two animals. Uh the the the female and then the the wizarded
33:17
set of gonads that have become part of her body cuz she's absorbed him. And I
33:22
hate this conversation. Yeah, but I'm going to make it worse. The imagery there. Yeah. No, no, I'm going to make it worse. Ready for this one step worse.
33:28
Ready? Are you ready? Here it comes. He got her pregnant.
33:34
Oh, yeah. I told you it was worse. I I I think I think of this old joke
33:39
where um there's like a hundredy old man and he's married to a 23 year old
33:46
uh and and he he's at a doctor's appointment and he says, "Oh, great news. I got my wife pregnant."
33:54
And the doctor picks up his umbrella and goes bang.
34:00
Why did you do that? He goes, "Oh, well, if you fell over, it means that someone else shot you."
34:07
I think I've mangled that joke. Carry on. Trying to follow it. I'm a bit slow. Anyway, somebody else knocked her up.
34:14
Right. Someone's shooting black. Someone else did it. Um, not not that for legal reasons. Not
34:20
that that's what I'm saying, but it's gross. It's gross. Anyway, derailed. Apologies.
34:26
Yeah. Horrible joke. Sorry. Where were we at? I totally
34:33
I don't know. I do apologize. Well and truly derailed. Um the propaganda model I was thinking
34:38
about as well, Paul, you were talking about how the propaganda model works and how it goes in then out through the outlets. It's like we're such a small
34:43
country. We do it in such a small way. Fox News is the best in the world at doing this. The propaganda model, they have their Fox News breakfast show pass
34:50
an opinion and then their afternoon shows go some outlets are reporting that and it's them. they're the outlet that's
34:57
reported in the morning and they're able to have this ecosystem in and of themselves that um just does the
35:03
propaganda and it feeds itself and then uh later on Sean Hannity gets on and he
35:08
cites the afternoon guys who have turned it into sort of a story that's some media la then he turns it into a fact
35:15
just goes like from little opinion to some reporting to this is a fact just in one one little fell sweep within the
35:22
same company it's very clever how often have you seen Christopher Luxon does a fluffy airp piece on breakfast and suddenly it's news at
35:28
night because Christopher Luxon said this so this is what's going to happen. It it it happens in every media
35:34
ecosystem and ours is no different in that respect. Were you filled with any kind of uh like
35:42
hope when you saw this? It's like cuz what this is showing us this graph again one more time is that stuff only has 30%
35:50
of its non-political partydriven political news uh being fed or mentioned
35:56
by the TPU or the FSU which sounds good. Does that fill you with hope? Does that make you think stuff is the place to go
36:02
or is it all just bad news? I could agree stuff has its own biases. You know, if you look at something like
36:07
the local elections, for example, um they were very much, you know, Tory bad
36:12
in Wellington. That that was their attitude. Bike lane's all the scariest thing on the planet. But they also have
36:17
other tools and mechanisms that they use to change the way people think. So if you are in Wellington and you want to
36:25
look at something political in the post, for example, that's paywalled. So you know that the most political city in the
36:31
country has payled political content and that that kind of thing can can change narratives and how people find things. I
36:37
think for me the hope actually comes from the fact that we can recognize the patterns because if we can recognize the patterns we can work our way around it
36:43
and we can educate people that you know what maybe the curio poll is not the poll you should be paying attention to.
36:49
Maybe anything that comes out from the free speech union is not something you should be paying attention to because we
36:55
can show you exactly how it works and how it gets information and and it I think if anything that knowledge weakens
37:01
the ecosystem and it makes it easier for people to be a little bit more receptive if they've got that information.
37:07
Knowledge is always power when it comes to this kind of thing. I also think it gives me hope in that the number of
37:13
left-wing content creators that I've spoken to about this in the last 24 hours and like we had conversations last night after the collective and and I've
37:19
been chatting to a few people about it today. They sit there going by way to aim at you know this gives us something
37:26
to work around. This gives us some tool set that we can sit there and go this is really important for people to know so
37:31
that the public feels more informed because ultimately the public needs to make informed decisions and if they're being manipulated when it comes to an
37:38
election they're not going to like the outcomes. You know two years after the last time it happened how are people
37:43
feeling? We don't want that to happen again. Yeah. Hey look it's um I can't believe what time it is. Time flies and all that
37:50
kind of stuff. We're having fun. But before we go, Chewy, do you want to wrap with anything or ask anything or, you know, take the position at the ending I
37:56
kind of gazumpted your your brilliant line of thought before? Uh, no, not at all. I I I I'm just
38:06
I really want more balance and I know that that some topics just
38:13
shouldn't be here's opinion A and opinion B and they both have equal
38:20
weight. But I think what we're seeing in the media here is one side has money and the
38:26
other side does not and that's what's carrying the water and that's what's forming people's opinions.
38:34
Yeah. But I will say one of one of the things that's really interesting about our ecosystem that we don't see quite so
38:40
much overseas is that we've got a player like BHN in the market where what you guys do is you sit down and you take
38:46
this content that's being created with a right-wing perspective that's being fed from these right-wing groups and you
38:52
give it that leftist spin which is something that you don't tend to find overseas. You definitely don't find it
38:58
much in Australia. They certainly don't find it much in the states where the market is very very different and in
39:03
England they're still sort of struggling to make that system work for them. It's a unique thing that we have here and
39:08
it's a really important thing that we have here. So don't underestimate the amount of impact that you guys have had
39:15
in creating this ecosystem that so many of us are involved in because it does make a difference in the end.
39:20
Yeah. One of the things I'm a little bit disappointed about when it comes to Wangi Day, we had plans to do like a
39:25
create a meetup uh in that weekend in Oakuckland and invite along all the like local people on the left who are doing
39:32
it. that it just it can't happen unfortunately now which is a bit of a bummer because I think it is important that um you know we always are of the
39:39
opinion here that a rising tide lifts all boats which is why we start things and support things and why on the BHN
39:45
site we've got you know friends of BHN and um we just want to we want the ecosystem
39:51
that is the left like I think I said last week they have the money but we have the money someone a designer
39:58
actually sent me a copy of a t-shirt says that would be a great saying so we're looking at But um I agree with
40:04
that. But it's sad how often money will outbeat the mana in whatever world or
40:11
whatever political or whatever country you're kind of sitting in. Money seems to be uh
40:17
that's Hobson's ultimate card. They pay for something knowing that paying for it is going to
40:24
be the thing that gets in the free press. That's how money works for these people. It shows a lack of integrity and
40:30
I think we need to point that out is at every opportunity. There is no integrity in the way they work. Hey Paul, uh you're doing beautiful
40:37
work. Thank you for coming and jumping in and joining us tonight. Um we're really enjoying
40:42
I figured Christopher Luxon must have canceled on you if you wanted me. So I'm quite happy to take his spot.
40:48
Yeah, you just need to shave your head, mate. Do a little do a little thing. No,
40:53
no, that'll that'll never happen. We uh we uh appreciate you and I know that the
40:58
people watching and listening appreciate you. It's very evident as to whenever
41:03
you're in or around what we're doing. The commentary online as to the quality
41:10
of the team last night like people talking about the dream team getting together and what a lineup and it's
41:17
good. It's real good and and thank you for all the work you've put in up until this point and we look forward to another 12 months from here. Um, it's I
41:24
don't I'm not predicting what's going to happen other than it's going to be a hell of a ride up till the next
41:29
election. Yeah, it's all right. We'll get there. We'll fix things. We'll kick this lot out. Hopefully help Winston retire
41:36
forever. I think uh I I was going to say something uh that could be taken the
41:42
wrong way like death trying to work on that. But I think Winston Peters has probably gambled with death a few times and Winston Peters always seems to come
41:48
out. I honestly think he's just too pickled at this stage. There is there is just so much preservative and and alcohol in his
41:54
body that it's going to take an asteroid to take him out. Yeah. All right, dude. Be well. If we don't
41:59
speak to you beforehand, have a great Christmas and uh yeah, look forward into a rocking 2026.
42:05
Bring it on. All right, cool. Thanks, Paul. Cheers, Paul.
42:10
[Music]
