Midweek - anti-nuke angst, gagging, rich list resistance, youth news fails

This is an RNZ podcast. Midweek media watch with Mr. Midweek media watch himself Colin Peacock, who joins me from the studio in Wellington, Hello. How you doing, Emil? I'm doing pretty good, man. Are you a big reader, Colin? No, no, no, no. Too lazy. I just read news stuff on your computer. I'm books hurt my head. I really did like the thought of my Kirsty. Did she say she was sometimes having to furiously finish a book? Yes. Exactly. She'd give herself an hour. I've just got this picture of an otherwise. Farad Brow. dewardite person with sitting a white knuckle gripping this book and just whining out the phone. Popping with rage. Exactly. eggressively turning the pages like the way Mike Hoskins scrunches up paper and throws it in the bin on his breakfast show on another radio station. Curse, cursing past Kirsty. Do you ever do that? Do you ever think, "Oh, past Colin. Wouldn't Eddie it he is?" No. No, no. I never think that about you either. I think about myself quite often though. Alright, let's jump into the media news call and we'll start with talking about our nuclear policy, which we did on this ferry program last night. The Prime Minister received there will be no change for our 40-year-old nuclear policy, which is not much of a headline perhaps on the face of it, but how it ended up in the news this week is quite interesting. Yes, and they also talked about this on the whip just a short time ago on the Wallace Chapman program that precedes your one. You know the one? I do. The whip, the panel. That's the one. Yeah, it was on the whip. And she, Jenna Lynch, was one of the guests from Stuff Senior Political Correspondent there. And she referenced this as well. So yes, this was Pete Hegseth, the US Secretary of War at the Shangri-Laur dialogue in Singapore, where our Defence Minister was also there. It's a sort of intergovernmental and expert gathering, discussing military policy and the government. And the military policy and geopolitics and things like that. So yeah, in the course of it, there was one New Zealand journalist there in this journalist named Chector. It was Anna-Fai Field, formerly a pacific editor of the Washington Post and a New Zealander. And formally editor of the post here in Wellington. And it was all because, as Jenna said, you know, and a prompted Pete Hegseth was able to ask him about his comments where he said, "As he has been saying recently, country spending less than a 3.5% of the GDP on defence were free writing." Does that include New Zealand? She asked him, "It does." And then I think in his response, it became free loading, which does sound worse. Not free writing, it sounds like fun. You know, more of the marry of a free loading. "We can free you right." Well, free loading, it sounds like you're dragging back the, you're bringing the ride to a crashing halt or slowing it down. Don Brasch, Dr. Don Brasch on his blog, also noted this. He said, "One question from a New Zealand freelancer in a Singaporean ballroom suddenly. We're relitigating our nuclear free identity and its place in rapidly reshaping global security order." So you have a free lancer asking a guy talking about free writing, who then turned it into free loading. And that was the trajectory of it, but it was our defence minister Chris Pank later asked by a journalist from Bloomberg about what this might mean for our anti-nuclear policy, where he volunteered that, you know, given that Australia had nuclear powered subs, it would be helpful for us to have that conversation. And then of course, a bit like Rob Campbell, you'll guess just a moment ago, was talking about people having these positions that just sends up red flags. I think anything that sounds like backsliding on a fairly foundational foreign policy of ours, opposition politics, come into play. And you know, that's what forced the Prime Minister into saying there will be no change, no government I lead, etc, etc. So in a sense of it, one sense, you know, we have a couple of days gone by, nothing has changed. And yet it's something that's so sensitive, a kind of third rail issue up there with the capital gains tax and stuff like that, that's deemed to be politically non-negotiable and that becomes news. It was interesting to see how much coverage there was with the C-State, including Azamiej before on this very program. What did you make it like, do you think that this is a genuine story, or was it just kind of a noise which followed from an off the cuff from a defence minister at a big geopolitical conference? Well, it was interesting that, you know, Dr. Don Brasch was commenting and pointing out the intervention of Anna-Fai field, the kind of spark that because back in, I think it was 2005, he was one famously saying that the anti-nuclear policy could be gone by lunchtime if the government changed or so reports of that said at the time. So, I mean, guess fair enough to explore if a national minister and a relatively new one at that level in that role, particularly had somehow indicated that they were open to change even if it wasn't deemed to be politically practical, not beyond the bounds of possibility, there could be some running up the flag pole to see what response it gets. But the Otago Day, the times didn't add to Troyal on it saying it kind of drowned out the point Chris Pekner was making that given that Australia is a formal ally of New Zealand, they're beginning to acquire nuclear-powered vessels. If there are to be formal naval exchanges, then this will be a sticking point. So, the ODT says he was not calling for a vessel of this dearly held longstanding stance. He was just pointing out an issue, which will arise for either this, well, probably a future government, because it would be some time before Australia gets those submarines if indeed they do in the end. So, they're saying, well, you know, it was in the spirit of that dialogue and not something that necessarily needs to be jumped on by the media, but as general interested on the web, you know, this was a misstep by a minister politically speaking, because if you're going to say something like that, you would want to be saying that this would only be possible after consultation and eluting the public to the possibility and, you know, a full canvassing of this, this possibly fraught issue in our political life. So, yeah, she said it was a mistake, so therefore, probably a legit story. And the other aspect of it, Phil Pennington for Aaron Z. wrote a really good story, because if the threat of all this from the blustering secretary of war, Pete Hegseth is, you know, if you don't tow the line, you don't spend what we think is fair and get with the program, then your defense and security relationships, you know, you risk being cut out of the loop. Phil did a really good story about this for Aaron Z published today. Pete Hegseth, freeloading, snipe, should, New Zealand be worried, which kind of laid out the depth of engagement, all the international groupings we belong to, and defense alliances of various types, that we're a part of that, you know, in theory, would have to be unpicked. It makes it a much more complicated story than just Pete Hegseth raising the prospect of us, you know, being outcast as free loaders. Can we not call him the secretary of war, Colin? Come on. What did I just say? Did I say defense? He sees the secretary of defense. I know he wants to be called the secretary of war, but come on. We were equivocating last time, we discussed with him, saying a bit of both, we were alternating. Oh, well, that's interesting anyway. I did find that discourse actually really, really fascinating. And I think it's good for New Zealand to have conversations like that. Right. Let's move on. The New Zealand author of a lidlifting lid about Facebook slash meter was in the news again recently, Colin. Yes, Sarah Wynn Williams, the author of careless people, book which caused a bit of a sensation when it came out, I think, really last year. So she appeared on stage at a literary festival in Wales to discuss her book, but because of gagging orders, effectively, we're going to call them, a twin appear of orders really. She didn't feel able to speak about it. And here's how it was explained for Aaron Zednews by World Watchers, Neva Chittik. It's believed Ms Wynn Williams faces a fine of $84,000. Every time she breaches the order. The two journalists who hosted the panel at the hay festival introduced her as an author in a hostage situation. Mesa warned Ms Wynn Williams that the appearance would breach the court order. So Ms Wynn Williams didn't nod or shake her head during the session. I mean, some of the images from this were really quite striking in a bit. What, what did you, was the silence a bit of a stunthode? Do you think a reverse empty chairing is she truly unable to speak for fear of prosecution? Yeah, I felt there definitely was a bit of performativeness about it. Carol Cadwola da was one of the, she's written a lot about Meta and the evils of Big Tech herself. She was saying, yeah, blink once if you can hear us Sarah. blink twice if you think Mark Zuckerberg is an asshole. So yeah, I think there was a bit of performance, a book, a formativity about it. But those gagging orders are real. There's there's basically there's non disparagement provisions, which effectively mean that by the terms of her exit from the company some years ago, she's not supposed to or not allowed to or able to say bad things that might bring the company into distribute. And also the specific claims in the book that they dispute mean the other order, the other injunction is that she can't then promote the book because that would be deemed, you know, not fair or actionable by Meta. So they have won that court order that prevents her from from doing that. But it's not a new thing that she's been in this position because, maybe she was quite soon after the publication. She was all lined up to go on 9 to noon at our ends and talk to Catherine Ryan and that happened at very late notice they said, look, sorry, we can't these court orders have just come through. And at that point they went really sure what that obliged them to do or not to do. But in the symbol last year, she did Sarah Wynn Williams appear on a BBC show. show, which is called Strong Message Here. And it's all about the use and abuse of language and it's hosted by the comedians and setterists. Amanda Yanuchi and Stuart Lee. You are our first gagged guest. Yes. I'm going to be the most quiet guest I've ever had on the podcast. Very early on when the show first started, I was singing the praises of the book. You're not allowed to sing the praises of your book. You're not. You're not. You can't talk mentioned your own book. No. No, but we can. You're not allowed to publicise it. But I'd say it's a tremendous Christmas gift idea for anyone who's into paranoia and confirmation that everything's as bad as you thought it might be. Right. But you're not allowed to explain anything about it. I mean, maybe I could say don't buy it. Okay. Yes. He was source of frustration to your publicist. I think I just make everybody's dog very difficult. Or easy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's interesting. She did. I'm not sure if the episode's still up, but she did do any interview about the book with Emily Makeless on the news agents. Did you hear that? Yeah. That's right. In fact, I think we took a cut or two from it at the time. I think we might have done. Yeah. So she's clearly worked out. Well, that was exactly what she did. I think there was a lot of extensive discussion with lawyers. But I think that was that was way before the actual publication, a couple of weeks before the the actual publication of the book and the slapping of the gag order. And yeah, it's an interesting listen. I'm not sure if it's still up. But was she able to say anything of any substance on the show at all though? Yeah, they did it quite cleverly. So basically the host Armando Inuchie, the main host, reframed it as being about AI in general and all the things we need to worry about. And that was sort of safer ground, I suppose. And he found it weird from himself because those are his initials. So he says he often feels weird when he says out AI threatening future of the universe. You know, he feels personally weird about it. He talked about the sick offancy of AI, where all these pioneers are regarded as geniuses who have effectively been allowed to do what they want to see where it takes the world and their technology. And talking about that was a kind of a way, I think, in this program, which went on for about, I think, 45 minutes or more, a way of allowing Sarah Wynne Williams to say some things about met her without really mentioning it. And this is part of the bit that illustrates that growth underpins all of these technology companies. That is the beating heart of technology is more. So what you're saying is talking about the danger of it is a form of marketing as well, because it makes it look like an exciting and powerful thing. Look, if something feels dangerous and like it shouldn't be happening, people want to know more. I say that as someone who's not a lot of say more, but that does feel like the surest way to make someone want to know and be part of something is self-spa-dangerous. Yeah, it feels a little bit sort of Soviet in a way, isn't it like, you know, as if there's a team of people listening to that and going, is she talking about it? Is she undermining the, you know, the collective possibilities of the five-year plan there as well? Because she doesn't mention it by name. It is, it is all a bit strange. And, you know, given that those companies, or that company meta and its platforms are all about, people being allowed to say an awful lot of things to an awful lot of people, often, you know, not following their own terms and conditions, it does feel weird and a bit of a scorpion that she's being pressed down upon with orders in the nature of those ones that she seems obliged to have to follow through and go through these sort of very strange and convoluted media appearances like those two. Well, she might not be able to say, but I've read there, but I found it fascinating in eye opening record read. So, so the ego take, take that with, with what you will. All right. Like, I'm, I'm Adi, I'm a new cheeser endorsement. What was it? The perfect gift for someone who's paranoid? I can, I think the world really is as bad as it could possibly be. That's right. That's right. All right. On the subject of gagging, last week, Enzied Mies, billionaire, shareholder Jim Greenin, failed to start media reporting on his involvement with this wholly unsuccessful, that's a quote, do you find in case he found it against TV Enzied Colin? Yeah, this was last Thursday. So just within our kind of seven day weekly frame for midweek media watch, I guess. So this was a defamation case last year. So the state broadcasted TV and Z or state owned broadcaster now wants its cost paid because they won that defamation case, which was Julian Bachelor from the stop go get co-governance campaign who was suing TV and Z for news reports, which referred to a pamphlet that he was circulating and the assertions made about him in the news report that he'd indulged in racist rhetoric. So last Thursday, this hearing for costs because this lawsuit was deemed wholly unsuccessful by the judge and they want their money. So this question is whether James Greenin should be liable. So the judge David Clark said there is genuine public interest in this because James Greenin's lawyer has said, I want to make sure my client's reputation won't be attacked in reporting. And so they wanted the media benches to be cleared and so this could be discussed this question without media reporting. But the judge said, no, genuine public interest in this media state where you are. And yes, James Greenin by the way is the biggest shareholder now in case people have forgotten it in NZ he's progressively up to stake and that's a company of course that owns the New Zealand Herald, Newstalk ZB and other media outlets. Remind us how this came about in the first place. Yes, so the defamation case failed last year because the claim was wholly unsuccessful and then the reason James Greenin was involved was because it emerged during the proceedings that Julian Bachelor, the Bachelor of the stop go co-governance campaigner revealed almost inadvertently through one of his own witnesses who was the ex TVNZ newsreader Peter Williams that it was in fact James Greenin who had funded and encouraged this legal pursuit, this defamation case. So he then Julian Bachelor attempted to sue TVNZ about these comments that had been made about him. And then the lawyer, David Saman who's the lawyer for TVNZ who also fought that defamation action, TVNZ defended against the Tellies company, put it to the court or to the judge that this information just hadn't been known to them. So they're saying it is Mr Greenin who decided to fund the litigation through Mr Bachelor. This isn't a disputed issue, this is the judge's words. So he takes the risk himself by putting his hand up and being involved in this proceeding. So that's the judge's position. Having the largest shareholder in a major media company who is also on its board, funded defamation case against another media company surely is highly, well is it highly unusual? I suppose there aren't that many largest shareholders in major media companies or board members in New Zealand? No, it's not a circumstance that could come around very often. It has happened in Australia with rather a different culture and overlapping, you know, shareholdings or overlapping interests in Newspaper, television broadcasting, etc. They even had to change the law to kind of separate those out, but technologies made those differences a bit meaningless. But anyhow, in court James Greenin's lawyer compared his clients funding Julian Bachelor's case to his own donations to Forrest and Bird. So he said, "Look, I know Forrest and Bird might bring legal proceedings and I know that my membership money goes to enable them to do that. You know, should I suddenly become liable?" Because I think Forrest and Bird might not be doing the right thing, he asked in court. So, yeah, I guess his point was if James Greenin paid for the legal case doesn't mean he's controlling it or responsible for it. But Davey Salmon, the lawyer for TVNZ, said, "No, this is very different, you know, between just donating to Forrest and Bird and what they do with their money." They say this is TVNZ's position that James Greenin is an active donor in the case just simply wouldn't have proceeded without him. Any outcome on this, so far, Kyle? Well, no, the judges received this decision, so the hearings being had. But Hayden D'Nell wrote this up for the spin-off last Thursday. And his final conclusion, concluding sentence, was that the legal teams for TVNZ and Sanjana Hata Tuwa, who's the academic who was accused of these defamatory statements in the original defamation case that failed. Their legal teams both went to the Shakespeare tab in across the road and seemed to be in good spirits. All right, let's, what's the time? Seven minutes to, yeah, let's talk about this. The business publication, NBR, not especially Happy Coal with New Zealand Herald for using details from its annual Rich List. And this is kind of the latest in this series of, I guess, talking publicly and actually taking action from NBR for, I guess, perceived abuses of its subscription model and people either loads of people use sharing one subscription or taking copyrighted material from NBRs, which is locked behind a paywall for NBR and using it outside of a paywall setting. I think it's very interesting this story, this wider story in the media. Yeah, I think what's at the heart of it is the determination of the owner and also at least one of the coeditors, Hamish McNichol, he's one of a pair of coeditors who also speaks about this stuff. And we've spoken to him on on media watch about this earlier, the subscription issue you mentioned, but their determined, I think, with the value of what NBR does. Now, there are digital company that has their stuff online for paying subscribers. No ads, no sponsors, no nothing. It's all to do with getting subscribers income, but they want the value of what they do protected. Now, that Rich List, that they published, it's the 40th year of it this year, the next iteration coming out sometime this month. And they've been running previews, 40 years of the Rich List and background articles and historical stuff from down the years, all year long. This used to be a really big component of their income when they were in print. There were people that bought the list for a premium that didn't subscribe when it was printed paper. And they put a huge amount of work into it as well. Yes, collating it. Yes, and that's what they're saying here. So that dispute is within me, the publishers of the Herald, because the Herald has this society and side-to-column where they're often writing about people who are on that ritualist, the world to do and calling them ritualisters, even in capitals, ritualisters. And this is what NBR objects do. So if you're going to do this, you're getting your information and often descriptions of the wealth, which are estimates that the NBR makes and compiling the ritualist. So if you're going to use that info and that badge created us with it. And so they say that this is an article we're drawing on by Stuart Salmonland, who writes about media for stuff and for the post. The NBR contacted the top brass at the Herald and initially one of the columns they objected to, they updated, they removed the capitalization. Oh right, the expression "Ritualist." And then later directly attributed it to NBRs. They kind of cave. But at that decent point, they're saying, look, do you own the term ritualist? Are you entitled? They have this accredited to you? Is it your IP almost? I mean, think of you know, Berks' period has been published for 200 years. So people could look it up and find out who the British nobles were and their genealogy and who the next online was to and hear it stuff. Oh, that's not the point though. Like I take your point. But the thrust of what they're talking about the NBR is the paywalled material, not being credited or just being nicked from behind the paywall by other media outlets. And I have to say, I used to work at newsroom when they introduced the newsroom processing I used to get really pissed off about that too when other companies would take paywalled material and then write matching copy of it. I thought I think that's no go personally. So this is personal? No, well, I don't know. What do you think? I don't curious about this. I don't think they own the term ritualist because I thought more generic than that. So I had a look, for example, the Australian financial review has a kind of running list of the top 200 richest people in Australia ranked according to their net worth when you log onto it. It's pretty eye-watering mother. It's just people in Australia. Clive Palmer was about number six in the owns about half of Western Australia and mines or what I don't. But it's really big business. But it's funny, you know, like just I think it was this morning, not this morning, the yesterday morning. Heather Duplosielle and filling in on the morning show, the breakfast show on ZB was talking about her regular drive show was sponsored by one New Zealand formally, Vodafone. They took her out for a posh lunch at the one New Zealand stadium, which you very much enjoyed, you know, perks of the sponsors and all that. And when she referred to the said, "Oh, this is to car, stadiums." Great. No, no, no, no, no, no. One New Zealand stadium got really tight about it. And I love the way when people come over to see them as Australians, you know, when they have the rugby league occasionally at the, what's now the Henry Stadium and Wellington formally sky stadium and the Westpac Stadium before that. And they just call it the Capeton. I mean, the Capeton area. Great. The Capeton for paramedic oils against the water, but it's great. And I do like it. I feel sorry for people who have pumped up their money to get the attribution and the glory of, reflect the glory of name recognition. But, you know, when you've got a landmark and people know it as one thing, I think it's great. It's particularly when it's an informal name like the Capeton because it looks like one. It does. It looks like one. I mean, I watched the worries pant this game over the weekend and I was quite amused by how often they were referring to the Harvey Norman replay, which, you know, got to get you money to it. All right. A minute and a half to go until 9 o'clock, and let me compliment you on what I thought was a really terrific interview with Anna Harcourt, who I think is just so clever and interesting and clear in her speaking and thought and vision about the demise of TV and Z3 news. And there was an interesting follow up in the spin off from its just made redundant award when Zoe made it and Smith. They cover some of the same ground as that interview with Anna Harcourt. Who you write? It was very impressive. She's no longer works there. Yeah. Yeah. But so Zoe made in Smith. She's twice one national awards for video journalism and then just got received the award I think in the week that her job at Renews was coming to an end. So that's the sad part of it. But she wrote this piece called, "I'm a poster child for youth journalism but does it have a future." So you'll find it in that headline in the spin off. And she goes sort of a roll call of all these youth ventures like Vice NZ that have closed down NZ, me had one called Kick that didn't last too long. Are NZ's own. Taki. Yeah. And the wireless before it. None of these things have endured. And she's making the point that when the stuff they were doing is Anna Harcourt mentioned, got huge numbers on social media. Make any. Yeah. But she's saying it doesn't because once you try and do that, you pay to boost it. But you end up, you know, the company ends up footing the bill. The money does not come back to the companies. And yet this is the platforms on which young people operate. And she says, "You've got to throw everything at it. Find out a way of doing this for the youth of New Zealand."