Gear smashed and violent threats: abuse and attacks on Kiwi journalists must stop
Friday, 11 February 2022
Mark Stevens is the Head of News at Stuff
OPINION: Hostility towards journalists is increasing.
Just doing their job, several journalists from Stuff have lately been attacked. They’ve had gear smashed, been punched and belted with umbrellas. Many reporters have been harassed, both in person and online, including one threatened with their home being burned down.
Abuse and attacks on journalists are not new. But seldom has it been so prevalent in New Zealand.
From time to time, news stories are published that rub a certain person, group or community up the wrong way. We often say in journalism that we can’t please everyone all the time. Nor should we. Holding the powerful to account, shining light on untruths and giving voices to the wronged isn’t always welcome or popular.
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We publish a range of views, while avoiding and dismantling falsehoods, and we listen. But when you disagree, wipe the froth from your mouth first; we take criticism but cannot tolerate attacks, threats or violence.
It’s no coincidence that the increase in hostility toward journalists has come at a time when a global pandemic left many quarters feeling disenfranchised and wrongly perceiving that the media is being used as a weapon by governments to disseminate their propaganda. We’re not; we do and will keep covering news in a non-ideological and non-partisan way.
Most of the attacks on Stuff journalists - and those directed at many of our industry counterparts - have come from an ill-informed anti-vax crowd (coverage of the environment and climate change is similarly a lightning rod for abusers). But it’s worth noting that the anti-vax sentiment quickly morphs into a grab-bag of anti-anything sentiment.
This week’s march on Parliament has been no different. While overwhelmingly peaceful, the protests have also been an excuse for the extreme and angry few to turn on the media; spitting, insulting and - at its worst - physically attacking.
During the dozens of anti-vax/anti-mandate protests that have been covered by the media of late, it’s not been uncommon to see flags and banners representing many other grudges and - tellingly - a sprinkling of Donald Trump placards too.
The Trump paraphernalia is telling not because the former US president has taken any useful position on New Zealand’s Covid-19 response, but because the behaviour we’re seeing unfold is straight from the Trump playbook. Divide, ‘otherise’ and attack the media, primarily with claims of ‘fake news’ when the narrative doesn’t suit.
Add these ingredients to a social media machine that meticulously and strategically separates the sound-of-mind from the ill-informed and you get a salvo of conspiracy theories and untruths funnelled with military precision at exactly those most likely to be emboldened by them.
Stuff takes the vile and abhorrent assaults on our staff and colleagues seriously.
We contact the police and we provide additional security measures for our journalists. Additional training and advice is being prepared and shared. An academic survey of New Zealand journalists to accurately gauge the level of abuse and attacks is being supported by the industry.
New operational guidelines have been introduced; working in pairs in volatile situations and removing overt media branding. Competing media have shared contacts of journalists in the field to provide a safety network if things get dangerous.
Other media organisations in New Zealand share our concerns. We’re talking together and, with other agencies, looking at the problem and potential solutions.
It needs to stop. Journalists should be able to do their jobs safely. And New Zealand should resist the insidious strike on democracy we’ve seen abroad.
It’s ironic the media is lambasted by this extremist fringe for being complicit in the spreading of mistruth.
Thwarting the important work that journalists do risks creating exactly the breeding ground for untruths that the protesters seem so worried about; a one-sided narrative going unchecked and being served up without journalistic interrogation.
Journalists need to be safe to keep New Zealand’s democracy safe from the types of attacks we’ve seen elsewhere in the world.