While the finger is being pointed towards the UK at the BBC about their dishonest editing and manipulation of the narrative, there are also fingers pointing at New Zealand’s own news media. We show you the evidence.
Show script:
1News, 3News, BBC – Doing The Same Dance
It’s been a bad week for the BBC, hasn’t it. The resignation of the BBC Director General and the resignation of the CEO of BBC News – all over dishonest editing of a speech in 2021 by Donald Trump.
But this is really just the tip of the iceberg isn’t it? As they say, the straw that broke the camels back.
And while the finger is being pointed towards the UK at the BBC, there are also fingers pointing at New Zealand’s own Media.
Now we’ve previously spoken about this last week, but its been the response of the media, and also further investigations into whether our own NZ-based news media are guilty of being in the same boat as the BBC.
According to a report by 1News
The Trump controversy originated from the editing of a BBC Panorama documentary called “Trump: A Second Chance?” It went to air a week before the 2024 US presidential election, and contained replays of sections of the speech Trump had made to his supporters just before the insurrection in Washington on 6 January 2021. In the speech, Trump said at one point: “We’re going to walk down to the Capitol, and we’re going to cheer our brave senators and congressmen and women.” Fifty minutes later, in the same speech, he said: “I’ll be with you. And we fight. Fight like hell.”
According to the BBC’s own account, these two quotes were spliced together to read: “We’re going to walk down to the Capitol […] and I’ll be there with you. And we fight. We fight like hell.”
The effect was to give the impression Trump was egging on his supporters to violence.
The Prescott revelations come only three weeks after the BBC reported that the British broadcasting regulator Ofcom had found another BBC documentary, this time about the war in Gaza, had committed a “serious breach” of broadcasting rules by failing to tell its audience that the documentary’s narrator was the son of the Hamas minister for agriculture. Ofcom concluded that the program, called “Gaza: How to Survive a War Zone” was materially misleading by failing to disclose that family link.
Let’s do a little watching.
Firstly Trump’s speech – with the full section in context that the media have spliced up.
Note the context – “we’re going to walk down to the Capitol, and we’re going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women, and we’re probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them. Because you’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength and you have to be strong.”
And then – “I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.”
Now let’s watch what the BBC did – and it’s important to note a couple of things
The full speech went for 70 minutes. They took 2 sentences – sort of.
They clipped together two bits that were 54 minutes apart.
Totally out of context.
They want you to think “March to Capitol. Fight”
Trump was saying “March to Capitol. Peacefully.”
The “fight” was related to Republicans fighting against Democrat policy, Trump fighting against the media, getting rid of candidates that don’t fight for America, praise for strong Republicans who are fighting.
Read the full speech if you get the chance.
So here’s how the BBC misrepresented it. Their misrepresentation first – and then the actual.
Wow – that’s a massive leap.
So how did 1News do. Glad you asked.
We can only go on what we can source – but you will be pleased to know that I have requested all transcripts of both 1News and Radio NZ during this period under the Official Information Act. That is going to be interesting.
Let’s check their coverage that we did get – and this is when the January 6 hearings were happening in 2022.
Same splice. Stopping before “cheering” “peacefully” “patriotically”. How convenient.
Now on Monday night 1News tried to distance themselves from the BBC, even though they are family members – or affiliated.
Here’s the thing. They’re saying they didn’t broadcast the BBC distortion.
They didn’t have to. They did their own!
This morning, they then published a piece by a senior lecturer in journalism at the University of Melbourne who said – I presume with a straight face…
The questions concern the effectiveness and integrity of the BBC’s internal editorial procedures for investigating complaints, and the pressure being brought to bear on the BBC by conservative political and media forces in the United Kingdom.
Yes you thought the pressure on public broadcasters was to report fact not opinion, and to stop splicing and misrepresenting what people say that you disagree with in order to push your own narrative.
But nooooooooo – this whole debacle is about pressure from “conservative” political and media forces.
That’s what you call classic gaslighting – and shifting the blame.
But if you’re saying that only conservatives want truth and balance in our media, then I’m proud to say I’m a conservative. (But what does that say about woke progressives!?)
1News should be ashamed of posting that article.
Across on Newstalk ZB, the Editor-at-Large Shayne Currie of NZME which owns the NZ Herald and Newstalk ZB said
“[A] reporter’s job when covering the news is to report the facts accurately, fairly, and in a balanced view, and some of the criticism that’s been directed towards the media is that a lot of reporters have been allowed to inject their own opinion or analysis into those news reports. “I think we’re getting to a point now where you’ll see much more clearly differentiated, this is news, this is opinion, this is analysis.”
Getting to the point?
Not from where I’m sitting. The coverage of climate alarmism, trans issues, LGBT in general, Gaza and Israel and Trump has been, and continues to be, appalling.
Now just before I go, you’re probably wondering about our other 6pm news bulletin. It used to be Newshub but it was then taken over by Stuff using some of the same presenters – and called ThreeNews.
Did they do the same manipulation? Did they splice Trump’s speech at just the right time and then link to violence, and did they use his “fight” comments out of context.
Glad you ask. Have a watch. You be the judge.
Say no more.
Let me be clear. This is not just about the media’s Trump derangement Syndrome.
This is about whether we can trust the media on a number of controversial issues – as already mentioned, climate alarmism, trans issues, LGBT in general, Gaza, but also abortion, euthanasia, drugs, COVID, Posie Parker, the list goes on….
I gave you a number of examples in my previous McBlog.
https://mcblog.substack.com/p/bbc-gets-busted-for-blatant-bias
This week has just confirmed what we already knew.
But as I repeatedly say, my real fear is that the legacy media would rather their boat sink in a sea of mistrust rather than ditching their ideology & preferred narratives and simply reporting the news in a balanced and factual way.
I hope their lifejackets are ready.
