Tuesday, February 27, 2018

Waikato Times letter of the week #84

From the edition of Wednesday February 21. As always, spelling, punctuation, grammar and logic are exactly as printed in the Waikato Times.
Media merger
The appeal to the NZ Court of Appeal by NZME (NZ Herald and Stuff) to reopen their attempt to allow the two corporations to merge their media interests, is a threat to our democracy. This merger, if it goes ahead, would allow most of the newspapers in this country to be under one editorial direction with owners all being offshore.
Profit to shareholders would be the news filter. Censorship by the oligarchy.
The arguments that will be put forward to gain this monopoly is a “media plurality” and/or “media diversity” which seems to mean that the corporations own most of the TV and radio stations as well. So big is not better than democracy but it is better for the ruling plutocracy. The loss of democracy to capitalism will exacerbate climate change and is a threat to humanity let alone democracy. Good on the Commerce Commission for closing the gate.
Peter H Wood
Thames