Mediawatch for 24 February 2019
Peterson riles oppoments snd excites media; ‘ISIS bride triggers talk radio; Huawei in the headlines; paywall plan details unveiled by the Herald.
Peterson's presence provokes opponents, excites media
A recent visit by controversial Canadian author Jordan Peterson got lots of attention from the NZ media – even before he arrived and spoke here.
But not much that preceded Peterson's visit helped to explain his notoriety, and once he was here the media made us wait to find out what he had actually said in public.
The backstory
Last year, two other Canadians with controversial and inflammatory views about race, gender and politics sparked a media storm here when they announced they were coming to perform.
Their potential visit led to a full-on row about freedom of speech.
Even before Lauren Southern and Stefan Molyneux set foot in the country the New Zealand media was full of details about what the two stirrers believed and what they were likely to say while they were here.
Last week, the pattern repeated – sort of – when Jordan Peterson confirmed he’d swing by for three shows here after a visit to Australia.
While Southern and Molyneux were previously virtually unknown here, Peterson – a psychology professor – already had a reputation thanks to his best-selling book 12 Rules for Life and dozens of media interviews, lectures and speeches on the internet.
One of the most viewed and shared Peterson interviews online is his January 2018 conversation with an exasperated Cathy Newman from the UK’s Channel 4.
Confrontational interviews like that one have boosted Peterson's standing with supporters, but the reaction of some is worrying.
Cathy Newman received so many threats she went to the police, she recalled in an interview later.
One local journalist said she also had a hostile response when she wrote about Peterson recently.
But for New Zealanders not aware of the full gamut of Jordan Peterson's theories – or why many people are so bothered by them – our media didn't help much.
Magic Talk radio host Sean Plunket is a fan of Peterson and did his bit by airing an interview via Skype last week.
In the end, that didn't spark as much reaction as his interview with a hapless representative from Auckland Peace Action (APA) which Newshub published online under the heading: 'Sean Plunket rips apart stunned activist'.
APA had claimed “Jordan Peterson threatens everything of value in our society”.
While APA’s Iris Krzyzosiak wasn’t well prepared for that interview, neither was commentator Shane Te Pou when he appeared on Three’s show The Project alongside Sean Plunket, who had become a kind of unofficial spokesperson for Peterson.
“How good is he that we are talking about him this much and he’s not even here yet?” said The Project co-host Jeremy Corbett – without apparent irony, wrapping up a segment that shed little light on what Jordan Peterson believes.
“People say the life lessons in Dr Jordan Peterson's self-help style book can't be argued with,” said a backgrounder in the NZ Herald the same day.
“They include things like standing up straight with your shoulders back, making friends with those who want the best for you and not bothering children while they are skateboarding,” it said.
It was entertaining, but not enlightening for those wondering why the views of a psychology professor and author from Canada might be relevant to politics and modern life in New Zealand.
Face-to-face encounters
With Jordan Peterson’s arrival in the country imminent, Newstalk ZB was heavily trailing an interview with Mike Hosking host of TVNZ's Breakfast programme.
Newstalk ZB's Wellington host Heather Du Plessis-Allan told her listeners she’d read Peterson's book 12 Rules for Life and found it to be simply “common sense.”
But at the same time, a talkback caller told her something that didn’t sound at all sensible.
Since late 2016, Jordan Peterson has reportedly been on a strict diet of only meat and selected vegetables in an effort to control what he has described as severe depression and auto-immune conditions.
He says he was inspired by his daughter Mikhaila Peterson, who writes in her blog Don't Eat That that a meat-only diet eased several of her severe medical complaints – and at the same time promotes a local meat delivery service.
Last year Jordan Peterson told podcaster and comedian Joe Rogan he stopped eating all vegetables in mid-2018 and since then was feeling much better.
It was “beyond his comprehension,” he told Rogan.
That idea flies in the face of most scientific wisdom on nutrition – not to mention the “common sense” and academic credentials his supporters hail.
Jordan Peterson has acknowledged some of his fans have followed his lead but says he doesn’t recommend a meat-only diet.
Not surprising given that his stock in trade is advice on how to live a better life.
On Newstalk ZB, Heather du Plessis-Allan wasn’t bothered by this.
“The vegans will be so upset that he only eats meat,” she told her listeners.
“They’ll be freaking out – the vegetarians, as well. For that reason alone I seem to like him,” she laughed.
On the night of Jordan Peterson's first talk in Auckland last week, the NZ Herald rushed out a breathless Live Focus video.
Peterson took the stage to Vivaldi’s 'Four Seasons' and welcomed the crowd – but there the video ended.
Cameras were moved out of the hall after four minutes, the reporter said.
NZ Herald online viewers wanting to know what Jordan Peterson said were disappointed, even after Herald journalist Simon Wilson did his own interview with Peterson.
The NZ Herald published part of this interview as “a quick and dirty story”, but held the full story back.
It was the fullest account of – and encounter with – Jordan Peterson in New Zealand, but those seeking a thorough examination of what this controversial figure was all about would have been frustrated that it appeared in print and online last weekend after the tour was over.
Curious viewers and listeners could see and hear Jordan Peterson interviewed earlier by Mike Hosking on Newstalk ZB (and Facebook) and on TVNZ’s Breakfast show the next day – but both those interviews were pretty lacklustre.
While the week began with many people wondering what all the Jordan Peterson fuss was about, Newstalk ZB’s Andrew Dickens felt the same way when the heavily-trailed tour got underway.
‘So Jordan Peterson has come to the country, sold out, talked to his disciples and harrumphed his way through a few interviews – and caused little or no upset, outrage or unrest,” he summed up in a piece headlined 'Jordan Peterson’s boring'.
“Many of his interviews now are not about what he thinks about life and his research, but what some crazy people have reacted to,” Dickens told his listeners.
And that is what the media, in turn, react to, leaving many among the audience still wondering why Jordan Peterson looms so large in the news wherever he goes.
NB: The attached audio has been edited since first publication. The original version described Jordan Peterson as "a relatively recently-installed professor of psychology." He has been a professor of psychology at the University of Toronto since 1998.
Media ignore smoking guns in Huawei case
Chairman Mao once said a single spark can start a prairie fire.
And the GCSB's decision to block Spark's plans to install a Huawei 5G network late last year has definitely set the media alight over recent months.
China's People's Daily this week published an op-ed under the name of former prime minister Dame Jenny Shipley. The article made international news with the likes of CNN reporting it.
Dame Jenny explained to CNN in an email that the article hadn't' actually been written by her but was based on an interview she had done with a People's Daily journalist last December.
And anyone reading the article would have had their suspicions.
The second paragraph began: "I still remembered the widespread Chinese put forward by Chairman Mao Zedong – 'women hold up half the sky'."
But Dame Jenny told CNN the article - which was headlined: 'We need to learn to listen to China' - was an accurate reflection of her views.
Interviewed on RNZ's Morning Report China specialist and self-described expert in Chinese propaganda, Professor Anne-Marie Brady said Dame Jenny made a mistake agreeing to be interviewed by a Communist Party-run newspaper. "They have a habit of making things up, interviews that never happened and taking things out of context."
But as the chair of the New Zealand branch of one of China's four big state-owned banks, it's hard to imagine Dame Jenny objecting too strenuously to being interviewed by a state-owned news outlet.
If the publishing of the op-ed was propaganda – it was a pretty amateur effort. The People's Daily subsequently put a note at the end of the article saying it was based on an interview carried out in December last year.
Kettle calling the wok black
And the GCSB’s interim decision to block Huawei’s bid to provide Spark’s 5G network shot back up the news agenda this week with the spy agency boss, Andrew Hampton, appearing before the Intelligence and Security select committee.
As the New Zealand Herald's Audrey Young reported, Andrew Hampton assured the MPs that the decision to block the Huawei bid had been the GCSB's and the GCSB's alone.
"I would like to assure the committee that in making my decision, at no point was I under direct or indirect pressure from any party.
"My decision was independent from ministers and while we share intelligence with Five Eyes partners, there was no pressure, requests or demands made by partners, either publicly or privately, to ban any vendor."
There can be few things more difficult to report with any confidence than espionage and high-tech telecommunications equipment. The first by its very nature is full of disinformation and secrecy and the second requires a level of technical expertise that only a handful of Kiwi journalists have.
But there’s reason to question Andrew Hampton’s claim that the GCSB’s decision was an entirely independent one. In December of last year, the Sydney Morning Herald ran a story under the headline: 'How Five Eyes cooked up a campaign to kill off Huawei'
And as that heading suggests the article argues the Five Eyes agencies have run a coordinated campaign to lock Huawei out of the 5G space. The motivation, journalists Chris Uhlmann and Angus Grigg, suggested was concern that Huawei could be told what to do by the Chinese Government.
Others – like Bloomberg columnist Leonid Bershidsky – has written the real motivation is trade and the protection of Western tech firms.
And that’s a view shared by veteran Kiwi tech commentator Bill Bennett who last month wrote on his self-titled blog:
"At least some of the ill-will towards Huawei comes down to trade protectionism. US prosecutors launched their latest action days before the trade negotiations. That timing is no accident.
"The scare stories will frighten off some customers even if, in the long term, we find out it was all a false alarm
"Huawei’s reputation is already damaged. Mission accomplished. It’s the ultimate non-tariff trade barrier," Bill Bennett wrote.
The blog included a disclaimer saying that Huawei had paid for Bennett to visit its operations in China and elsewhere on three occasions
And on Thursday Financial Times reporter David Bond told RNZ’s Morning Report that there was little hard evidence of Huawei being used to spy."The thing I keep hearing is there is no smoking gun. They do a regular assessment of Huawei's kit and software in the UK networks as they stand as they stand today."
He said while Huawei's security assessment had been down-graded the British "certainly didn't find any smoking gun, that there was a back door or that data was being hoovered up and sent back to Beijing."
That lack of a smoking gun is not for a want of trying. The New York Times reported in 2014 that the NSA had created a back door into Huawei’s corporate networks.
The Times reported that the NSA had found no evidence of the Chinese Government influencing Huawei. And that one of the aims of the hack was to give the NSA the capability to spy on countries opting for Huawei’s technology.
A thought expanded on by tech writer Stephen Bell in a tweet this week:
Stephen Bell
@stevebwriter
The advisors assessing #Huawei are looking (for the public's benefit) at backdoors that the Chinese might introduce; but what if the #GCSB's concern is with Huawei interfering with GCSB's (& US NSA's) own backdoors?
The assessors may be looking at the wrong things...
If there’s an angle that’s been missing from most of the media coverage of the Huawei story it’s the extent to which New Zealand itself is actively involved in facilitating the sort of surveillance and cyber-hacking that Huawei has been accused of.
And unlike with Huawei, there’s no shortage of smoking guns.
Back in 2015, the New Zealand Herald reported that documents released by whistle-blower Edward Snowden showed that New Zealand spies were intercepting the entire email, phone and social media communications of our Pacific Island neighbours and handing it over to the NSA.
The Snowden leak also revealed that German chancellor Angela Merkel’s phone calls were being harvested by the Five Eyes network.
Economics and concerns about trade have drowned out issues of ethics and morality – be it the rights and wrongs of spying on friends or foes or China’s human rights record at home.
UK’s ‘Isis bride’ row triggers talk radio
A teenage Briton’s bid to return home after sleeping with the enemy in Syria was a huge talking point in the UK. But it also pre-occupied talk radio here, obscuring the issue closer to home.
Four years ago SIS director Rebecca Rebecca Kitteridge raised a red flag about women from New Zealand supporting ISIS in Syria and Iraq.
She said there were up to a dozen and they were more likely to return to New Zealand than to Australia, even if they had previously lived in Australia.
This made headlines briefly at the time, but not many since then. When Ms Kitteridge fronted up for a select committee at Parliament this week most reporters there were for more about Huawei and state-sponsored cyber intrusions.
But she told MPs a "small but concerning" number of New Zealand citizens were still in the conflict zone and she wouldn't comment on any intending to come home.
The ‘jihadi brides’ update only sneaked at in the end of a few media reports, but one so-called ‘Isis bride’ wanting to go home half a world away was huge in the headlines here this past week.
Shamima Begum - who left London four years ago at the age of just 15 - was tracked down in Syria by the UK paper The Times last week.
The paper found her apparently unrepentant about going to Syria, but she wanted to have her third child - due any day - back in the UK.
By Thursday last week this was headline news in UK, but the story took off globally last weekend when Sky News aired an interview with Shamima Begum in Syria with her newborn son at her side.
For more than two days almost every show and every host on Newstalk ZB talked about it, filling the airwaves with politics lecturers, PR consultants, pundits and politicians telling the UK what to do.
An interview about deradicalisation prompted a stream of hostile messages from listeners to Drive host Larry Williams.
Earlier in the day morning host Kerre McIvor's talkback callers all agreed the teenager was a ticking time-bomb, and maybe even her new baby too.
Kerre McIvor told listeners she wouldn't want to sit next to Shamima Begum on the Tube in London in case she spontaneously decides to carry on the jihad.
By contrast the Wellington region's Newstalk ZB morning host Heather du Plessis-Allan reckoned Shamima Begum was a teenage victim of brainwashing. She called former PM Helen Clark who shared her view.
TVNZ London correspondent Emily Cooper was the only reporter to mention the SIS concern in her 1News report about Shamima Begum.
With the so-called caliphate shriveling, countries around the world do now have to think about the issue of radicals and fighters returning from Iraq and Syria.
A beefed-up counter-terrorism law came into force last week in the UK to prosecute them.
Australia has new laws for that too.
Just last month Neil Prakash - an alleged ISIS recruiter currently in jail in Turkey - became the 12th Australian citizen to have citizenship scrapped.
The Australian government angered Fiji by insisting he was also a citizen there without checking.
But here only RNZ Pacific has reported that story in detail.
One estimate this week indicated that about 360 suspected ISIS recruits from the UK have already returned there and more may follow recent military defeats.
If one of the women the SIS director spoke about this week does try to return to New Zealand in the future, you can be sure you'll hear a lot about it on talk radio here.
New deadline for Herald paywall
The Herald’s owner says the free ride will be over soon for those who like the best bits of its journalism. Its heavily-trailed online paywall will finally go up within weeks, but some important details are still under wraps and it’s not the paywall that’s overdue.