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Back on the 2nd of May last year, we heard from The BFD correspondent WH about New Zealand’s major media outlets sudden desire to hide the truth from their readers, watchers and listeners when it came to reporting on the Christchurch murders carried out by Brenton Tarrant.
It seemed that in an attempt to curry favour with Jacinda Ardern and her attempts to sanitise the internet, TVNZ, Stuff, Mediaworks, NZME and Radio NZ all signed an unprecedented agreement to censor their own coverage, particularly anything related to ‘white supremacy’. As a reminder for The BFD readers, the agreement is as follows:
We agree that the following protocol will apply to our outlets’ coverage and reportage of the trial:
- We shall, to the extent that is compatible with the principles of open justice, limit any coverage of statements, that actively champion white supremacist or terrorist ideology
- For the avoidance of doubt the commitment set out at (a) shall include the accused’s manifesto document.
- We will not broadcast or report on any message, imagery, symbols or signals (including hand signals) made by the accused or his associates promoting or supporting white supremacist ideology.
- Where the inclusion of such signals in any images is unavoidable, the relevant parts of the image shall be pixellated.
- To the greatest extent possible, the journalists that are selected by each of the outlets to cover the trial will be experienced personnel.
- These guidelines may be varied at any time, subject to a variation signed by all parties.
- This Protocol shall continue in force indefinitely.
The statement was signed by Media Freedom Committee chair Miriyana Alexander, John Gillespie (TVNZ), Shayne Currie (NZME), Mark Stevens (Stuff), Paul Thompson (RNZ) and Hal Crawford (Mediaworks).
Brenton Tarrant was flown by Air Force C130 to Christchurch yesterday under heavy guard and will be appearing for the start of his sentencing hearing today. The hearing is expected to last for four days as there are a large number of victims who would like to read their victim impact statements. This is good and should be encouraged in my opinion. This is the only chance that these people will get to show not only the judge but the offender himself, just how his actions have affected them. If it takes four days or ten, so be it, this is the way our justice system works. If it helps to bring peace to those people then who are we to try and stop that?
But likewise, why should the media get to try and hide the reasons behind the murders? There has been such a manic push to show that Tarrant is a ‘white supremacist’ that it has completely taken over the reality of the situation. Each day’s events will be embargoed until the information is sanitised and released during the hearing.
Tarrant is self-described as an “Eco-fascist.” I can’t provide a link to that quote as it came directly from his 74-page so-called manifesto and our government have deemed that particular document to be illegal. You can now literally be thrown in jail for holding a few pieces of paper with writings on it that your government don’t want you to see. So the one written account of Tarrant’s demented rantings is kept from us. Mein Kampf of course is still freely available.
There was, in fact, another written manifesto by Tarrant that ran to around 200 pages, but unfortunately in a fit of self-doubt, Tarrant deleted the entire thing about two weeks before the murders and re-wrote it into the shorter version that would be so quickly covered up by Ardern and her cronies. We will never get to know what was in that version but at least we still have his re-do, or at least the judge will have it I imagine. How do I know this? Because I remember reading about it before possession of the document would have made me into a criminal.
There were so many crazy things that came up in that document it seems insane that the people of New Zealand are being denied the ability to see for themselves the convoluted, often contradictory, sometimes downright troll-like comments made by Tarrant.
But no, almost all reporting surrounding the killer’s motivations revolve around the white supremacy issue. One of the only reports as to some of the true nature of his writings came from The Times of Israel where they attempt to shed a little more light on the situation. It is worth a read.
So how will our media report on this sentencing hearing? Will we get to see anything that points to Tarrant’s motivations, or will we only get the cleansed, Labour Party approved but likely highly misleading version of events?
And how long before they slip up and start breaching their silly agreement? According to their own new rules, the MSM should not be even mentioning ‘white supremacy’ as the mere mention of that could be seen as an encouragement to other genuine nutters out there who are no doubt holding the bullied fat boy come gym bunny up as some sort of hero.
Personally I am dying to see which ‘experienced journalists’ these media outlets put on this job, however, I suspect it won’t matter much as the coverage, under their cuckolding agreement, can only ever be half-arsed.
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