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I think that Einstein's quote is completely apposite here. No matter how many surveys there are that categorically show that trust in the MSM is at an all-time low the mandarins scramble to come up with more explanations that are completely unrelated to the true reasons and show how out of touch they are with their "stakeholders". Partly what I think may operate is that they conflate trust with operational problems and they collectively seem to have an actual blind spot that they are literally unable to see or hear that for people to trust news it needs to be evidenced based, as Deborah Coddington says, not a mish-mash of opinion masquerading as news with strong biases showing. Every time I see the TV1 ad for their news as being 'Your most trusted news source' I have trouble not hurling something at the TV set.

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I think what frustrates me, even when faced with so many in the public expressing directly or indirectly a desire for further information, MSM don't seize the opportunity to help provide that information or seek out the multiple views or arguments we all need. Instead they stay silent or publish a pre determined narrative. Sad. The bigger question on how to solve for the MSM problem, needs attention.

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It's sad and frustrating. In the MSM there are still very good journalists and political reporters (by that I mean those who choose to remain objective, whom we would not guess which way they vote). I'm thinking Audrey Young (NZ Herald), Corin Dann (Morning Report), Tracy Watkins (the Post) and others I've missed out. We have skilled investigative journos like Mike White (the Post) and others I've no doubt overlooked & I apologise. But these ones are courageous, not scared of being disliked. I had great editors when I worked at North & South, and Metro - Robyn Langwell, and Warwick Roger, who told me good journos don't have friends. That is true. Nobody is your friend and you need a thick skin, you're not there to be liked. You're there to find the smell in the back of the cave when everyone else is running away from that smell. Another saying, when your mother tells you she loves you, check it out.

I like to be challenged when I read political magazines, newspapers, and current affairs. I don't want to agree with everything I read, but I want it to be evidence based, not simply based on the writer's feelings or upbringing or whether they were abused as a kid ffs. When the MSM started emoting the news, that's when it all started going downhill and now they're plummeting the depths, like Benedict Collins, on One News, peaking when two youths escaped from the so-called boot camps. His xmas presents had come at last.

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Thanks for the comment Deborah. I think Audrey Young and Corin Dann occasionally expose their petticoats if I can put it that way. As for Benedict Collins, you know when he smirks where he is coming from. My inclination is to hit the off switch but I detest censorship and I wonder if by watching I am intellectually flagellating myself. He is a painful watch.

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Hear hear.

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The MSM certainly seems to be committing slow suicide. It's doomed to irrelevance, and seems to know it. It's this bizarre wish to double down that shows that it's contemptuous of its audience and couldn't care less. Perhaps we are in the middle of the birth pangs of a new paradigm altogether...

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As a distant but no less effective relative to the Popularist mentioned above, I created a Meme on this subject after reading the Post - but sadly, the facility of attaching the Meme is not possible here - so I must create a picture with Less than a Thousand Words to describe what the meme is:

Picture Jesus on the Mount - in this scene actually on a hill with a stream below and many interested listeners gathered to hear what He has to say today.

Behind his back and facing the camera from whence this scene is catured in full colour, stands a black t-shirted bloke with logos on the sleeves that designate him as that pesky commentator to Reality Check Radio who from time to time cannot help but send them 'T-shirts I Like to Wear' memes.

This one is about Polls and the dirty scums in MSM - or more correctly a tongue-in-cheek play on the word "poll" changed to "pole"

The Meme has a black border with "The Truth Series" at the top middle.

Within the picture the black t-shirted bloke is cheekily standing directly behind Jesus but facing the other way - the crowd below do not see the t-shirt's words but are listening to Jesus talking about Polls and the MSM scum he wished would try and enter His Father's House and he'd show them What-For...

The t-shirted person's face is cropped from the photo so we cannot tell who exactly this mystery TsILtW person is, damn him.

Emblazoned across the black t-shirt are the printed words:

"Sermon on the Mount" at the neck, then in large white and some blue letters the words:

"THE ONLY USEFUL POLL (POLL crossed out and the word POLE substituted) POLE, IS THE ONE THAT KEEPS PRODDING MSM FROM REPORTING ANYTHING BUT THE TRUTH, THE WHOLE TRUTH AND NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH."

And under that some muddy, mouldy green words on the t-shirt that read:

"DRAIN THE SWAMP

kia whakapiakotia nga huhi"

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Rob

Sam would have loved your comment.

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If I may: kiwis are often described as those who seek and enjoy fairness. There’s even a book (for goodness’s sake) assessing ourselves in relation to USA around the criteria/motifs/indices of fairness and freedom. Now; I’ll not become guilty of prejudging the readership here who can read that book for themselves. I’ll only say this: MSM has become quite immune to that older description. Clearly! They are neither fair nor foul - just plain peddlers of a line that sickens … and as with those poor tourists who cannot quite stomach their whale watching trip - yes; vomit these peddlers out!

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