Dirty tactics | The Jackal

13 Aug 2014

Dirty tactics

It has been unfortunate to see all the disinformation surrounding the John Key effigy burning controversy. Not only did Breakfast TV allow the Prime Minister to blame the Internet Mana party without question, One news also wrongly said that the FaceBook 'group' who initially posted the video, National Party Billboard Makeovers, claimed responsibility for the stunt.

However, National Party Billboard Makeovers wasn’t responsible, as can be clearly seen from their August 11 statement on the matter:

This page, dubbed 'the group' by Dann most certainly does not claim responsibility for the effigy. Yes, the effigy was shared to the page by the people who captured the footage. We are not familiar with the folks in the video and none of the admins know them personally. We are told, however, the people in the video are not involved in the 'Internet Mana' party.

The National Party Billboard Makeovers is not a group, or any kind of active force. We are a Facebook page run by a couple of people who choose to display a repository of imagery from up and down the country.

John Key's lies were again proven wrong today when Yahoo News reported:

Man who burned John Key effigy fronts up

The man who made the John Key effigy and set it alight has fronted up - and he doesn't have anything to do with the Internet Party.

A photo of the burning effigy was posted on Facebook on Monday and shown to Mr Key on TVNZ's Breakfast programme.

His first reaction was to suggest Internet Party founder Kim Dotcom was behind it, because of similar videos showing students chanting "f... John Key" which had been posted by the party.

Clearly John Key's first reaction was totally wrong! He joined two dots that simply weren’t there, which is further evidence that he's not fit to lead New Zealand.

Last night One news then added insult to injury by implying that left wing political parties were running some sort of negative campaign against their beloved National party. Simon Dallow and Corin Dann were going on about "dirty tactics" against Key's presidential like campaigning, which considering the lack of any evidence of any party involvement in the effigy burning, looks rather dumb!

In my opinion such claims are about as stupid as it gets. It was Key who criticized the Internet Mana party with a lie. He clearly and unjustifiably tried to misdirect people's anger about a burning effigy towards his political opponents.

Of course we must make allowances for reporters simply making mistakes, but when those "mistakes" are designed to consistently besmirch left wing politicians, then they shouldn't be considered mistakes any longer. Instead, they should be considered a dirty tactics campaign by the right wing.

Justifiably, the Internet Mana party is a bit hacked off about being accused of something they had absolutely nothing to do with. Yesterday, the NZ Herald reported:

Internet-Mana fired up over Key's TVNZ effigy interview

During an interview on yesterday's Breakfast show, John Key was shown the video of the effigy being burned -- which had previously been highlighted by National Party-aligned blogger Cameron Slater -- and asked for his reaction by host Mr Christie.

The latest video emerged just days after a furore over another Internet-Mana video that included footage of Internet Party founder Kim Dotcom egging on a crowd chanting of "F**k John Key".

Mr Key told Mr Christie: "Internet-Mana, you know, put that -- both these videos together and put it on their sites under their banner so they're the ones promoting it."

How ironic that it was the right wings most ardent muckraker, Cameron Slater, who posted the burning John Key effigy video. Here it is:



In any case, TVNZ and the other biased news outlets in New Zealand should stop their obvious campaigning on behalf of the National party. They should also get their facts straight and own up to being wrong when they're caught out lying for the Prime Minister.