Post · bonfire.cafe

"Removing content standards such as accuracy, balance and fairness, I think invites a significant political risk. You could end up with a rogue media operator with significant market power that chose to ignore them, with impunity. And I think that's politically dangerous, democratically it's indefensible."

#DrPeterThompson, 2026

https://www.rnz.co.nz/podcast/mediawatch?share=bdb1a4a8-a91f-48a0-ac5e-f81f354a7021

https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/594762/mediawatch-putting-down-the-watchdog

This is a very complicated issue, and I'm still figuring out what I think.

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#BSA #MediaWatch #RNZ #podcasts

RNZ

Mediawatch: Putting down the watchdog?

The government wants to replace the heavy hand of the state with self-regulation for media. Would that work?

RNZ

Mediawatch podcast

A critical look at the New Zealand media.

#drpeterthompson #bsa #mediawatch #rnz #podcasts

Strypey

@strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz · 1 hour ago

A younger Strypey, working with Indymedia, would probably have celebrated the scrapping of the Broadcasting Standards Authority. Perceiving it as a Mary Whitehouse style entity, enforcing stuffy, anachronistic rules on media, like the rules that used to police what songs could be played by a radio station.

But even then, someone making Thompson's point would have given me pause. It's not a bad thing to have some limits on a mega-rich prick's ability to pepper the public with propaganda.

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Strypey

@strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz · 59 minutes ago

As mentioned elsewhere in the linked edition of MediaWatch, even the people running the BSA admit that it's statutory function has not been updated as the wider media ecosystem has evolved. It dates back to a time when TV and radio were the most powerful way to convince the public of things. Which hasn't been true for at least a decade if not 2.

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Strypey

@strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz · 52 minutes ago

The BSA was created as part of comprehensive media reforms, which also included allowing for-profit entities to set up (or buy) TV and radio stations in NZ. The government of the day feared the media tail wagging the dog of democratic governance. Using its disproportionate opinion-shaping power of corporate media to artificially constraint or expand what's politically possible, in the interests of its owners.

Which is exactly what's happened since with social media platforms.

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Strypey

@strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz · 44 minutes ago

By moving with the times in investigating a complaint against The Platform (not a traditional wireless broadcast) the BSA has opened up a Pandora's box of potential complaints against livestreaming channels that reputation launderers have been using with impunity. Podcasts are broadcast-like too, what if they're next?

Billionaires and their political pets don't want to lose the power that this propaganda machinery has allowed them to hold onto - or even increase - so the BSA has to go.

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