The NZ Media Were Defeated by the US Election

Last week wasn’t a good week for the news media. Trump won. The media were defeated – in perhaps a mortal blow to their trust and integrity. X is now the news platform of choice.

[Please note - due to a number of video clips, it’s worth watching the YouTube version of this Substack]

Do I need to remind you?

In five years, general trust in the news has fallen 20 percentage points. Just 1 in 3 NZ’ers trust the news media.

60% of NZ survey participants reported they sometimes, often, or almost always avoid the news. The highest rates in the world.

If you still trust the media, you’re in a shrinking minority of New Zealanders.

The coverage of the US Presidential Election has not been reporting – it has been propagandising.

But despite the atrocious reporting of the media – both here in NZ and overseas, Trump still won.

Nobody is listening to the media anymore.

Let me show you what I think were the worst examples from the past month.

EXAMPLE 1

1News Trump town hall event: 'Let's just listen to music'

Here was their 6pm news bulletin coverage

But what actually happened?

So Trump showed some humanity by halting a political rally so that sick people could be tended to – twice – and then turned it into a fun event of music and signing Trump caps.

But the media mockers pounced on it – and totally tried to fool you.

EXAMPLE 2

1News reporter Jack Tame grossly misrepresented former President Donald Trump's comments about protecting women from illegal immigrants. The speech coverage is stopped - mid-sentence! And Jack says Trump was referring to – abortion.

EXAMPLE 3

The headlines all screamed - Trump suggests opponent Liz Cheney should face FIRING SQUAD for her foreign policy stance

Yep - Shocking comments.

Here’s Stuff – Donald Trump suggests war hawk Liz Cheney should have guns trained on her face

Except he didn’t say that. He was making the point that people like Cheney are all war hawks when they’re sitting in their plush Washington office sending 10,000 troops to fight the enemy – but how would they feel with guns trained on their face.

Now let’s watch ThreeNews’ coverage. Watch when they cut the coverage.

Now also on Saturday night, TVNZ butchered a piece on the abortion debate. Reporter Logan Church was keen to push the abortion narrative in the state of Georgia which was supposed to be a real marginal seat. (It wasn’t!) but failed to tell you that the women who died in Georgia died from legal abortion pills – a medical abortion – and complications arising.

But the pro abortion narrative was front and centre in our media, wasn’t it.

EXAMPLE 4

TVNZ’s Q&A there was a feature on the US election and an interview entitled “US faces 'chaos' if Trump wins 2nd term”

Here’s the intro

What they didn’t tell you – apart from a minor comment well into the interview was that he has always opposed Trump

He’s described as a “celebrated observer” BUT he’s  Founding member of Never Trump lobby group, Author of “Trumpocracy: The Corruption of the American Republic”, Voted for Hillary in 2016, His magazine endorsed Biden in 2020.

You think that should have been disclosed by Q&A. Absolutely. Feel free to interview him but tell us his biases first.

EXAMPLE 5

Poor wee ThreeNews newsreader Laura Tupou is absolutely dripping with unprofessionalism, sarcasm and condescension as she slams Trump for his rhetoric - but then congratulates Kamala for “returning as good as she got”.

This is probably the worst introduction Ive seen on a major news bulletin.

EXAMPLE 6

The NZ media got very excited when a rogue poll was released suggesting that Trump might lose a safe seat. The proclamations were loud. Harris beating Trump. Harris ahead.

Nek minnit

56% to Trump. 42% to Harris. Not even close, team.

Nobody thought to check whether this was a complete outlier to every other poll saying the opposite.

The media were just too excited – because they loved the narrative.

Anybody that was half watching could tell that 99% of the legacy media was campaigning for Kamala – including here in NZ.

We don’t have the analysis here – but in the US, it’s shocking.

During July / August

84% positive about Harris. 89% negative about Trump

By the end of the campaign, looking at just positive coverage, 78% positive coverage to Harris. Just 15% positive to Trump.

Here’s why the Democrats should be hanging their head in shame. They’ve had the media on their side right back to 1992 and they still haven’t always been able to win. But you can see the left wing bias has been getting worse as time progresses.

I’m sure you’re not surprised by those stats. We had the same problem here during the cannabis debate, abortion debate, conversion therapy debate, and the mandate parliament protest.

The NZ media were bias. In many media outlets, atrociously so.

But last Thursday morning after Trump was confirmed, the mainstream media weren’t ready to blame themselves.

In the US, the blame was all on intersectionality, and that US voters were either racists or mysoginists – or both. And even black and Latino voters were racists.

Here’s a New York Times columnist saying it was just whites who voted for him. (Don’t tell all the blacks and Latinos that they did also 😊)

Here’s an MSNBC presenter  who deleted her twitter account

And here’s the editorial board of the New York Times sharing “the worst version of a trump administration”.

Wow – there’s some serious Trump Derangement Syndrome on display there.

I can guarantee that if Kamala had won, there would NEVER have been a “the worst version of a Harris administration”. Guarantee it.

CBS newsreader John Dickerson was in tears

MSNBC host Stephanie Ruhle was in tears 

CNN host Van Jones thought that if Kamala had won, Democrats would finally be able to breathe!

One more? I know you’re enjoying this.

Here’s MSNBC saying Kamala did a flawless campaign with sooooo many celebrity endorsements. But she still lost. Gee  

Now you may be saying – what’s the New York Times got to do with NZ.

Glad you asked.

The NZ Herald regularly reprints NYT articles. Here’s a google I did.

Here’s a reprint just after the election - New York Times editorial board: America makes a perilous choice

Radio NZ regularly uses left wing media CNN and Reuters

Stuff uses ITV and Associated Press – both very left wing outlets.

So yes – the international media directly affects us.

And unfortunately we don’t have a counterbalancing Fox News or The Australian or the UK’s Daily Telegraph

So what was the response here in NZ to Trump’s victory

“Not a great night for NZ.” In fact the NZ Herald found one American in Auckland who felt ‘ashamed’.

The next day we were told that America was entering its most dangerous period since 1861 – although Matthew Hooton wasn’t born until a century after that date.

Stuff just wanted defiance from Kamala, that people were googling “Moving to NZ” and warning people to find out about Project 2025! I’ve actually already told you about how good that is – even though Trump is not connected to it.

The next day we had this coverage about Handmaid’s Tale and other fictional dystopias

The rabid left wing Guardian was offering therapy to staff after ‘devastating’ Trump in.

This was the front page of the NZ Herald – “era of uncertainty” and “will he be a lame duck President”.

Don’t tell the NZ Herald that the Republicans also have the Senate and the House, and there are majority conservatives on the Supreme Court eh. No – he’s going to be a lame duck.

Here was ThreeNews the following night

And the following night. Which also needed fact checking

Interestingly, the US mainstream viewership of the election was down – especially on left wing CNN and MSNBC. Fox was the winner in terms of viewers

According to Nielsen which monitors viewership in the US, Fox had almost 10 millions viewers but that was down from 13.7 million viewers on election night 2020. CNN had 4.7 million viewers this year, essentially half of the 9.1 million who watched four years earlier. Yes – half! MSNBC had 5.5 million viewers, down from 7.3 million in 2020. Of the broadcast networks, ABC had 5.7 million viewers this year, NBC had 5.3 million and CBS had 3.5 million.

However, there was one platform that was celebrating.

Elon Musk’s X (formerly Twitter).

Record usage of this Platform, Musk posted.

He also posted

The reality of this election was plain to see on 𝕏, while most legacy media lied relentlessly to the public. You are the media now. Please post your thoughts & observations on 𝕏, correct others when wrong and we will have at least one place in the world where you can come to find the truth.

Musk had also previously said:

Leaders should post [on 𝕏] directly, not hand the role to intermediaries. That is what works best. Mistakes will be made, but that’s what proves it’s real. People want authenticity.

Yes. X is now the media outlet of choice. My choice. It’s my first port of call. Most of the left-wing media outlets are on there – except for the chicken Stuff and RadioNZ who have thrown their toys and won’t post there. But that’s no loss.

But as Musk rightly says, you can comment – push back – disagree – agree – in real time. There’s also fact checks – called community notes - happening in real time.

It’s the free speech and news platform now.

You know why? Because the left don’t control it. The left hate free speech which is why they shut down Candace Owens and Posie Parker and many others – including deregistering Family First but not the Helen Clark Foundation.

I’d encourage you to start using X it if you already haven’t. Make it one of your prime news sources.

I’ll see you there. My handle is @bobmccoskrienz and Family First’s is @familyfirstnz

Trump Derangement Syndrome - a mental condition in which a person has been driven effectively insane due to their dislike of Donald Trump, to the point at which they will abandon all logic and reason.

That sums up the entire NZ news media.

And we’re going to get four more years of it. You have been warned!

But it wasn’t just Kamala and the woke crazy abortion-obsessed Democrats who were defeated last week.

The mainstream media also suffered a mortal blow.

See you on X.