Ferald Stoops Lower than Ever

Everyone knows that the New Zealand Herald is a sad, sick joke, but this is a new low, even for the ‘Ferald’.

Donald Trump inauguration: Elon Musk performs ‘Nazi salute’, draws outraged reaction.

Note the use of the single-quote marks: the Ferald knows it’s lying, so it uses air quotes. But from where?

From social media.

Yes, that’s right: the NZ Herald, supposedly a ‘newspaper of record’, is turning to random, anonymous, ‘online critics’ for their opinions. Quality journalism, indeed.

Of all the sources that the Ferald quotes as supposedly endorsing the alleged ‘Nazi salute’, only one is named: a Democrat strategist. The rest are anonymous randos: ‘one user… on Bluesky’, ‘another social media user’, ‘online critics’.

This is garbage journalism.

Not least for the fact that the NZ Herald never once bothers with facts, such as what Musk actually said before making the gesture.

“Thank you for making it happen. Thank you. My heart goes out to you.” Musk prefaces the last sentence by grabbing his chest, then making a throwing gesture.

The NZ Herald won’t report that, because it destroys the entire ‘Nazi salute’ narrative. Musk was figuratively grabbing his heart and throwing it to the crowd.

But it was obviously Twofer Tuesday at the Ferald. Not content with peddling a lying narrative about Musk, they proceeded to rewrite history, while accusing Donald Trump of rewriting history.

You can’t make this stuff up.

New Zealand is defending one of the most significant accomplishments by one its countrymen against claims from newly sworn-in United States President Donald Trump that America was the first to split the atom.

Trump made the claim during his inauguration speech in Washington DC today.

In fact, he never said that at all.

“Americans pushed thousands of miles through a rugged land of untamed wilderness, they crossed deserts, scaled mountains, braved untold dangers, won the Wild West, ended slavery, rescued millions from tyranny, lifted billions from poverty, harnessed electricity, split the atom, launched mankind into the heavens and put the universe of human knowledge into the palm of the human hand” – President Donald Trump.

Where, in any of that, does he say “the first”?

Not content with lying about what Trump really said, the Herald goes on to rewrite history.

This is despite the fact New Zealander Ernest Rutherford, who was born in Brightwater near Nelson, was the first person to initiate an artificial nuclear reaction when he “split the atom” in 1917 at Victoria University of Manchester, England.

Note how the Herald puts ‘split the atom’ in quote marks? That’s because Rutherford did not split an atom.

To damn them with faint praise, the Ferald is only repeating the porkies of people who should know better.

Nelson Mayor Nick Smith told the Herald he was “amused that the new President has made such a claim”.

Smith said: “I don’t think it will change the historical feats that Nelson’s favourite son was able to achieve so long before the new President was born” […]

Of Rutherford’s achievement, the University of Canterbury, then Canterbury College, says: “In 1917, while engaged in atomic science for war work, he became the first person to split the atom – his overarching claim to lasting scientific fame.”

Canterbury doesn’t even bother with quote marks: they repeat the false claim as if it’s hard fact.

The Ferald still can’t help lying: they claimed the Victoria University of Manchester ‘corroborates’ the false claim:

In 1917, the Nobel Prize winner actually became the first person to create an artificial nuclear reaction in laboratories at the university.

When, in fact, the university’s own statement debunks the claim:

Rutherford’s discovery is now often described as ‘splitting the atom’ in popular accounts, but this should not be confused with the process of nuclear fission discovered later in the 1930s.

In fact, the canonical discovery of fission was not made until 1938, by German scientists Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann. Enrico Fermi had apparently achieved fission five years earlier, but had not realised that he had, indeed, split an atom.

It wasn’t until 1942, at Chicago, that the first sustained fission reaction was achieved. Three years later, at Los Alamos, the US created the first working atomic bomb. These are the achievements Trump was referring to.

To throw the Nelson mayor’s words back at him: “Keep the historic record on who split the atom first accurate,” indeed.