Analysis by Keith Rankin.
Role: Economic historian.
Keith Rankin, 17 June 2026 – Yesterday morning I listened to John Cambell (RNZ) interviewing an Iranian-born New Zealander, who came to Australia as a refugee 42 years ago, and subsequently moved on to New Zealand. (Refer Iranian-born Kiwi hopeful following deal signing, RNZ 16 June 2026.)
Iran was in the news that day both because of the previous day’s US-Iran armistice ‘deal’ and because New Zealand was scheduled to play Iran in the FIFA Football World Cup in Los Angeles yesterday afternoon (NZ-time).
Campbell (asking about the deal): “I suspect you have thoroughly mixed feelings this morning, do you?”
Kiwi-Iranian (who I will not name here, because he is not a public person): “Yes we do, and hopeful that peace is finally there. Talking to my family they still can’t believe that peace will be achieved there because the third party in that war has not fully committed themselves to that peace, and that’s Israel.”
Campbell: “And of course, sorry to interrupt but … [as Cambell shuts off the Israel talk with a few platitudes]. Can you describe what your family in Iran have been living through during this period?”
Kiwi-Iranian: “Two of my cousins got injured but they couldn’t go to the hospital because of the fear of America brutally attacking Iran; the hospital, the university, the infrastructure, the ping-pong execution of the regime [ie the assassinations of some of Iran’s leaders] … imagine living in there and when the bomb comes and thinking the next one is for me. On top of that the regime has expanded their executions …”. The interviewee finally said something in relation to what Campbell was probing for, evidence of governmental violence notwithstanding the fact that the nation of Iran may have been experiencing attack in early March from within as well as from without; given that such attacks from within – immediately after the start of the war – were the full expectation of the “brutal” American and Israeli aggressors.
Campbell: [more pushing for statements about whether the regime is more or less evil than before]
Kiwi-Iranian after giving answers to these questions as quickly as he could, resumed his own voice [which Campbell had being trying to hijack]: “John, one thing we’ve got to realise as Kiwis is that this war break the international law, the Article 51 of the United Nations – they violated that law – and New Zealand said nothing. New Zealand Kiwis give a lot in World War One and World War Two; a lot of Kiwis die to create an international law to protect human beings. If we don’t respect that, if we don’t follow that, if we don’t honour those laws, what do we expect tomorrow if they attack New Zealand; if somebody attack New Zealand, which law will protect us? We have got to point out that the New Zealand government failed to acknowledge this.”
Campbell [ignoring everything unprompted that the interviewee had said, from his own voice]: “I want to ask you about the failure of the justification of the war … [not at all acknowledging that the interviewee had clearly said that there was no justification for the war, and that the interviewee was speaking on behalf of the attacked party], so the regime [a loaded word, Campbell could have said ‘government’] – and you are not alone in saying this [and the interviewee said this only after having been earlier prompted by Campbell] is now tougher more hardline and less sentimental than it was before [failing to acknowledge that there has been no ‘regime change’, and that no nation or government under attack can ever act in exactly the same manner while defending themselves from multiple strikes than they were before hostilities commenced] and further emboldened by their leverage over the Strait of Hormuz, right [interviewee tried to get a word in edgeways], so in real terms what has this conflict achieved? What has President Trump achieved?” [The interviewee has already answered that, ‘mass destruction of civilian infrastructure’ and ‘ping-pong executions’ of political and military leaders; but Campbell is trying to extract a political comment from this guy as if he is a technocrat who can answer for the party attacking his country.]
Interviewee: “They have achieved nothing. What they have achieved is they have strengthened the regime [yes, Iranians are patriotic too; it is normal to put domestic politics aside when your country is being attacked with missiles]; they have realised that like China that maybe they are not a military force against America, they don’t have a nuclear bomb, but that they can turn the war to the economy, which affects everyone including you and I, our standard of living. So, they kill thousands of Iranians, Iran got stronger, Iran’s going to support the forces against Israel, the Hezbollah and the terrorists, and they’re going to get their money. The conversation is that the Europeans are going to ease the sanctions on Iran. By the way the whole sanction business will always say that sanctions should be aimed at governments not at the ordinary people; why don’t they release food and medicine for Iran; at the moment thousands of people are out of work, Iran doesn’t have social benefits like we have got in New Zealand, so people are struggling, really struggling, the condition of living is really worse for them. The regime has got their own supporters in the street flag-waving and destroying any oppositions; they [ie the aggressors] have achieved nothing but make the conditions worse for Iranians”.
Campbell gets his way in the end, in that the interviewee, who has not been in Iran for over four decades, does kind-of condemn the Iranian government, following a series of leading questions. Good on the interviewee for making his principal points, despite not having been asked (except in a very general way) about the external aggression that Iran has faced, and despite Campbell’s manoeuvres to shift the discussion from the interviewee’s narrative towards a validation of the Campbell narrative. And despite Campbell’s clear desire to push the story away from Israel. Interviewers need to appreciate that listeners want to hear the voices of the interviewees, not the interruptions, quips, and steering by the interviewers.
Campbell didn’t even ask the interviewee who he was supporting in today’s World Cup match!
Campbell’s ‘summary’ of this interview came half an hour later, in another interview, BBC’s Frank Gardner with latest on US/Iran deal signing: “We had an Iranian New Zealander on about half an hour ago, and he said that we have a new regime that in some respects is more hardline and tougher and less sentimental [whatever ‘sentimental’ means here] in its response to opposition in Iran”. These are Campbell’s talking points, John Campbell’s voice; not the voice of his interviewee.
John Campbell wouldn’t think that his style of journalism is propaganda; and he’s probably not pushing his own personal agenda here. Nevertheless, his line of questioning prompts certain kinds of answers and moves away quickly when the answers don’t fit the intended line of response. The propaganda lies in the presumptive Eurocentric narrative(s) which Campbell and his colleagues have absorbed through repetitive exposure to these narratives; and limited exposure to narratives which run counter to these. This uncritical absorption of narratives, unprofessional for an enquiring journalist, is professional practice to social technocrats (people who apply narrative ‘knowledge’ to their daily work practice). Indeed, Campbell treated his guest as a social technocrat rather than as a family member of victims of lethal aggression from the west beyond Iran’s borders.
This kind of ‘journalism’ has of course become commonplace, not only at RNZ. Indeed, almost every time I hear about Israel’s blatant military expansion into Lebanon, the story – whether on TV3, TVNZ, or RNZ – presupposes that every act by the Israeli military in Lebanon is a ‘defensive’ response to some past, present or future act by Hezbollah (subtext, by some Iranian-backed ‘terrorist’).
(Hezbollah, we should note, was formed among the refugee Palestinians and resident [mostly Shia] Muslim Lebanese in 1982, as a resistance movement – not a terrorist movement – in response to the terror invasion of Lebanon by the Butcher of Beirut, Ariel Sharom. I have a book at home – still on my bookshelf unread – called Assassination of the Butcher of Prague – which is about the (often counterproductive) resistance to the Nazi terror occupation of Czechoslovakia in 1942. That Czech resistance movement is never referred to with the disparaging sense of ‘evil’ which our media perpetually apply to Hezbollah.)
Re Lebanon, the New Zealand media almost never reports the ‘double-hit’ tactics by the IDF, whereby – after an allegedly anti-Hezbollah ‘operation’ – there is often a second strike which targets local paramedics or journalists. Further, the New Zealand media – and I mean the likes of RNZ and TVNZ – do not report the ongoing Israel genocide in Gaza (where it is common for ten or so people to have been murdered in their tents or their rubble in a single day and where there is now virtually zero Hamas or other resistance, given that the ‘terrorists’ largely observe the negotiated Cease-Fire). And, even – before 2026 – when there was much Hamas resistance in Gaza, these New Zealand media outlets barely reported the ongoing Israeli military and settler atrocities in the ‘West Bank’, where there was no Hamas, mainly Ghandi-like peaceful resistance.
Another issue with the journalism is the repeated presumption that there has been ‘regime change’ in Iran. Well, no! The democratically-elected president’s the same, the foreign minister is the same, the murdered Supreme Leader has been replaced by his son, and the important Speaker of the Islamic Consultative Assembly (who will sign the deal) has been there since 2020. Not only is the Islamic Republic still the same, three of the four most important personnel are the same, and the fourth appears to be a younger carbon copy of his elderly now deceased father.
The Following Day
This morning’s coverage of the football match was somewhat disrespectful, in that after an excellent game of football with four excellent free-flowing goals scored, the coverage barely mentioned the Iranian players’ contribution to the game. (Refer All Whites draw with Iran at FIFA World Cup.)
While the New Zealand players and fans clearly appreciated Iran’s contribution to the game – as indeed did the many expatriate Iranian fans, some of whom were politically ambivalent – the New Zealand media only described New Zealand’s performance and the excellence of New Zealand’s goals.
About the writer:
Keith Rankin (keith at rankin dot nz), trained as an economic historian, is a retired lecturer in Economics and Statistics. He lives in Auckland, New Zealand.