The Gift that Keeps on Giving

Using Subtle Linguistic Cues

I’ve written a few pieces about Mainstream Media (MSM) and how they continue to publish analysis that is so obviously faulty or whether those who write and edit fulfil Einstein’s definition of insanity – doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. One wonders whether or not they have a death wish.

My past pieces are “Damn Lies”, “Media Influencers” and “Slating a Story”.

The latest example of questionable commentary appeared in the NZ Herald (of course) for 31 January 2025 under the headline “Debanking debate gets political, but are banks right to ditch ‘dirty’ customers?” The article was by Wellington Business Editor Jenee Tibshraeny.

The article is about whether or not banks can or should decline to provide services to customers who are involved in mining, petrol stations and agriculture.

Ms. Tibshraeny writes about the irony of “politicians typically supportive of leaving businesses to do their thing, are trying to tell banks who to bank.” – and irony it is. She closes her article with the comment that

“The Government should keep trying to improve competition in the banking sector – as difficult and politically unrewarding as this may be – rather than compel banks to align their businesses with ideology of any sort.”

That comment is fair enough. It is an opinion piece and reasonably well argued.

What is interesting, however, is how the author (or was it the sub-editor) has put a subtle spin on the article by casting the attitude of Mr Shane Jones and others as an ideological one using subtle linguistic cues. The cues in this case are the word “libertarian” and “ideological” both in a pejorative or denigratory sense.

Furthermore she increases the level of irony in this way. She says:

“The bemusing situation emerging around the world, however, is that those on the political right, libertarians, if you like, are taking aim at “woke” banks for being the “moral police”.” (The emphasis is mine)

Well no, Ms Tibshraeny , I don’t like. You have equated the political right with libertarians. In fact the meaning of the sentence is that those on the political right are libertarians when plainly they are not. One simple example that demonstrates the fallacy of the sentence sits in the White House. President Trump is on the political right as a MAGA Republican. Libertarian he is not. He is an authoritarian – a position diametrically opposed to libertarianism.

What has happened in that Ms. Tibshraeny has misrepresented the political right to heighten the irony in her story. I guess she had to do so to give strength to her argument. But rather, in my view, her argument is weakened when she equates the political right with libertarians in that it calls into question the entire argument and the reliability of any other assertions that she makes.

She then goes on to say in the following paragraph

“Those ideologically supportive of the “free market” are trying to coerce banks to stop ditching customers that don’t meet their environmental, social and governance (ESG) commitments, and/or are deemed too financially risky.”

Oh dear. Is she suggesting that those who support the free market do so for ideological purposes. Or is she suggesting that the support for the free market flows from those on the political right, libertarians if you like to use her words.

As a business writer I would have thought that Ms Tibshraeny would have been a little more familiar with economic history. I don’t know if I could characterize Adam Smith who, in the Wealth of Nations in 1776 developed the theory of the free market, as a member of the political right or a libertarian – unless Ms Tibshraeny is using a fallacy adopted by many modern social historians of anachronism – ascribing to those in the past the values of the present.

Smith is seen as the Father of Economics and the Father of Capitalism as Ms Tibshraeny would be well aware. Smith’s writing as an ideology – no. Rather a theory that shaped later public policy.

The sad thing is that these rather cheap shots employed by the author diminish the power of her argument. But it seems that cheap shots are the order of the day in these troubled times. The conflation of the political right with libertarianism (which is seen as a “bad thing”) is a clear example and is designed to provoke a sub-conscious reponse in the reader.

And all this is rather unfortunate because in the past Ms. Tibshraeny has produced so excellent material.

I hope that on this occasion the paragraphs I have referred to were a lapsus styli or perhaps some adjustments from an over-enthusiastic sub-editor.