Campaign Against Biased Reporting Organised

Tçnâ koutou
 
AWA (Allies of Whânau of Aotearoa) is initiating a campaign of complaints about biased reporting by TVNZ.
 
AWA is concerned that TVNZ is referring to the Mâori arrestees in Tûhoe as Mâori activists. By comparison, BBC headlines are referring to the arrestees as Maori rights campaigners. This clear difference in reporting is reminiscent of reporting on the floods in New Orleans that called black people 'looters' and said that white people were 'salvaging food'.
 
As shapers of the public mind, TVNZ has obligations to report fairly on issues affecting the Mâori community.
 
AWA pointed out the irony of Mâori getting better treatment from a foreign news agency. 
 
Even Al Jazeera is referring  to arrestees as 'campaigners for Mâori sovereignty.' 
 
AWA has provided a template for people who wish to complain:
 
- I don't like TVNZ referring to the Mâori rights campaigners as activists
- By comparison, BBC is calling them Mâori rights campaigners
- TVNZ is stigmatising Mâori in the eyes of the public
- The irony is that Mâori own and pay for TVNZ as members of the public. We are paying for ourselves to be stigmatised.
- I would prefer if TVNZ referred to them as Mâori rights campaigners. 
 
AWA has provided the numbers for ringing TVNZ to complain to members of its networks. 
 
AUCK 916 7000
WGTN 914 5600
 
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