Greg Bouwer
IINZ
Stuff likes to remind us that it “believes in fiercely independent, fair, accurate, balanced, inclusive and trustworthy journalism”.
Fine words. But when tested, they crumble.
Last week, Stuff refused to publish an advertisement from the Protection for Zion Trust – a modest advocacy ad booked months in advance to commemorate October 7, the anniversary of the Hamas massacre that killed 1,200 Israelis and saw hundreds more raped, tortured, and abducted.
Pastor Nigel Woodley, who placed the ad, explained:
Although our October 7 advocacy for Israel advert had been booked months in advance, the Stuff team decided to pull the plug one day prior to publication. Their excuse was that another advocacy ad had been run just two weeks ago. But that ad had nothing to do with us. I do know that three anti-Israel full-page ads were placed in their Wellington paper, the Post, in the last four months.
Stuff’s official response?
The Protection for Zion Trust had sought to have their advertisement placed on October 7, a timing which was particularly sensitive as it marked the anniversary of the start of the escalation of armed hostilities… While Stuff has published several advocacy advertisements from this advertiser previously, as well as those supporting Palestinian causes, we have also paused advertising from those on both sides of the issue when the timing is particularly sensitive… The October 7 anniversary was one of these instances.
So, an ad expressing solidarity with Israel, on the anniversary of Hamas’s slaughter, was too sensitive – for whom? Not for the families of the murdered. Not for the 48 still missing. Not for the Jewish people reliving that trauma every day since. No – it was “sensitive” because it might offend those who sympathise with the attackers.
But Stuff didn’t ‘pause both sides’. It published multiple anti-Israel ads, including ones that compared New Zealand’s Foreign Minister Winston Peters to Nazis and called for sanctions on Israel for defending itself. Evidently, those weren’t too “sensitive”. They were perfectly acceptable.
This is moral insanity disguised as neutrality.
And it is not unique to Stuff.
Just this week, the BBC had to apologise for referring to October 7 as “the two-year anniversary of the escalations in the Israel-Gaza conflict” – accompanied by an image of Gaza, not the Israeli victims of the massacre. As former BBC television director Danny Cohen said, “It is the kind of language Hamas might use.”
That’s the same distortion at work here.
Calling October 7 an ‘escalation’ or a ‘sensitive moment’ erases who the victims were – and who the killers were.
Stuff’s explanation could have been written by the BBC’s PR department: the same moral fog, the same inability to distinguish between terror and response between sympathy for victims and appeasement of their murderers.
There is nothing “balanced” about equating Hamas’s atrocities with Israel’s grief. There is nothing “inclusive” about silencing Jewish voices on the anniversary of their people’s trauma.
Stuff’s decision reveals the quiet prejudice of institutional cowardice. “Sensitivity” becomes a pretext for censorship; “balance” becomes bias.
When “neutrality” means refusing to acknowledge Jewish suffering, it isn’t neutrality at all – it is moral evasion.
So let’s be clear: Stuff didn’t avoid controversy – it avoided compassion.
This article was originally published by the Israel Institute of New Zealand.
