Ted Johnston BSc BA LLB
Co-leader New Conservative
Candidate Auckland Mayoralty 2022
The mainstream media need to ‘know their role and do their job’ , states New Conservative candidate and Co-Leader Ted Johnston.
Currently, I am standing as a candidate for New Conservative in the Auckland Mayoralty election, and I have noticed the same misbehaviour of the press, as occurred in the last election.
The media choose their favourites, then flood the public with information and articles about them, spoon-feeding this propaganda to the public as fact. They ignore and thereby exclude and suppress all other candidates.
It becomes a handicap race, one nearly impossible for a non-favourite to win no matter how good they are.
It is not the job of the media to decide who the public should vote for and only cover them. It is the role and right of the people to decide who they want, not who the media want.
How do you suppress a religion or a political movement? You prevent them from getting their message out. And that is what is occurring.
The issue here is that in a modern western society, the public relies on the mainstream media to inform it with news and facts.
The media are a crucial protection for democracy, and the only real leash on unbridled government power in New Zealand, by providing information to be used by voters to decide when choosing a government.
Especially in New Zealand which lacks the democratic protections of the other similar UK derived nations. We have no upper house, no written constitution, no bill of rights as supreme law etc. The government can pass any legislation it wants to and has recently started increasingly doing so in urgency, with little, if any, media protest.
Instead of presenting checked facts and a balanced view, our mainstream media increasingly produce their own opinion as facts and entertainment as truth. They have come under the sway of heavy government influence. They obey the government speaker of the house as to who they should interview, their reports eg the Wellington protest, are not fully researched and are biased following the Labour govt party line. That is propaganda.
They have taken $105 million from the government. $55 million of that is being drip-fed over the 3 years up to 2023, so it seems like a good behaviour bond to keep the press onside with the government.
Added to the anti-democratic Broadcasting Act and the Electoral Act, the mainstream media further seals the door and prevents smaller political parties from getting their message out, from exposure, from a fair hearing in our democracy. They are suppressed by exclusion.
The media’s job is to report the news, not make it.
Their job is to provide fair unbiased information to a voting public to make informed choices.
The media should not fix elections. The media must let the people decide.
The mainstream media has strayed oh so far from its role, from the path of truth and fairness, that it must be brought back in line, to do its job, or our democracy is in severe danger.
The first step is that they recognize and admit their wrongdoings. Only then can they do their job. But they are in denial.
Until we have the opportunity for fair and even media coverage for all candidates and parties we cannot have fair and democratic elections in New Zealand.
As long as the public is provided biased, and heavily opinionated reports, prejudicing and unfairly discriminating against most candidates except the media’s favourites, we cannot have fair and free elections in New Zealand.
The mainstream media have undermined our democracy, by failing to do their crucial and fundamental job.
I stand for the rights of all candidates, in all elections in New Zealand.
And I call on all potential candidates in the upcoming local elections, and candidates and parties in the general election, but most importantly all citizens of New Zealand that believe in truth, in fairness, in justice and democracy, to stand with me.
To stand up to the media, and demand that the media does its job.
That is our right under a free democracy.
Ted Johnston BSc BA LLB
Coleader new Conservative.
Candidate Auckland Mayoralty 2022.
