With the sudden departure of New Zealand’s Reserve Bank Governor, one has to ask whether there is a pattern here — of a succession of public sector leaders leaving their posts in uncertain circumstances and a series of decisions being made without much regard for due process.

It brings to mind the current spectacle of federal government politics playing out in the United States. Four years ago, we observed a concerted attempt by a raucous and determined crowd to storm the Capitol.

Now a smaller, more disciplined and just as determined band is entering federal offices in Washington almost unhindered, to close agencies and programmes and to evict and terminate the employment of thousands of staff.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

COMMENTARY: By Victoria Fielding

I once heard someone say that when the Left and the Right became polarised — when they divorced from each other — the Left got all the institutions of truth including science, education, justice and democratic government.

The Right got the institution of manipulation: the media. This statement hit me for six at the time because it seemed so clearly true.

What was also immediately clear is that there was an obvious reason why the Left sided with the institutions of truth and the Right resorted to manipulation. It is because truth does not suit right-wing arguments.

The existence of climate change does not suit fossil fuel billionaires. Evidence that wealth does not trickle down does not suit the capitalist class. The idea that diversity, equity and inclusion (yes, I put those words in that order on purpose) is better for everyone, rather than a discriminatory, hateful, destructive, divided unequal world is dangerous for the Right to admit.

The Right’s embrace of the media institution also makes sense when you consider that the institutions of truth are difficult to buy, whereas billionaires can easily own manipulative media.

Just ask Elon Musk, who bought Twitter and turned it into a political manipulation machine. Just ask Rupert Murdoch, who is currently engaged in a bitter family war to stop three of his children opposing him and his son Lachlan from using their “news” organisations as a form of political manipulation for right-wing interests.

Right-wingers also know that truthful institutions only have one way of communicating their truths to the public: via the media. Once the media environment is manipulated, we enter a post-truth world.

Experts derided as untrustworthy ‘elitists’
This is the world where billionaire fossil fuel interests undermine climate action. It is where scientists create vaccines to save lives but the manipulated public refuses to take them. Where experts are derided as untrustworthy “elitists”.

And it is where the whole idea of democratic government in the US has been overthrown to install an autocratic billionaire-enriching oligarchy led by an incompetent fool who calls himself the King.

Once you recognise this manipulated media environment, you also understand that there is not — and never has been — such as thing as a rational public debate. Those engaged in the institutions of the Left — in science, education, justice and democratic government — seem mostly unwilling to accept this fact.

Instead, they continue to believe if they just keep telling people the truth and communicating what they see as entirely rational arguments, the public will accept what they have to say.

I think part of the reason that the Left refuses to accept that public debate is not rational and rather, is a manipulated bin fire of misleading information, including mis/disinformation and propaganda, is because they are not equipped to compete in this reality. What do those on the Left do with “post-truth”?

They seem to just want to ignore it and hope it goes away.

A perfect example of this misunderstanding of the post-truth world and the manipulated media environment’s impact on the public is this paper, by political science professors at the Australian National University Ian McAllister and Nicholas Biddle.

Stunningly absolutist claim
Their research sought to understand why polling at the start of the 2023 Indigenous Voice to Parliament Referendum showed widespread public support for the Voice but over the course of the campaign, this support dropped to the point where the Voice was defeated with 60 per cent voting “No” and 40 per cent, “Yes”.

In presenting their study’s findings, the authors make the stunningly absolutist claim that:

‘…the public’s exposure to all forms of mass media – as we have measured it here – had no impact on the result’.

A note is then attached to this finding with the caveat:

‘As noted earlier, given the data at hand we are unable to test the possibility that the content of the media being consumed resulted in a reinforcement of existing beliefs and partisanship rather than a conversion.’

This caveat leaves a gaping hole in the finding by failing to account for how media reinforcing existing beliefs is an important media effect – as argued by Neil Gavin here. Since it was not measured, how can they possibly say there was no effect?

Furthermore, the very premise of the author’s sweeping statement that media exposure had no impact on the result of the Referendum is based on two naive assumptions:

• that voters were rational in their deliberations over the Referendum question; and
• that the information environment voters were presented with was rational.

Dual assumption of rationality
This dual assumption of rationality – one that the authors interestingly admit is an assumption – is evidenced in their hypothesis which states:

‘Voters who did not follow the campaign in the mass media were more likely to move from a yes to a no vote compared to voters who did follow the campaign in the mass media.’

This hypothesis, the authors explain, is premised on the assumption ‘that those with less information are more likely to opt for the status quo and cast a no vote’, and therefore that less exposure to media would change a vote from “Yes” to “No”. What this hypothesis assumes is that if a voter received more rational information in the media about the Referendum, that information would rationally drive their vote in the “Yes” direction. When their data disproved this hypothesis, the authors used this finding to claim that the media had no effect.

To understand the reality of what happened in the Referendum debate, the word “rational” needs to be taken out of the equation and the word “manipulated” put in.

We know, of course, that the Referendum was awash with manipulative information, which all supported the “No” campaign. For example, my study of News Corp’s Voice coverage — Australia’s largest and most influential news organisation — found that News Corp actively campaigned for the “No” proposition in concert with the “No” campaign, presenting content more like a political campaign than traditional journalism and commentary.

A study by Queensland University of Technology’s Tim Graham analysed how the Voice Referendum was discussed on social media platform, X. Far from a rational debate, Graham identified that the “No” campaign and its supporters engaged in a participatory disinformation propaganda campaign, which became a “truth market” about the Voice.

The ‘truth market’
This “truth market” was described as drawing “Yes” campaigners into a debate about the truth of the Voice, sidetracking them from promoting their own cause.

What such studies showed was that, far from McAllister and Biddle’s assumed rational information environment, the Voice Referendum public debate was awash with manipulation, propaganda, disinformation and fear-mongering.

The “No” campaign that delivered this manipulation perfectly demonstrates how the Right uses media to undermine institutions of truth, to undermine facts and to undermine the rationality of democratic debates.

The completely unfounded assumption that the more information a voter received about the Voice, the more likely they would vote “Yes”, reveals a misunderstanding of the reality of a manipulated public debate environment present across all types of media, from mainstream news to social media.

It also wrongly treats voters like rational deliberative computers by assuming that the more information that goes in, the more they accept that information. This is far from the reality of how mediated communication affects the public.

The reason the influence of media on individuals and collectives is, in reality, so difficult to measure and should never be bluntly described as having total effect or no effect, is that people are not rational when they consume media, and every individual processes information in their own unique and unconscious ways.

One person can watch a manipulated piece of communication and accept it wholeheartedly, others can accept part of it and others reject it outright.

Manipulation unknown
No one piece of information determines how people vote and not every piece of information people consume does either. That’s the point of a manipulated media environment. People who are being manipulated do not know they are being manipulated.

Importantly, when you ask individuals how their media consumption impacted on them, they of course do not know. The decisions people make based on the information they have ephemerally consumed — whether from the media, conversations, or a wide range of other information sources, are incredibly complex and irrational.

Surely the re-election of Donald Trump for a second time, despite all the rational arguments against him, is proof that the manipulated media environment is an incredibly powerful weapon — a weapon the Right, globally, is clearly proficient at wielding.

It is time those on the Left caught up and at least understood the reality they are working in.

Dr Victoria Fielding is an Independent Australia columnist. This article was first published by the Independent Australia and is republished with the author’s permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

A new edition of the Okinawan Journal of Island Studies features social justice island activism, including a case study of Aotearoa New Zealand’s Pacific Media Centre, in what the editors say brings a sense of “urgency” in the field of diversity, equity, and inclusion in scholarship.

In the editorial, the co-editors — Tiara R. Na’puti, Marina Karides, Ayano Ginoza, Evangelia Papoutsaki — describe this special issue of the journal as being guided by feminist methods of collaboration.

They say their call for research on social justice island activism has brought forth an issue that centres on the perspectives of Indigenous islanders and women.

“Our collection contains disciplinary and interdisciplinary research papers, a range of contributions in our forum section (essays, curated conversations, reflection pieces, and photo essays), and book reviews centred on island activist events and activities organised locally, nationally, or globally,” the editorial says.

“We are particularly pleased with our forum section; its development offers alternative forms of scholarship that combine elements of research, activism, and reflection.

“Our editorial objective has been to make visible diverse approaches for conceptualising island activisms as a category of analysis.

‘Complexity and nuance’
“The selections of writing here offer complexity and nuance as to how activism shapes and is shaped by island eco-cultures and islanders’ lives.”

The co-editors argue that “activisms encompass multiple ways that people engage in social change, including art, poetry, photographs, spoken word, language revitalisation, education, farming, building, cultural events, protests, and other activities locally and through larger networks or movements”.

Thus this edition of OJIS brings together island activisms that “inform, negotiate, and resist geopolitical designations” often applied to them.

Geographically, the islands featured in papers include Papua New Guinea, Prince Edward Island, and the island groups of Kanaky, Okinawa, and Fiji.

Among the articles, Meghan Forsyth’s ‘La langue vient de la musique’: Acadian song, language transmission, and cultural sustainability on Prince Edward Island engagingly examines the “sonic activism” of the Francophone community in Canada’s Prince Edward Island.

“Also focused on visibility and access, David Robie’s article ‘Voice of the Voiceless’: The Pacific Media Centre as a case study of academic and research advocacy and activism substantiates the need for bringing forward journalistic attention to the Pacific,” says the editorial.

Dr Robie emphasises the need for critical and social justice perspectives in addressing the socio-political struggles in Fiji and environmental justice in the Pacific broadly, say the co-editors.

In the article My words have power: The role of Yuri women in addressing sorcery violence in Simbu province of Papua New Guinea, Dick Witne Bomai shares the progress of the Yuri Alaiku Kuikane Association (YAKA) in advocacy and peacebuilding.

In ‘La Pause Décoloniale’: Women decolonising Kanaky one episode at a time, Anaïs Duong-Pedica, “provides a discussion of French settler colonialism and the challenges around formal decolonisation processes in Kanaky”.

Inclusive feminist thinking
The article engages with “women’s political activism and collaborative practice” of the podcast and radio show La Pause Décoloniale.

The co-editors say the edition’s forum section is a result of “inclusive feminist thinking to make space for a range of approaches combining scholarship and activism”.

They comment that the “abundance of submissions to this section demonstrates the desire for academic outlets that stray from traditional models of scholarship”.

“Feminist and Indigenous scholar-activists seem especially inclined towards alternative avenues for expressing and sharing their research,” the coeditors add.

Eight books are reviewed, including New Zealand’s Peace Action: Struggles for a Decolonised and Demilitarised Oceania and East Asia, edited by Valerie Morse.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

When New Zealand’s opposition National Party’s transport spokesperson, Simeon Brown, questioned the logic of bilingual traffic signs, he seemed to echo his leader Christopher Luxon’s earlier misgivings about the now prevalent use of te reo Māori in government departments.

Genuine concern or political signalling in an election year? After all, Luxon himself has expressed interest in learning te reo, and also encouraged its use when he was CEO of Air New Zealand.

He even sought to trademark “Kia Ora” as the title of the airline’s in-flight magazine.

And for his part, Brown has no problem with Māori place names on road signs. His concern is that important messaging about safety or directions should be readily understood. “Signs need to be clear,” he said.

“We all speak English, and they should be in English.” Adding more words, he believes, is simply confusing.

It’s important to take Brown at his word, then, with a new selection of proposed bilingual signs now out for public consultation. Given the National Party’s enthusiastic embrace of AI to generate pre-election advertising imagery, one obvious place to start is with ChatGPT, which tells us:

Bilingual traffic signs, which display information in two or more languages, are generally not considered a driver hazard. In fact, bilingual signage is often implemented to improve safety and ensure that drivers of different language backgrounds can understand and follow the traffic regulations.

ChatGPT also suggests that by providing information about speed limits, directions and warnings, bilingual traffic signs “accommodate diverse communities and promote road safety for all drivers”.

‘They should be in English’: National to ditch te reo Māori traffic signs https://t.co/7FGYyQDrPu

— RNZ News (@rnz_news) May 26, 2023

Safety and culture
With mounting concern over AI’s potential existential threat to human survival, however, it’s probably best we don’t take the bot’s word for it.

Fortunately, government transport agency Waka Kotahi has already examined the use of bilingual traffic signs in 19 countries across the Americas, Asia, Europe and the Middle East. It’s 2021 report states:

The use of bilingual traffic signage is common around the world and considered “standard” in the European Union. Culture, safety and commerce appear to be the primary impetuses behind bilingual signage.

Given Brown’s explicit preference for the use of English, it’s instructive that in the UK itself, the Welsh, Ulster Scots and Scots Gaelic languages appear alongside English on road signs in Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland.

More to the point, on the basis of the evidence it reviewed, Waka Kotahi concluded that — providing other important design considerations are attended to — bilingual traffic signs can both improve safety and respond to cultural aspirations:

In regions of Aotearoa New Zealand where people of Māori descent are over-represented in vehicle crash statistics, or where they represent a large proportion of the local population, bilingual traffic signage may impart benefits in terms of reducing harm on our road network.

‘One people’
Politically, however, the problem with a debate over bilingual road signs is that it quickly becomes another skirmish in the culture wars — echoing the common catchcry of those opposed to greater biculturalism in Aotearoa New Zealand: “We are one people”.

It’s a loaded phrase, originally attributed to the Crown’s representative Lieutenant Governor William Hobson, who supposedly said “he iwi tahi tātou” (we are one people) at the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840.

Whether or not he said any such thing is up for debate. William Colenso, who was at Waitangi on the day and who reported Hobson’s words, thought he had.

But Colenso’s account was published 50 years after the events in question (and just nine years before he died aged 89).

Either way, the assertion has since come to be favoured by those to whom the notion of cultural homogeneity appeals. It’s a common response to the increasing public visibility of te ao Māori (the Māori world).

But being “one people” means other things become singular too: one law, one science, one language, one system. In other words, a non-Māori system, the one many of us take for granted as simply the way things are.

Any suggestion that system might incorporate or coexist with aspects of other systems — indeed might benefit from them — tends to come up against the kind of resistance we see to such things as bilingual road signs.

Fretful sleepers
The discomfort many New Zealanders still feel with the use of te reo Māori in public settings brings to mind Bill Pearson’s famous 1952 essay, Fretful Sleepers.

In it, Pearson reflects on the anxiety that can seep unbidden into the lives of those who would like to live in a “wishfully untroubled world”, but who nonetheless sense things are not quite right out here on the margins of the globe.

Pearson lived in a very different New Zealand. But he had his finger on the same fear and defensiveness that can cause people to fret about the little things (like bilingual signs) when there are so many more consequential things to disrupt our sleep.

Anyway, Simeon Brown and his fellow fretful sleepers appear to be on the wrong side of history. Evidence suggests most New Zealanders would like to see more te reo Māori in their lives, not less.

Two-thirds would like te reo taught as a core subject in primary schools, and 56 percent think “signage should be in both te reo Māori and English”.

If the experience in other parts of the world is anything to go by, bilingual signage will be just another milestone on the road a majority seem happy to be on.

Dr Richard Shaw, Professor of Politics, Massey University.  This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

COMMENTARY: By Rob Campbell

Just as we are making some progress on diversity and inclusion policies in business governance and management my perverse mind is starting to have doubts.

Initially around gender diversity I was an enthusiastic camp follower. It seemed a relevant part of progressive social change.

As Te Whatu Ora chair, I was an advocate and supporter of a much stronger role for Māori in health governance and management. I was a strong promoter of inclusion in all my roles such as at Summerset, Tourism Holdings and Sky City.

I was recognised for this when awarded Chair of the Year a few years back, and the Beacon Award from the Shareholders’ Association at about the same time.

I think that we have made progress at business board and senior management level — by no means complete but barriers have been reduced and seats filled more appropriately.

I confess that even while I and many others were advocating and implementing this, my doubts crept in as the narrative morphed from one primarily about rights into one more based on demonstrated benefits, for example, to profitability.

Then the prize-giving started, the “champions” preened, and one could not help but wonder what interests were really being served. It really was not all that difficult or radical in its impact as after all — the replacements were from the same class and education and non-cis gender characteristics as the old.

Long overdue
It is a good thing rather than bad of course, long overdue and still far from complete.

But the old hierarchies and principles of business control, practice and ownership have not been that much affected. We have more women in influential roles but the roles and expectations of those in the roles have not changed very much. Higher gender representation is a step on the way to gender equity in the workplace but not a final goal.

My perception is that ethnic diversity is facing an even harder road. There has been some progress but it seems that neither the will nor the availability of “suitable” candidates is as strong as it is on gender.

Of course this tells us something — our perception about what is “suitable” is limited and excludes all but a few from non-Pākehā communities. It is not that such communities do not have highly capable leaders but that the capability does not readily match the ways business expects its governance and management to be.

You could be kind and call this a cultural difference. Similar issues may hold back business governance diversity in terms of non-cis gender differences and neuro differences. Maybe what business wants is not real and far reaching diversity but “acceptable or non-disruptive” diversity.

Welcome to the boardroom and the executive floor on the terms that have always prevailed.

So this makes me think about “inclusion” too. There is an increasing range of inclusion programmes, training and schemes. My inclination is to welcome and support these and, as with gender, I have seen and celebrated individuals step up within such processes and succeed.

Cue more prizes, awards and media releases.

Common theme
But I see a common theme as we progress. Business is making pathways some for people from other cultures to become acceptable or suitable — on the terms of business. Colonialism has always done this politically and we can see this commercially as well.

These are adaptable social systems well capable of changing appearance without changing substance.

Companies co-opting or paying mere lip service to diversity and inclusion? It’s almost universal.

I admire the people who take these opportunities. They often have to change a lot, to take on more than their peers at work, to model and represent. But business inclusion is inclusion into the world of business not business changing to match another culture, other than quite superficially.

I wonder if these processes are not more akin to “assimilation” than genuine diversity and inclusion. That is, always on the terms of the boss. Welcome to our club, on our terms. This assumes superiority of culture.

Just like assimilation sought to obscure and diminish the outside, the minority, the different in order to seem to include. Ultimately assimilation was seen for the destructive force in social policy that it was — a steamroller to flatten diversity not to encourage it.

Like assimilation, I don’t think, now that my thoughts have run to this point, that our “D&I” policies, appointments and programmes, will really be much of a force for change.

That does not make them bad, but lets not pretend they are more than they are. The same people still mainly fill the same roles according to the same rules, doing the same things, as they did before.

I welcome anyone who can convince me otherwise. I don’t like being the grumpy, cynical old man.

Rob Campbell is chancellor of AUT University and chairs NZ Rural Land Co and renewable energy centre Ara Ake. He is a former chair of health agency Te Whatu Ora, the Environmental Protection Authority, SkyCity Casino, Tourism Holdings, WEL Networks and Summerset. He trained as an economist and originally worked as a unionist before eventually becoming a professional director. This article was first published by Newsroom and is republished with the author’s permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Wellington’s Tory Whanau has convincingly won the mayoralty race for Te Whanganui-a-Tara in a triumph for diversity in Aotearoa New Zealand’s local government elections.

She said getting the call to say she had won was “pretty wild”.

Whanau ran as an independent, but was a Green Party chief of staff and digital director for six years before joining local politics.

She beat Andy Foster who was running for a second term as mayor after holding a seat on the city council since 1992. Foster finished second, Ray Chung came in third and Paul Eagle fourth.

In the other major cities, Phil Mauger was winning in Christchurch, Jules Radich prevailing in Dunedin and Wayne Brown claiming victory in Auckland, defeating the Pacific hopeful Fa’anānā Efeso Collins.

Paula Southgate is set to be re-elected as Hamilton’s mayor.

One-term councillor Jules Radich has won the Dunedin mayoralty off incumbent Aaron Hawkins. Radich garnered almost twice the number of first preference votes than any of his rivals.

Narrow lead
The Christchurch council said Mauger had a narrow 4000-vote majority over David Meates with 50,086 votes.

Brown is leading the Auckland mayoralty race with 144,619 votes, ahead of Efeso Collins by 54,808 votes. This progress result reflects about 85 to 90 per cent of votes counted after voting closed at midday today.

Progress results show Tim Shadbolt — who held the record for most elected terms as mayor, eight — losing heavily in Invercargill, with former deputy mayor Nobby Clark winning the top job in Invercargill, and broadcaster Marcus Lush conceding in a tweet.

Results also show Rangitikei mayor Andy Watson has won his fourth term in office, while Neil Brown has been re-elected Mayor of Ashburton by a large majority. Nigel Bowen looks to be re-elected as Timaru mayor and Kirsten Wise will return as Napier mayor for a second term.

Tania Tapsell has been elected as Rotorua’s new mayor. She takes over from Steve Chadwick, who was mayor for three terms. Vince Cocurullo is on track to win the Whangāreri mayoralty and Grant Smith has been releected as Palmerston North mayor.

Andrew Tripe will be the new mayor of Whanganui, beating incumbent Hamish McDouall by about 2000 votes, and Upper Hutt mayor Wayne Guppy has been re-elected for another term.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Aotearoa New Zealand’s ruling Labour’s caucus has unanimously decided to suspend Hamilton West MP Dr Gaurav Sharma effective immediately in the wake of allegations of bullying of and by MPs.

This morning, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s office confirmed the meeting to discuss allegations of bullying raised by Hamilton West MP Gaurav Sharma would take place this afternoon.

The meeting addressed Dr Sharma’s status within the party after he took his concerns to the media rather than usual party processes for dealing with disputes.

Dr Sharma has complained, however, that using those mechanisms have got him nowhere, saying he had tried dealing with the concerns through the party whip’s office and Parliamentary Service for the past year and a half.

He was not at the caucus meeting this afternoon.

“I note that he did find the time to talk to media,” Ardern said.

“Caucus has determined suspension is the most appropriate response to the repeated breaches of trust from Gaurav over recent days.

No longer in caucus
“This means Gaurav will continue as the MP for Hamilton West and be expected to be present at Parliament. However, he will no longer participate in any caucus events or activities unless caucus’ permission is granted.”

Dr Sharma was emailed, phoned, and text messaged to try to get him to attend the meeting today, she said.

Watch the conference 

Labour’s unanimous decision to suspend MP Dr Sharma. Video: RNZ News

Ardern said she called and tried to message him after the meeting this afternoon, as have others, and she hoped this was not the first he had heard of his suspension.

“We have made efforts to convey this information to him directly.”

The whips directly engaged with Dr Sharma on whether he would attend, she said.

“Originally a range of options were sent and they didn’t receive a response. They then proposed a time and they were told at that time that no, at that time Gaurav had a specific event.

“They then advised that we would set a meeting time at a time that suited Gaurav today, he advised that nearer to 3[pm] would suit so whips suggested 2.30, we then at that point didn’t receive any further engagement.”

All of Labour’s MPs were invited to attend today, she said.

Labour’s caucus has unanimously decided to suspend MP Gaurav Sharma effective immediately https://t.co/qogiWItoxG

— RNZ News (@rnz_news) August 16, 2022

Decision unanimous
She said the decision was unanimous, and the team was clear that to function as a political party in a place where open debate and dialogue was key, members needed to be able to trust their colleagues.

“You need to feel you can speak openly and freely. That sense of trust has been broken by repeated breaches of our caucus rules over the last five days and that made the decision very clear,” she said.

Ardern and party leadership have continued to refer to the allegations — which in particular accuse former whip Kieran McAnulty of bullying and gaslighting — as an employment concern between Dr Sharma and the staff in his office.

RNZ has sought comment from McAnulty repeatedly but he has not responded.

Ardern said, based on the documents she has reviewed, the Labour whip’s office and Parliamentary Service began working with Dr Sharma to address concerns raised about his staff management. He was then asked to work with a mentor, which he objected to.

“Finally agreement was reached at the end of last year. Further issues were later raised by additional staff members including those in his direct employment, This resulted in another pause on hirinig and again coaching, mentoring and temporary staff in the meantime.

“Gaurav again objected to this intervention and the need for his future hiring of staff or undertakings on his part. A protracted process ensued.”

No other concerns
Ardern said she still had heard no concerns raised by any other MPs about McAnulty.

She said she did not recall Dr Sharma ever raising his concerns with her and she had gone through records of events and text messages after hearing about his concerns last week.

“I have not gone through everything but from what I can see he is a member who I’ve had less engagement with than most, that is fair to say … he’s never raised the issue directly with me, and that is an expectation I would have because it’s set out in our rules.

“First if there’s an issue you go to the whips. If you’re unable to get resolution you go to either the Labour leader or to someone the Labour leader nominates. And if it’s still unresolved you go to caucus. That didn’t happen.

“He did raise them with my chief-of-staff at the end of last year. He told me about that and he also told me the resolution that was reached between them and I’ve seen the messages that demonstrate that. Neither of us heard anything after that until the events that led to this.”

After he published his column in The New Zealand Herald last Thursday, she called him and he did not pick up, she said. She then sent a text to ask about his welfare, rather than relitigating issues.

“I received one message in response, I won’t go into the details on that but it was essentially setting out his perspective on these issues.”

Bullying not widespread problem
She has consistently refused suggestions that bullying is a widespread problem within the party.

One of his allegations was found to have no basis, she said, but he has continued to make them.

“I am equally concerned that staff members have been implicated by the level of detail that’s been shared … we considered whether or not for transparency we should release some of the communications to demonstrate our perspective on what has occurred here but again that runs the risk of exposing staff.”

She said Dr Sharma’s status would be reviewed in December, to allow a chance for a return to caucus if trust with him was able to be restored.

“But in making the decision to suspend, caucus were clear that the team retains the right to revisit the decision at any time if the rules continue to be broken. To be clear, the caucus’ decision was squarely focused on actions over the last few days. What gave rise to those actions also deserves some reflection.”

Ardern said there were grounds for expulsion under the caucus rules, but the team wanted to send a message that while their trust had been lost and they considered the situation very egregious, they were a team that wanted to give second chances.

“If he does that there’s a pathway back, if he doesn’t then he will be expelled.”

She said the exact date in December for revisiting the decision had not been decided upon.

Options at that time could include continued suspension, a return to caucus, or expulsion. At this point, the possibility of sending a letter to the Speaker to request his removal from Parliament under the waka jumping law has not been discussed.

Informal caucus meeting last night
As the meeting started this afternoon, Dr Sharma contacted RNZ claiming an earlier meeting involving some Labour MPs was held last night, without his knowledge.

Ardern said the outcome today was not predetermined at a meeting last night. She said one of the issues of misconduct was that Sharma had been sharing the contents of meetings publicly, which meant people felt they were unable to raise questions or discuss issues.

The reason Sharma was not informed of the meeting last night was “because people did not feel they could have an open conversation with him”.

Sharma claimed he had an image sent to him, a screenshot of the meeting.

“You’d note that probably if someone were deliberately sharing that message it would be more likely a gallery view,” Ardern said.

“I also knew who took that screenshot, it was intended they were trying to capture something else on their phone, the meeting was occurring in the corner at the same time, they accidentally sent it to someone they shouldn’t.

“What they sent was a screenshot of the conversation trying to set a caucus meeting time, it just so happened that they were multitasking … they’re somewhat embarrassed over the situation.”

The meeting last night was not a formal caucus meeting, she said, and she was also clear there would not be a predetermined outcome.

“Natural justice is very important to our team.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

A number of Māori wāhine have put their hat in the ring to become mayor at this year’s Aotearoa New Zealand local body election across the motu in October.

Georgina Beyer is believed to be the first and only Māori woman ever elected as mayor in New Zealand’s history when she became mayor of Carterton in 1995.

Arama Ngāpō had been a councillor for six years before putting her hand up for mayor of South Waikato this election.

Ngāpō said she was confident things would be different after the vote.

“The face of democracy at a local government level is going to change after this October election.”

Diversity was the best representation of a community, Ngāpō said.

However, it was often not seen at a governance level, she said.

‘Indicative of where we stand’
“I don’t think this country has ever seen such a high proportion of Māori people stand but that really is just indicative of where we stand in society.”

No one should look at council and wonder whether they belong there, she said.

But as a practising lawyer, she had experienced that feeling before, she said.

“I guess I am used to being in places that aren’t traditionally comfortable, but we most definitely belong there.”

Tania Tapsell (Te Rarawa, Ngāti Whakaue) is standing for mayor of Rotorua for the first time.

She received more votes as a councillor than the elected mayor, Steve Chadwick, in the two previous elections.

Racist and ageist backlash only fuelled her, she said.

Facing challenging times
“It was almost a challenge where I go, ‘I’m going to prove you wrong’ and I am going to work so hard that there will be no doubt that … Rotorua, for us, or the country for others, was not better off through our involvement.”

Tapsell believed the strong number of wāhine Māori standing for mayor had crystallised from the challenging times the whole country had experienced.

“We now require a different style of leadership. A leadership that is actually connected to all parts of our community because we know only four out of 10 people actually bother to vote.

“That’s why we have had the councils that we’ve had in the past, that haven’t been focused on all areas of the community.”

In the Far North, Kelly Stratford (Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Wai, Ngāi Te Rangi) is also standing for mayor for the first time.

Strong Māori leadership was needed across the motu, Stratford said.

“Society has changed, we have the Māori Health Authority and Māori Wards.

“Some people feel like something has been taken from them and, most of all, Māori feel they are more empowered. We need diverse Māori leadership to lead in these new times of challenge.”

Alongside Stratford, Tapsell and Ngāpo, Māori wāhine are also standing for mayor in Kawerau, Ruapehu and Wellington.

Candidate nominations close at midday 12 August.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

It was announced yesterday that Australian actress Rose Byrne will star as New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern in an upcoming movie about the response to the Christchurch mosque terror attacks of 15 March 2019, titled They Are Us.

The movie will be directed by New Zealand’s Andrew Niccol. The movie’s focus is apparently going to be on the positive impact of a strong leader in the wake of tragedy.

Let’s take a moment to unpack that oversized baggage of white nonsense.

To be clear, this is the peak Karen of film announcements.

We are barely over two years on from one of the deadliest mass shootings in modern history.

The 51 people who were killed and the 40 who were wounded were specifically targeted for their Muslim faith. Those families are still traumatised and recovering from injuries, mourning and missing their loved ones.

They are still painfully experiencing firsts without their loved ones: first day of school, first grandchild being born, first jobs, university graduations and so much more. Their wounds have barely had time to scab over.

Witnesses fighting for ACC support
Uninjured witnesses to the horrific shootings are still fighting for support from the ACC for their mental injuries.

A survivor of the attacks, whose own father was killed that day, reported as recently as Friday that he encountered racist abuse outside his workplace, with no bystander intervention to help.

The Christchurch mosque attacks destroyed the lives of entire families and confirmed the worst fears of the Muslim community in New Zealand: that we aren’t safe anywhere. Not here. And certainly not if we’re Rohingya, not if we’re Uyghur, not if we’re Palestinian, not if we’re in our places of worship or even just crossing the street.

Somebody explain to 9-year-old Fayez Afzaal how to feel any other way as he recovers in a hospital in Ontario, the sole surviving member of his family after his parents, sister and grandmother were murdered by yet another white supremacist terrorist with Islamophobic views.

This attack in Canada happened just this week. You probably didn’t hear about it. Because white women like Rose Byrne and Jacinda Ardern will dominate the headlines while our communities are suffering.

This movie purports to centre a white woman character and her role in the aftermath of a heinous tragedy instead of focusing on the stories of the victims and survivors. It’s being directed by a white man. Hollywood will make money off this. Rose Byrne will be paid a pretty penny.

Remember that there were people in that mosque who literally put their bodies in the firing line and died to protect others, but apparently it’s the white saviour’s story that’s worth telling instead.

Where is the Muslim community?
Where is the Muslim community that was most impacted in this?

And I am not mollified by some “consultation with several members of the mosque”. I’m not naïve enough to believe the scope or depth of that consultation process would have been anywhere near adequate.

How is it okay for others to profit off our pain? How is it okay for Muslims to be de-centred from a story about their suffering? How can we celebrate this tragedy as something that was ultimately a triumph because someone got a pretty photo of Ardern in a hijab and it inspired some graffiti art and a light show in Dubai?

The banning of assault weapons, while important, did nothing to address the core issues of Islamophobia and racism festering in our societies under a thin façade of tolerance.

Similarly, this movie will achieve nothing for the community that was attacked either. It’s exploitative. It’s in bad taste.

USC Annenberg recently published a study on Muslim representation in popular film. It found that in popular films between 2017 – 2019, 181 of 200 films had no Muslim characters at all. Of the nearly 9000 characters in these films, only 1.6 percent of the speaking roles were Muslims.

Not only are we grossly under-represented, but when we’re represented at all it’s either as the victims or perpetrators of violence. And Muslim women are all but invisible on screen. The incredibly diverse ethnic backgrounds of Muslims are also erased in favour of the stereotypical portrayal of a Muslim as being either Middle Eastern or North African.

The film will focus the week following the 15 March Christchurch mosque attacks with Australian actrss Rose Byrne set to play New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, according to US media. Photo: RNZ / AFP

Can we have any confidence?
Given that, how can we have any confidence of this story being told with any sensitivity, nuance or even truthfulness?

If the Christchurch attacks are the subject of a movie, how can we be certain the violence won’t be glorified? That it won’t give hope to would-be attackers that their hateful actions would bring them the notoriety they seek?

That’s not to say we shouldn’t talk about the attacks, but there are at least 91 people I can think of who I would rather see as the subject of any such movie rather than our Prime Minister. Those 91 people and their families are mostly immigrants and refugees, of all ages, racial backgrounds, genders, working across so many industries. I promise you that any one of their stories would be more interesting, and worthy, of immortalising on film.

But Muslims also don’t want to be depicted only as the victims or aggressors of violence. Believe it or not, most of us can get through our entire lives without having thrown, or being on the receiving end, of a punch. We exist outside this context of tragedy too.

However, no one wants to know us on our terms. “They are us” plays nicely in a soft liberal speech, works well as a caption. What does it mean, in practical terms, if we can’t even be seen as the heroes of our own stories.

Saziah Bashir is a freelance journalist commenting on issues of social justice, race and gender. She completed an LLB, BCom and LLM from the University of Auckland. This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

• Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s office clarified that neither she nor the government have any involvement in the film.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Television New Zealand Breakfast host John Campbell has highlighted the essential work that translators and interpreters do.

Associate Professor Ineke Crezee and Auckland University of Technology (AUT) interpreting graduate Dr Mustafa Derbashi were interviewed on Breakfast on International Translation Day, September 30, to help raise awareness of the profession.

“Translators are vital to helping minority communities get equal access to public services, like courts, like doctors, like government assistance,” Campbell said.

Associate Professor Crezee told Campbell that being an interpreter was about being “somebody’s voice”.

“And you have to be humble, because you cannot drown out their voice. You have to represent it as it is,” she said.

Dr Derbashi interpreted for victims at the sentencing for the Christchurch mosque attack terrorist at the High Court in Christchurch in August.

He said that when he came to New Zealand in 2001 he could not speak a word of English.

Prior to that he grew up for 29 years in a United Nations refugee camp in Jordan, which was when he made the decision to help others.

“This profession just makes me really feel privileged, because I have to professional, to be impartial, and to help people to be understood as they are.”

The Pacific Media Centre collaborates with other AUT news sources.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Diversity was in the spotlight last week. Te Wiki o te Reo Māori and Te Wā Tuku Reo Māori were embraced throughout organisations and homes. We also had the annual Diversity Awards NZ celebrating the organisations championing diversity and inclusion in workplaces.

Tellingly, most award recipients talked about ensuring our workplaces are representative of our society.

Having diversity at the table is an excellent and important start, but just as with Te Wiki o te Reo Māori, if our engagement ends there, we lose the full potential diversity and inclusion offer.

Research shows that diverse teams are more creative, innovative, resilient and empathetic. They are more productive and profitable. Shareholders and customers are starting to vote with their wallets too – requiring organisations to embrace diversity and inclusion.

Across New Zealand, our organisations are becoming more diverse due to changing demographics. The latest census data shows almost 40 percent of Kiwis identify as Māori, Pacific or Asian; and more than 55 percent in Auckland.

More than half of us identify as female, a quarter of us weren’t born here, and a quarter have disabilities. We also have an aging population.

But diversity without inclusion is meaningless.

Typical approach
The typical approach to diversity is to record the number of people in each diversity box, including: gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, physical ability, age, beliefs, socio-economic background, and education.

And we are seeing more and more organisations reporting in this way.

In many of my roles throughout my career, I have been the youngest, the only ethnic Indian, and migrant from the Pacific, a religious minority, and one of few women. That’s a few boxes I tick.

And yet I have been told that had I identified with the rainbow community and had a disability, I would be a better poster child for diversity.

We are in such a hurry to put people in boxes, we miss the intersectionality that arises as a result of the multiple forms of diversity they represent. We also fail to see that people have the potential to bring a lot more to the table than ticks in boxes.

A few years ago, a high-achieving Māori woman recalled to me her early experiences on boards. One of her board chairs would seek input from the males at the table and ignore her.

The reporting metrics would have shown a Māori woman on that board, but her knowledge, skills and experience were underutilised.

Tick box exercises
Sadly, such tick box exercises are still prevalent today. If anything, perhaps even more so as appointment panels are under more pressure now to ensure teams are diverse.

A tick box approach to diversity and inclusion also perpetuates stereotypes. By having a token Māori, or Pacific or Asian person at the table, we expect them to represent the views of entire communities. This ignores the huge diversity within Pacific and Asian communities.

We also forget that while we may identify with an ethnicity and its cultural values, our education, socio-economic background, life and work experiences all mean that our views are not going to be representative of everyone in our community. The same applies for people who identify with disabilities or gender minorities.

Just as we need all of us for diversity to exist, the responsibility for harnessing the value of diversity and inclusion lies with all of us too – not only those who are considered diverse, which is often minorities. While it is important leaders set the tone, the onus is on each of us to learn about those different from ourselves – whatever dimension that difference may take.

Step in someone else’s shoes for a day. Covid-19 and the lockdowns magnified some of these differences. Consider that 90 percent of the newly unemployed as a result of covid-19 have been women.

Consider that Māori and Pacific people are more likely to end up in unemployment statistics than other communities.

Consider older colleagues unable to work because they were vulnerable or immunocompromised. Contrast those worried about how to put food on the table with those who complained about missing their regular coffee fix.

Business claims
Many businesses claim they seek to maximise diversity, but their systems promote similarity. Recruiting practices emphasise hiring from historically reliable sources.

Job ads give cues which help attract or turn off certain candidates. Selection practices often tend to choose candidates based on what’s worked in the past.

Within an organisation, dominant cultures tend to subsume all others. This is also reflected in approaches to performance and pay reviews, and promotions, which mean minorities and women continue to stagnate and plateau.

Diversity and inclusion cannot be a one-off exercise. Organisations need strong, sustained and inclusive leadership and culture. A culture where all people feel respected and valued, and not viewed as ticks in a box.

Ziena Jalil is an independent director, strategic consultant, and diversity and inclusion advocate. This article is republished by the Pacific Media Centre with the author’s permission and was originally published by Stuff.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

By Simon Smith

Guled Mire says his new Fulbright NZ scholarship to study at an Ivy League university in the United States sends a strong message to other refugee kids that they can believe in themselves.

The policy adviser and advocate for ethnic communities graduated from Auckland University of Technology with a Bachelor of Arts in 2013, majoring in international studies and policy.

Now he will take up his award, initially studying online, at Cornell University after being awarded a Fulbright General Graduate Award.

READ MORE: Guled Mire’s mission is to improve lives for migrants and refugees in NZ

“Getting this Fulbright scholarship means a lot. Growing up, I was a high school dropout and since I was young I’ve had messages instilled in me telling me I was not good enough for university,” Mire says.

“It sends a strong message to other refugee kids growing up in the country that they too can do it. I’m really excited to be helping to help shape and inspire the next generation of youth who are growing up in this country.”

Guled says New Zealand likes to consider itself as a country that is free of bias and discrimination.

“Perhaps it’s not as overt and open as it is in places overseas, but when you start to dig deeper you start to realise that isn’t the case,” he says.

“I want to look at that and I want to explore how that informs the narratives around discourse, around race, ethnicity and so forth – and I want to actually influence our policy direction.”

Academic success not a given
Mire’s path to academic success was not a given, however.

As a toddler he fled from Somalia to Kenya with his mother and eight siblings, where they spent time in a refugee camp. Four years later, Guled’s family was fortunate to resettle in New Zealand.

Escaping Somalia’s civil war was lifesaving, but the relocation to Hamilton presented new battles for the youngster in the form of racism and negative stereotypes.

Chased by skinheads and told by school teachers that university was not a place for people like him, Mire says he began to internalise these negative messages and wider societal stereotypes of people from refugee and ethnically-diverse backgrounds.

“Those messages that were relayed to me when I was growing up impacted on me, in terms of having confidence in my own abilities,” he says.

“I want young kids to see my success and, I hope, believe in their own abilities – regardless of those negative messages passed down, either unintentionally or intentionally.”

His thinking changed when he later visited Africa again. The trip instilled a new sense of inspiration and he returned to New Zealand and attended AUT.

Education opened doors and opportunities. He developed a keen interest for research and became involved in a highly-publicised study with AUT Associate Professor Camille Nakhid, the chair of the Pacific Media Centre advisory board, on African youth experiences with the New Zealand police and within the justice system.

Mire went on to spend years as a senior public policy adviser in the public service, as well as volunteering in community and governance roles.

“It sends a strong message to other refugee kids growing up in the country that they too can do it. I’m really excited to be helping to help shape and inspire the next generation of youth who are growing up in this country.”

In 2017, Mire co-founded Third Culture Minds with Veena Patel, a non-profit organisation dedicated to advancing positive mental health and wellbeing outcomes for ethnic youth in Aotearoa.

Third Culture Minds recently launched a three-episode mini-documentary series, with the support of the Mental Health Foundation of New Zealand.

Simon Smith is a writer for AUT News.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

In the column, freelance journalist Teuila Fuatai detailed her concerns about the Herald’s record on race and her efforts to raise those with her editors.

It wasn’t what she was originally commissioned to write.

Her editors had asked for an article about racism in New Zealand more generally, covering systemic issues in institutions like Oranga Tamariki, the police, and the justice system.

Fuatai says she started out trying to follow that brief before a conversation with the New Zealand organisers of Black Lives Matter left her feeling she couldn’t follow through on that brief without addressing the Herald’s coverage first.

“I suppose it was just a week after the first protest march in New Zealand and I thought they’d be a great group to speak to as an anti-racism group,” she says.

“It changed when they basically said they didn’t want to talk to me because the Herald and its coverage was racist and upheld structures of white supremacy.”

Criticism hard to bear
The criticism was hard to hear, but Fuatai agreed with the organisers.

The Herald has been criticised over its coverage of race in the past, notably when it published a 2012 column by Paul Holmes calling Waitangi Day a “complete waste” and in 2014 when it printed a white fist on its masthead along with a promise its Waitangi coverage would be “protest-free”.

More recently journalist Madeleine Chapman highlighted the lack of diversity in the paper’s editorial department.

However, the Herald has responded to the Black Lives Matter protests with examinations of racism and colonial legacies in New Zealand – among them, the piece Teuila Fautai was asked to write.

In late June for example, Herald Māori affairs reporter Michael Neilson looked at “a local dispute about trees, which for many is about much more than just trees” under the headline: How Ōwairaka/Mt Albert tree protest became a flashpoint for racism, colonisation debate.

Nielsen has also written in depth about the “statues issue” under the explicit heading “George Floyd protests and racism”.

Fuatai is now a freelancer, but has been on staff at the Herald, and she says many of the paper’s issues with race are structural and systemic.

Newsroom lack of diversity
“I do think that there is a lack of diversity in their newsroom and I do think that we’ve seen, publicly, problematic coverage pointed out – both recent and historic,” she says.

“From my personal perspective I think that we operate in inherently racist structures. So for the Herald to not be like that – it would be an outlier.”

Fuatai went back to her editors offering to write an assessment of the Herald’s coverage of race.

She cited the example of National Geographic which carried out an audit of its history of racist reporting in the leadup to Martin Luther King day in 2018.

That sort of harsh self-reflection is taking place in an increasing number of news organisations around the world, as journalists are called on to re-examine their treatment of race in light of the Black Lives Matter movement.

In the US, The New York Times underwent a staff revolt after publishing a column by the Arkansas senator Tom Cotton which called for the government to send in the military against Black Lives Matter protesters.

Dozens of journalists said the column put the paper’s Black staff in danger, eventually prompting the Times’ Opinion section editor James Bennet to tender his resignation.

Editors forced to resign
The Times wasn’t alone. A top editor of the Philadelphia Inquirer resigned after printing the headline “Buildings Matter Too” during the Black Lives Matter protests.

Editors at other outlets including Variety, Bon Appétit magazine and the fashion and culture website Refinery29 stepped down under employee pressure.

Some newsrooms have moved proactively to improve their coverage. In a tacit acknowledgement of its own failure to cover the issue adequately, The Washington Post has set up a dedicated unit covering race in the US.

Similar discussions are starting to take place here in New Zealand. Under its new owner Sinead Boucher, Stuff is looking to set up a section devoted to covering Te Ao Māori, the Māori world.

Fuatai says editors need to understand the value in promoting people of colour to positions of influence, giving platforms to diverse voices, and catering content to diverse audiences.

“Understand that in 10 years time, your audience and your readership or your viewers – you want to be right there with them in understanding the issues and the conversations that they’re having. Part of that is looking at the makeup of your newsroom. To do that you have to understand the value in actually diversifying,” she told Mediawatch

Fuatai’s first conversation with a Herald editor ended with her being told to stick to her original story brief.

Lengthy editing process
The column published on Monday was the result of a lengthy editing process.

She is pleased with the final result, and with the fact that the paper was willing to confront its record in public.

That sort of self-examination needs to keep happening, not just at the Herald, but in newsrooms across the country, she says.

“You have to work hard to be anti-racist. You have to work against the status quo. I don’t think it’s a bad thing to stand up and say ‘let’s look at ourselves’.”

Challenging racism often means challenging ourselves and those immediately around us. It is difficult and risky, especially in the workplace. A piece about doing it at the NZ Herald – one of the toughest ones I’ve tackled.https://t.co/YtSYmYxBEB

— Teuila Fuatai (@teuilafuatai) June 28, 2020

Herald: ‘We hope to be agents of change’
New Zealand Herald editor Murray Kirkness responded to Teulia Fuatai’s column on Monday with a statement of his own under the headline “We hope to be agents for change”.

“Being accused of racism is a difficult pill to swallow,” he wrote.

“But it would be reckless to dismiss it and say, ‘not on our watch’. We accept the criticism and accept we must do better.”

“We cannot agree with Black Lives Matter’s refusal to engage with Teuila Fuatai. For what hope is there without debate? What future without striving for a shared understanding?

But we can understand their insistence that it is not that group’s responsibility to educate the Herald. No victim should carry that burden,” he wrote.

Kirkness said the Herald’s publisher NZME – which also owns half the country’s radio stations – is committed to accountability and monitors diversity of voice. It formed a diversity and inclusion committee in 2016 overseeing all the company’s media outlets, he said.

“We hope we can be agents for change across society — a role the Herald has fulfilled for more than 150 years,” he wrote.

This article is republished by the Pacific Media Centre under a partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

A teenager held her phone steady enough to capture the final moments of George Perry Floyd’s life as he apparently suffocated under the weight of a Minneapolis police officer’s knee on his neck. The video went viral.

What happened next has played out time and again in American cities after high-profile cases of alleged police brutality.

Vigils and protests were organised in Minneapolis and around the United States to demand police accountability. But while investigators and officials called for patience, unrest boiled over. News reports soon carried images of property destruction and police in riot gear.

READ MORE: US police seen as using excessive force as outrage over George Floyd’s death rises

The general public’s opinions about protests and the social movements behind them are formed in large part by what they read or see in the media. This gives journalists a lot of power when it comes to driving the narrative of a demonstration.

They can emphasiSe the disruption protests cause or echo the dog whistles of politicians that label protesters as “thugs.”

But they can also remind the public that at the heart of the protests is the unjust killing of another black person. This would take the emphasis away from the destruction of the protests and toward the issues of police impunity and the effects of racism in its many forms.

The role journalists play can be indispensable if movements are to gain legitimacy and make progress. And that puts a lot of pressure on journalists to get things right.

My research has found that some protest movements have more trouble than others getting legitimacy. My co-author Summer Harlow and I have studied how local and metropolitan newspapers cover protests. We found that narratives about the Women’s March and anti-Trump protests gave voice to protesters and significantly explored their grievances. On the other end of the spectrum, protests about anti-black racism and indigenous people’s rights received the least legitimizing coverage, with them more often seen as threatening and violent.

Forming the narrative
Decades ago, scholars James Hertog and Douglas McLeod identified how news coverage of protests contributes to the maintenance of the status quo, a phenomenon referred to as “the protest paradigm.” They held that media narratives tend to emphasize the drama, inconvenience and disruption of protests rather than the demands, grievances and agendas of protesters.

These narratives trivialise protests and ultimately dent public support.

Here’s how this theoretically plays out today:

Journalists pay little attention to protests that aren’t dramatic or unconventional.

Knowing this, protesters find ways to capture media and public attention. They don pink “pussy” hats or kneel during the national anthem. They might even resort to violence and lawlessness.

Now the protesters have the media’s attention, but what they cover is often superficial or delegitimising, focusing on the tactics and disruption caused and excluding discussion on the substance of the social movement.

We wanted to explore if this classic theory fit coverage from 2017 – a year of large-scale protests accompanying the first year of Donald Trump’s presidency.

To do so, we analysed the framing of protest reporting from newspapers in Texas. The state’s size and diversity made it a good proxy for the country at large.

In all, we identified 777 articles by searching for terms such as “protest,” “protester,” “Black Lives Matter” and “Women’s March.” This included reports written by journalists in 20 Texas newsrooms, such as the El Paso Times and the Houston Chronicle, as well as syndicated articles from sources like the Associated Press.

We looked at how articles framed the protests in the headline, opening sentence and story structure, and classified the reporting using four recognized frames of protest:

• Riot: Emphasizing disruptive behavior and the use or threat of violence.
• Confrontation: Describing protests as combative, focusing on arrests or “clashes” with police.
• Spectacle: Focusing on the apparel, signs or dramatic and emotional behavior of protesters.
• Debate: Substantially mentioning protester’s demands, agendas, goals and grievances.

We also kept an eye out for sourcing patterns to identify imbalances that often give more credence to authorities than protesters and advocates.

Overall, news coverage tended to trivialize protests by focusing most often on dramatic action. But some protests suffered more than others.

Reports focused on spectacle more often than substance. Much was made of what protesters were wearing, crowd sizes – large and small – celebrity involvement and flaring tempers.

The substance of some marches got more play than others. Around half of the reports on anti-Trump protests, immigration rallies, women’s rights demonstrations and environmental actions included substantial information about protesters’ grievances and demands.

In contrast, Dakota Pipeline and anti-black racism-related protests got legitimising coverage less than 25 percent of the time and were more likely to be described as disruptive and confrontational.

In coverage of a St Louis protest over the acquittal of a police officer who killed a black man, violence, arrest, unrest and disruption were the leading descriptors, while concern about police brutality and racial injustice was reduced to just a few mentions.

Buried more than 10 paragraphs down was the broader context: “The recent St. Louis protests follow a pattern seen since the August 2014 killing of Michael Brown in nearby Ferguson: the majority of demonstrators, though angry, are law-abiding.”

As a consequence of variances in coverage, Texas newspaper readers may form the perception that some protests are more legitimate than others. This contributes to what we call a “hierarchy of social struggle,” in which the voices of some advocacy groups are lifted over others.

Lurking bias
Journalists contribute to this hierarchy by adhering to industry norms that work against less-established protest movements. On tight deadlines, reporters may default to official sources for statements and data.

This gives authorities more control of narrative framing. This practice especially becomes an issue for movements like Black Lives Matter that are countering the claims of police and other officials.

Implicit bias also lurks in such reporting. Lack of diversity has long plagued newsrooms.

In 2017, the proportion of white journalists at The Dallas Morning News and the Houston Chronicle was more than double the proportion of white people in each city.

Protests identify legitimate grievances in society and often tackle issues that affect people who lack the power to address them through other means. That’s why it is imperative that journalists do not resort to shallow framing narratives that deny significant and consistent space to air the afflicted’s concerns while also comforting the very comfortable status quo.

Dr Danielle K. Kilgo is an assistant professor of journalism at Indiana University. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

]]> https://eveningreport.nz/2020/05/27/muller-defends-lack-of-maori-on-opposition-national-front-bench/ Wed, 27 May 2020 06:17:54 +0000 https://eveningreport.nz/2020/05/27/muller-defends-lack-of-maori-on-opposition-national-front-bench/ By RNZ News

New opposition National leader Todd Muller is backing his front bench, saying he chose the shadow cabinet line-up on merit and talent.

While three out of National’s top four ranked MPs are women, there are no Māori MPs on the front bench, or of any other ethnicity.

Māori Party founder Dame Tariana Turia told RNZ she was “gobsmacked” by National’s new line-up given her experience working closely with the party in government.

READ MORE: Todd Muller’s car crash of an interview on Q & A

“Here is a political party that I thought valued the Māori voice… It’s very disappointing to now see that in 2020 there is no Māori voice on the front bench,” she said.

However, Muller told RNZ Morning Report he went with who he believed were his best MPs.

– Partner –

“I looked at it through the lens of my shadow cabinet and I looked at it through the lens of the talent that I have at my disposal which is quite extraordinary in terms of my 55 MPs and the third thing I did, which is different to what has happened in the past, is rather than loading up the shadow cabinet with all the portfolios, I spread the critical and substantive portfolios across the whole team, including Dan Bidois for example who has Workplace Relations and Safety.

“When I put it (party list) forward I didn’t rank it and I also said this isn’t our final list ranking.”

Māori MPs in shadow cabinet
Muller pointed out that his shadow cabinet does contain Māori MPs.

“From my perspective the shadow cabinet is what counts,” he said.

“In that shadow cabinet I have Dr Shane Reti who I brought beside me when I won the leadership as someone who I rate highly and think is already a huge contributor to the National Party and the country and will be a substantive senior minister in my government, and of course Paula Bennett … then beyond that a caucus with Māori representation that is connected hugely in the Māori community.”

Dame Tariana also acknowledged the likes of Dr Reti, ranked 17th, and Harete Hipango, ranked 39th, and believes they deserve a promotion.

“One thing I know about politics – everything is about votes. And if they think that the Māori vote is not going to go their way, are they going to choose any Māori people to be in their top 10? Doesn’t look like it.”

There was also confusion at yesterday’s announcement when Finance spokesperson Paul Goldsmith was declared Māori by deputy leader Nikki Kaye.

Muller said he didn’t consider Goldsmith Māori when sorting out his front bench.

‘That was an error’
“That was an error and we admitted that yesterday,” he said.

“She (Nikki Kaye) obviously wasn’t 100 percent clear on his whakapapa. Mistakes happen and that was acknowledged at the time.

“Certainly from my perspective I am very comfortable with the team we have, I think it is remarkable talent.

“I think my shadow cabinet bests this government’s cabinet in terms of person for person contribution, capacity life experience, lived experience and the ability to help frame up with the wider team a recovery plan for this country that will have substance.”

Muller’s front bench was not only criticised by those outside his party but inside as well.

National list MP and Māori development spokesperson Jo Hayes publicly critiqued Muller’s front bench on Radio Waatea.

“This is not good. We need to remedy this or you need to front it and take it head on and say why. You need to give a better explanation,” she said.

Muller would not say whether he was happy with Hayes voicing her concerns but said he had a conversation with her last night about the issue.

“She was passionate and she obviously shared a view and we talked about it.”

Muller would not disclose if he told her not to speak about the issues in the future.

• This article is republished by the Pacific Media Centre under a partnership agreement with RNZ.
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Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

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