Tuesday, 24 November 2020 14:00

Nice speech, but...

Written by Milking It

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OPINION: Publisher Stuff and lobby group Federated Farmers both like to preach about their respective high-minded virtues – Stuff, about “funding journalism”, Feds about “supporting our farming communities”.

How ironic then that these two have teamed up to do the exact opposite of their respective virtue signalling.

Rural publishers invest a lot of dough funding rural journalism.

Stuff plans to undercut this business model by investing – wait for it – absolutely nothing in rural journalism.

How? Because Feds have enabled them, letting Stuff undercut the market, in return for a glorified newsletter – a vanity soapbox project cooked up in a plush Wellington office paid for by the same farmers that proper rural publishers serve, week-in, week-out.

So much for “funding journalism” and “supporting rural communities”!

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Stuffed!

The canine crusader always has his nose in the air for more media maleficence, so was pointing as soon as he saw the Stuff headline: ‘Wellington residents respond to PM saying he doesn’t need his job!’.

Civil Circus!

OPINION: It really is getting harder to lampoon government bureaucrats when they do such a good job of it themselves.

Anyone in the primary sector will know about the clowns covering the countryside in the red tape we all have to wade through.

Spare a thought then for media outfit Stuff who were threatened with fines up to $200,000 by a snivelling civil servant from the MoH for illustrating a quiz question with a photo of part of the cover of a 45-year-old copy Playboy.

As Stuff notes, “It wasn’t the Playboy cover which caused offence. No, it was the back page which… featured an advert for a cigarette brand”.

As Regulations Minister David Seymour notes, “The real scandal here is, well, no wonder we’ve got problems in healthcare when they’re doing the Stuff quiz during work time.”

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