Mainstream media hates Labour | The Jackal

7 Jul 2014

Mainstream media hates Labour

You may have noticed that many of our so-called journalist's in New Zealand have been going out of their way to give Labour and more specifically the party leader David Cunliffe a hard time leading up to the 2014 September election.

One such article published in Stuff today is no exception:

Cuts only half the story - educators
Labour's proposal to reduce class sizes at schools has failed to win a universal gold star, with experts saying the small cuts without improving teaching would do little to raise the bar of student achievement.

Professor John O'Neill, of Massey University's Institute of Education, said the Labour Party's proposal to cut school class sizes if elected in September would not achieve much without changes to teaching itself.

The problem for John O'Neill, Michael Forbes and Olivia Wannan is that Labour's policy is about more than just reducing class sizes. They're also planning changes to teaching itself that will likely significantly improve outcomes. According to Labour's actual policy they will:

Raise the standard of entry into the teaching profession by pre-screening entry into all initial teacher education programmes.

Establish a comprehensive school advisory service to share best practice and act as mentors and advisors to teachers throughout New Zealand.

Establish a democratic process for appointing the Board of the new Education Council.

Re-direct resources spent forcing “National Standards” on schools into teacher professional development programmes.

It appears that John O'Neil failed to even read the Backing Quality Education (PDF) policy paper. That's not just an unacceptable practice from a professor, especially when they're making public claims about what such a policy is likely to mean, it's downright stupid!

It's especially unacceptable when such false claims are put into print when the policy itself shows them to be completely untrue. Stuff should feel ashamed for publishing such an unbalanced article that's designed to make the reader believe a falsehood.

The mainstream media in New Zealand really needs to clean up their act and stop trying to decide who will lead New Zealand after the 2014 election. Because if they don't we won't have a democratically elected government, we will have a dictatorship propped up by their lies!