False Media: we don’t need it do we?

The National Party taping scandal and subsequent media coverage has provoked some interesting responses from across the political spectrum:

Those on the right are furious at the Labour loving left-wing media for concentrating on the content of the taped conversations instead of the REAL story: who taped them and why? In a rather confused essay Dr Michael Bassett wrote:

Duncan Garner of TV3 has a sleuth who infiltrated the National Party’s conference with a recording device in hand. With the morals of an elderly uninvited funeral goer he/she helped themselves to the wine and savories while snuggling alongside private conversations at a private function, recording without permission some comments and probably splicing them to “sex up” the story. They were then transmitted to Garner for broadcasting to the nation. This time it’s the message we are invited to get exercised about, not the messenger. TV3 hasn’t revealed their snoopers’ identities. They must protect their sources, they’ll tell you. Do you sniff a rat in all this? Are the journalists who chased the authors of the 2005 pamphlets the same people who are now covering the tracks of the eavesdroppers in 2008? Is the intended beneficiary of this double standard the Labour Party? You’d better believe it. Duncan Garner is acting like he’s on Labour’s payroll.

And Garth George over at the Herald (I know, I know) somehow managed to type this out through what must be a pretty thick film of phlegm on his monitor.

. . . what I want to know is what sort of scumbag would do such a thing, then spill his or her guts to the media.

And why the media, including this newspaper, would deign to use word for word such questionable material, and in addition do their damnedest to attribute to the victims, deputy leader Bill English and party veteran Lockwood Smith, some hidden and sinister political programme.

Meanwhile, over at Scoop Gordon Campbell is aghast at the way the right-wing corporate pro-National media has covered the story:

Pretty doggedly, the mainstream media have stuck to their guns and kept the storyline on the secret tapes fiasco firmly focused where the National Party would prefer it to be – on Who Taped It, rather than (a) what is on the tapes or (b) what such content might indicate about the mindset and agenda of the likely next government.

Naturally the pattern repeats itself across the various partisan blogs. I figure if you’ve got Michael Bassett, Garth George and Gordon Campbell criticing you then you’re probably doing alright; when people like that start praising the press for their fair and balanced coverage then its time for the rest of us to get nervous.