They’ll Believe Anything

A quote from That Hideous Strength by C.S. Lewis arrived in my inbox yesterday. If you haven’t read it or the rest of the trilogy, I highly recommend you get a hold of them. But back to the quote. One of the protagonists, Mark Studdock is being asked to write propaganda pieces for N.I.C.E (National Institute of Co-ordinated Experiments). He suggests that the people who read the educated newspapers will not fall for the deception. Here’s the reply he gets from the butch Miss Hardcastle.

Why, you fool, it’s the educated readers who can be gulled. All our difficulty comes with the others. When did you meet a workman who believes the papers? He takes it for granted that they’re all propaganda and skips the leading articles. He buys his paper for the football results and the little paragraphs about girls falling out of windows and corpses found in Mayfair flats. He is our problem: we have to recondition him. But the educated public, the people who read the highbrow weeklies, don’t need reconditioning. They’re all right already. They’ll believe anything.

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The Parlous State of Media in New Zealand

Recently in a short post entitled Department of Truth, we noted that more and more, the mainstream media seems to be transforming into a department of government: the Department of Propaganda Truth. Karl du Fresne has written an excellent article highlighting this, and in this post we will pick out some of the important points he makes.

He notes that of the $55 million ‘Public Interest Journalism Fund’ more than $2.4 million is being spent in the training and development and training of 25 cadet Maori, Pasifika and “diverse” journalists. As du Fresne points out, the “latter category will presumably include those who identify as transgender or non-binary and other aggrieved minorities that we haven’t got names for yet.” Then there is the ominous $300,000 given to Stuff to produce a cultural competency course which is promised to “to fundamentally shift representation in NZ media”

What benefit is there to the public in any of this? As du Fresne rightly points out, “our money will end up being spent on advocacy journalism.” In applying for this public money, “media organisations must commit to a set of requirements that include, among other things, actively promoting the Maori language and ‘the principles of Partnership, Participation and Protection under Te Tiriti o Waitangi’“. Our mainstream media have been bought with our money like tacky whores with no principles. What is our answer to this? Stop consuming their products. Stop subscribing to them! Turn to other sources of news that are not being bought off by the government to be their propaganda wing.

Department of Truth

Media is supposed to criticize and investigate the powers that be. They should be a counterweight to the power of a government. But in New Zealand, our media has become a wing of the government. It has become the Department of Propaganda Truth for the Government. The god of State needs its false prophets to teach the people the word of god. No doubt my readers have heard of the $55 million bribe Public Interest Journalism Fund. Here is an article on Stuff where they unashamedly announce that they will receive $591,465 for their “The Whole Truth project which is designed to counter misinformation where it occurs about Covid-19.” No doubt this information, bought and paid for by our taxes, will be used to support the government’s narrative on everything Covid. No doubt anything that doesn’t fit our government’s approach and views on this topic will ever see the light of day on Stuff. After all, he who pays the piper calls the tune.