Mediawatch: Pandemic probe media focus flipped to politicians
Photo:
Royal Commission livestream
"It's the big one. The inquiry into the Covid response kicks off this morning. It looks at lockdowns. It looks at all of the things you hated most," Ryan Bridge told viewers of NZME's streaming show
Herald Now
last Monday morning
.
But the public hearings which ran all week turned out not to be such a 'big one' for the media.
"I saw the Covid inquiry in the news this morning and I just thought: how long does this have to go on for?" an exasperated Lara Greaves - an associate professor in politics - told Bridge later in the same show.
She's not the only one who feels that way.
But the hearings were barely in the news after they got under way on Monday.
On Tuesday the inquiry was well down the running order in morning and evening news shows, long after coverage of the mushroom poisoning trial in Australia. On Wednesday the possibility of moa being regenerated with the backing of Sir Peter Jackson was a bigger story for most outlets.
There was a little more coverage on Thursday when anti-vaccine and anti-lockdown groups appeared, ahead of anti-conspiracy theory group FACT and immunologist Professor Graeme LeGros later on.
But by the time they wrapped up on Friday the hearings had virtually vanished from bulletins. And what was said over the five days generated less coverage than questions about whether politicians would appear at hearings in future.
As for "the things you hated most" - people hated different things.
Asthmatic Annie Collins told the inquiry on the first day she thought lockdowns worked and saved lives, and vaccine misinformation online was the real problem.
"I think that was a major flaw in our system. All those social media streams should have been blocked. They were disgusting and they were basically lies," she said.
Shutting down social media channels was out of scope for this inquiry, but the chairman Grant Illingworth KC told Ryan Bridge on Monday the big decisions made at the time were certainly not.
Employment relations and safety manager Paul Jarvie and Heart of the City chief executive Viv Beck.
Photo:
Screengrab / Covid 19 Inquiry
When the
Herald Now
host pressed the chairman about getting the big political decision-makers in front of the inquiry he said they would be invited to come and give evidence at a second set of hearings next month.
When asked if former PM Jacinda Ardern would be one of them, Illingworth replied: "There are issues in relation to our powers when people are out of the country. If she's in the country, we will consider her position."
He would not reveal details of specific communications, but he did say "those things are being worked through" and that "we will be fair, open and transparent at the appropriate time."
That response was misinterpreted by many in the media as meaning Jacinda Ardern had been asked to attend - and either had not yet responded or that the chair would not say if she had or not.
RNZ
amended its reporting
to make it clear the Commission said no decision had yet been made about who would appear at the August hearings.
But Ryan Bridge continued to press for Ardern's appearance on
Herald Now
and Newstalk ZB.
David Seymour - appearing as the acting PM - told Ryan Bridge the former PM should front up to answer questions about "the most significant political and economic event of this century so far."
But Seymour was also at pains to point out that the inquiry is independent, and would make its own decision.
That was the reason Labour leader Chris Hipkins - health minister during the period covered by the inquiry - gave on
Morning Report
the next day for not giving a view on Ardern's attendance.
Hipkins also dodged a question about whether he'd discussed the issue with Jacinda Ardern herself.
On
Herald Now
on Tuesday, Chris Hipkins confirmed he was cooperating with the inquiry, but equivocated on whether he himself would appear before it in August.
He also made it clear he really didn't fancy what he thought had become a political process.
"The terms of reference specifically exclude decisions made when New Zealand First were part of the government. So I think that the terms of reference have been deliberately constructed to achieve a particular outcome, particularly around providing a platform for those who have conspiracy theorists' views," he said.
NZ First demanded the inquiry when forming the coalition government in 2023. The party even invoked 'agree to disagree' provisions in that agreement when National persisted with the first Royal Commission the Labour government had already launched.
The second phase opened this week with new commissioners and expanded terms of reference, which meant that fringe voices opposed to the vaccine mandates, and in some cases the vaccine itself, would be heard this time and heard but not cross examined.
"It seems to have been specifically written into the terms of reference that they get maximum airtime," Hipkins told
Herald Now
, adding that some of those given a platform had inspired the occupation of Parliament in 2022, where platforms for gallows were built - including one with his own name on it.
One of the groups that prompted the occupation was the anti-vaccine, anti-lockdown group Voices for Freedom.
The group's Facebook page was taken offline in 2021 for what the platform said was "misinformation that could cause physical harm."
"You seriously expect the people of New Zealand to accept that deaths being reported internationally (in 2020) were not genuinely from Covid?" Grant Illingworth KC asked them on Thursday.
"We're not disputing that there were deaths. We're simply saying that it gets very complex, especially when people are being funded in order to tick a box to say that a death was caused by Covid," VFF co-founder Claire Deeks replied.
Voices for Freedom is also promoting a Face the Music campaign pressing the inquiry's commissioners to summon Jacinda Ardern and others and "hold them accountable for their COVID abuse."
Their online petition depicts Jacinda Ardern, Chris Hipkins, Sir Ashley Bloomfield all shoulder-to-shoulder in a courtroom dock.
It's not exactly in tune with the evidence-gathering and non-adversarial approach of this Royal Commission's mandate.
But others in the media weighed in behind the idea.
"It is actually bizarre that we are having a Covid inquiry without Dame Jacinda's participation. She owes it to Kiwis to front up," Stuff's 'good news' correspondent
Patrick Gower declared
on Wednesday.
That was triggered by Sir Ian Taylor's
open letter
to Jacinda Ardern last weekend - also published by Stuff - accusing Ardern of turning her back on the nation of five million for "a waka for one."
But the same day
The Post had reported
a spokesperson for Dame Jacinda Ardern said she would provide evidence to the Covid-19 inquiry if asked - and "discussions were ongoing about the best way for it to occur."
"Fact: Ardern has agreed to give evidence to phase two of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Government's response to Covid-19," The Herald's
Fran O'Sullivan stated
bluntly this weekend.
"There is room to examine all of this dispassionately - not try to (figuratively) hang her again as the more deranged attempted when they wheeled out their noose on Parliament's grounds."
For all the urging in the media, the story has actually been the same since March when the inquiry issued
a minute
, making it clear it could not take a legalistic or adversarial approach.
"The commissioners expect that individuals will be prepared to attend interviews with them and or officers of the inquiry on a voluntary basis," the minute stated, regarding interviews with decision makers.
"The interviews may be conducted online or in person, recorded and may be transcribed for the public record."
In the end opinions about a point that was mostly moot overshadowed the coverage of what the commissioners were actually told in five days of public, livestreamed hearings.
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