When my truth becomes her lie (Patreon)

About 18 months ago the Guardian interviewed me. It was running a story on how New Zealand seemed to have avoided the worst excesses of political polarisation that much of the western world was suffering through.

I told the person interviewing me that I thought it was because we didn't have Murdoch-owned press:

“A huge reason that our politics is not so extremely polarised and so far out there is because we no longer have Murdoch-owned press in New Zealand, and it’s never taken a foothold.” 

I'm aware that we did have Murdoch-owned press. In fact the first overseas newspaper the little Aussie gremlin owned was a Wellington one. But Murdoch-owned press really took off in influence in the UK in the 90s; It's the Sun wot won it happened in 1992, patting itself on the back for Major defeating Kinnock. And then when the Sun swung in behind Tony Blair's Labour in 1997 that was considered game over.

The influence of Murdoch in the US happened a wee bit later. Fox News launched in 1996 but it wasn't until the early part of the Iraq invasion of 2003 that it saw its viewership skyrocket. 2003 was also the year that Murdoch divested the fuck out of New Zealand, selling its 45% shareholding in Independent Newspapers to Fairfax. 

My point was that we don't have the toxic misinformation that Murdoch-media vomits all over its viewers that the US, UK, and Australia does, and that because of this our media operates in a smaller overton window.

At the time, that quote went gangbusters all around the world. That quote was tweeted by people with huge followings. AOC talked about it on a twitch-stream with Jagmeet Singh of the NDP in Canada. Sarah Silverman tweeted it, some NBA coach tweeted it, it was a big deal. Then it eventually stopped being a big deal.

Until yesterday.

Someone DM'd me because this random little account with a tick over 2000 followers tweeted out the quote again, except this time it was paraphrased and misattributed.

In his telling, it was the Prime Minister who said it, and she wasn't just saying we no longer had Murdoch media here, but that it was never allowed. And that wasn't why we didn't have political polarisation, but rather why we didn't suffer the "rage of older white men". 

I have no idea how this guy came to create this fantasy. Nor do I know why it took off. But take off it did. I saw that Judd Apatow retweeted it, and just look at those numbers? Mother fucker went viral.

It got so out of hand that CNN actually looked into it and made poor old Andrew Campbell deny that the PM had ever said anything of the sort. Sorry Andrew.

CNN's Daniel Dale at least found the correct quote, and provided that for his followers to see:

But neither of his tweets have done anywhere near the numbers of the original tale of bullshit.

It's funny, I think when something sounds plausible, and when it confirms a pre-existing narrative we believe then it's really easy to buy.

So for those in the US/UK/Aus who have to put up with Murdoch shit, this sounds wonderful! Of course Murdoch is the cause of all the angry white men! How easily explainable! And Ardern is held up in such high regard overseas that of course she'd say something so obvious and clever, and of course New Zealand, that bastion of freedom and liberality, would never allow Murdoch media to happen there. It's too nice a place.

None of which is true. And also, since I said that, we have seen worse polarisation. Especially over our Covid response. But I maintain that we have been spared a worse situation because we don't have media that just heaps fuel upon a fire of lies. So I'm sticking to my guns, New Zealand's political landscape is definitely the better for the lack of Murdoch*, and I hope that the attention my words have got (both correct and paraphrased) don't cause Murdoch to suddenly decide there's a market to exploit here.

* I believe that Newscorp may have bought about 15% of APN (now NZME) in 2015, but it sold that the following year/