This ongoing battle between the powerful and the public media has been becoming more and more one-sided over recent years. According to the Public Relations Institute of New Zealand, the public sector is the main employer of comms staff. And the state model has arguably disconnected the media outlets from their audiences and made them beholden to their funders, not the viewers. He believes a lot of the media outlets conspire to keep certain perspectives out of the public debate, narrowing debate and disparaging those outside the narrow consensus. Peters says the $55m that was given to various private and public media outlets had “strings attached”, and this has fuelled public distrust in the media’s reporting, especially on topics such as Crown-Māori relations and Three Waters.

Source: Stuff March 01, 2024 20:32 UTC