Community News, Censorship and the Willful Blindness of Newspaper Editors

A story of censorship from a small town in New Zealand, and why free speech is getting increasingly difficult.

Where are the professional journalists of that old-fashioned ‘4th Estate’? Were they taught to expose corruption and censorship, no matter what? Where is their curiosity; their professionalism? This post describes my interactions this week with our two local newspaper editors - one corporate and one ‘independent’. If truth starts at the local level, this little New Zealand town is broken.

Like many local towns all over the world, we still get local ‘free’ newspapers delivered every week. Mostly, these papers are ‘hangers on’ from days long-gone in more developed countries. For instance, I remember UK papers like Adscene, which were bought out, consolidated and then died many years ago - due to cheap/free online advertising, personalised newsfeeds and let’s be honest, poor quality articles.

I admit that I would occasionally flick through the local Te Awamutu Courier run by legacy media’s New Zealand Media & Entertainment Ltd) (NZME) and Te Awamutu News (an independent) before adding them to our wood-burning stove fire-starting box. Then, when the covid era struck, and both papers were full of fear-porn about the ‘virus’ and then later, BigPharma propaganda about the ‘safe and effective’ and promoting cringeworthy ‘vaxxathons’, I gave up all together and both papers went unceremoniously into the fire box.

One of the reasons you’re reading my writing here, is because international legacy media platforms are no longer fit for purpose. And for me, that realisation happened a long time ago when colleagues and I were/are repeatedly trying to get news out about the horrendous poisonings of dogs and cattle and even humans, as a result of the aerial 1080 poison operations over New Zealand’s forests and waterways. For details see this recent Media Release:

The rise in readership and financial support of independent sources of news, such as the ones I listed in this post, have been very inspiring:

So I have been intrigued by the latest set of redundancies at NZME and other Jabcinda-funded media entities. And for some reason I was curious enough last week to open the Te Awamutu Courier. And there I read this article (online version paywalled here) about how our local council had apparently ‘been forced’ to turn off comments on their Facebook page to censor the same residents who pay their salaries.

This article is so typical of the confusion caused by the Censorship Industrial Complex. The public have been so propagandised over the last four years, to the extent that they are unsure of truth or lie. The Council staff themselves are also confused, and cannot defend themselves - especially the (younger) staff who are tasked with ‘managing’ the Facebook posts. The comments posted by residents are likely to include some uncomfortable knowledge and inconvenient truths. One particular Elephant in the Room is the global economic recession. Our Council has significant financial vulnerabilities because of our increased cost of living, job redundancies and mortgage interest rates. Not to mention the unexpected deaths and numerous disabilities due to the ‘safe and effective’ mandated by the same Council. Many of us are still very raw about being excluded from Council-run facilities like public libraries are sports centres during the height of the Orwellian totalitarian craziness.

Screenshot from this article

So, taking this article as a challenge, and armed with the fantastic resources for overcoming propagandised individuals from reachingpeople.net I drafted a Letter to the Editor, Dean Taylor. Here is what I said:

Dear Dean, 

Re: ‘Council forced to silence Facebook’ 9 May 2024

We value the important work of [Waipa] Council, which claims its 2024 vision is “Building Connected Communities”. This surely means welcoming open and honest communication?  In my experience, most Waipa ratepayers are respectful, intelligent citizens who care deeply about their communities. I’m confident that only a few Waipa residents who follow the council’s Facebook page might be interpreted as sometimes being abusive or rude. I wonder what’s preventing the council staff (skilled in social media communications) from recording these few individuals and blocking them? 

Prohibiting comments on any council posts on their Facebook page seems counter-productive and is not a feasible solution. When ratepayers’ responses to Council’s posts are missing, Council’s social media activity could be seen as waste of valuable staff time, our funds and resources. This is especially worrying for us during escalating costs of living and a global economic recession. 

History teaches us that silencing the majority due to a few dissident voices is never an ethical or appropriate solution. Council may not yet be aware that illegal censorship of scientific facts by Government, Meta (the company that owns Facebook, Instagram & WhatsApp) and other social media giants is currently the subject of multiple international court cases? Curiously, these cases have themselves been widely censored (except by independent media). Maybe that’s why realitycheck.radio has successfully crowdfunded hundreds of thousands of dollars to secure its future stability as a free-speech forum?

I personally know Community Board representatives who understand the reasons why some ratepayers may feel frustrated and angry because they are unheard. I sincerely hope that Council can find positive ways to listen to and engage with their citizens’ genuine concerns in the difficult times ahead.

The response I got was slightly disconcerting, and not totally unexpected. The Editor claimed the newspaper’s ‘Legal Guardians’ [guardians of whom?] wanted to delete the three sentences bolded above, unless I could provide evidence:

The paper wanted to censor a piece about censorship that provided evidence of the censorship. Bizarre isn’t a strong enough word anymore. Now I had to think carefully. I knew that my colleagues at reachingpeople.net strongly advise against the temptation to ‘firehose’ anyone. Cold facts just don’t work in attempts to overcome the strong cognitive dissonance. But here was an opportunity to use some facts, to prove an important point, to reach a wider audience. Of course there are multiple international court cases happening at the moment, all with complex issues related to Government and Meta’s censorship of recent factual events. So I sent the Editor three examples, as follows:

• Murthy v Missouri: Ongoing US Court action against the Biden Administration during the covid era censorship of social media by a group of very senior academics (including Stanford University). Full court documents available here. Also a media clip about this issue here.  (If you have time, for added context, I highly recommend reading bestselling author, Michael Shellenberger's full affidavit for the original hearing, available here)

• Meta v District of Columbia: Overview of ONE of the cases against Meta and illegal censorship. Full court documents available here.

• Group Action litigation against YouTube and Meta by censored podcasters in Canada. (includes hyperlinks to court documents within).

As to the proof about www.RealityCheck.radio - if needed, just listen to them!

I sent it and waited to see if the Censorship Industrial Complex had been overcome on this little, local incident, or not.

And today, we get the answer: NOPE! My Letter to the Editor has been published, but the ‘offending’ three sentences were edited out. No surprises there, eh donkey?!

But then I wondered about the other so-called ‘independent’ newspaper that we get sent. Could it be that they would publish my letter in full? At least then some residents who are not (yet) aware of the censorship and propaganda online, might get a glimpse of what is happening ‘on the outside’?

So next I ring Roy Pilott, the editor of the Te Awamutu News; now in his seventies and still apparently convinced that a physical newspaper is the way to reach the community with local news. I kid you not. I asked him what he knew about the censorship and bias reporting of news. After a about 20 minutes of careful questioning, it was clear that not only was he completely unaware of any of the censorship and propaganda from legacy media, but that he had also become a victim of it himself.

What hope is there of any real news for our community?

When asked specifically about the Council Facebook posts censoring comments, he said he didn’t have any views about that, because Council’s marketing effectively placed them as a direct competitor to his publication. Therefore he refused to publish anything that mentions anything about it (for fear of promoting it even more, I guess?).

Roy’s concept of censorship appears to be the same as Government propaganda - i.e. that there are ‘dangerous’ ‘harmful’ or ‘prejudiced’ hate speech extremists out there that legitimately needed to be stopped. He told me censorship ‘only applied to global issues, nothing to do with our little town’. I asked him about the other comments that could be censored just for being counter-narrative. He didn’t understand and asked me for an example. So I offered The Health Forum NZ and the doco Silenced that illustrates how the ‘vaccine’ injured and doctors in NZ had been censored across all platforms during the covid era. “I don’t believe that nonsense” Roy said, dismissively, even though he admitted some of his friends had passed away recently. But not unexpectedly, apparently, because “they were my age” he explained. OK.

I returned to the Te Awamutu Courier Editor, to ask if he would publish a follow-up to my censored letter about censorship. I got a three-word response:

“It will be censored” (no exclamation mark or emoji to register the inherent irony)

So in conclusion, both our legacy and independent media in this town are totally captured, paralysed and hypnotised - the ‘senior’ staff are apparently propagandised or willfully blind. This is because most of the income to NZME comes from either central or local Governments - in advertising for events, jab-a-thons, fake-consultations or endless cycles of vacancies for staff and contractors. This ‘free’ newspaper propaganda is also funded by sectors like real estate, where the archaic and delusional marketing in hard copy, strangely still persists - despite the obvious economic and social changes surrounding us.

Some Kiwi citizens are divided and feel resentful of each other and of their Council - and understandably so, in this extremely distorted environment. My experiences this week of speaking directly with those involved in our publishing our hard copy local ‘news’ has reinforced that legacy media is finished. So it’s vitally important to support those writers and researchers we rely on for unbiased, critical-thinking journalism. Like the people I recommend on my post above. Thank GOD we also have realitycheck.radio here in NZ, to help us share some inconvenient truths. Truths that Dean and Roy would benefit from listening to and reflecting on. I’m sure you all have your own sources and find more everyday - do share any favourites in the comments. Kia kaha! Stay strong!