In Praise of “Democracy Now!” – Kāpiti and Coast Independent

Democracy Now! is an independent, global news hour anchored by award-winning journalists Amy Goodman and Juan González that airs on 1,300+ TV and radio stations in the United States and around the world. Democracy Now! website

Getting the real story?

By Roger Childs

Whatever the historical legacy of the Trump campaign and administration turns out to be, it will be remembered for two phrases: “fake news” and “alternative facts”.

So where can you get the stories you can safely believe? As for news on the United States, and the wider world, is concerned, you probably can’t do better than Democracy Now!

You can get a daily email with the latest. Check their website: https://www.democracynow.org/

Independent news

Like KIN, Democracy Now! doesn’t take advertising, so they are not beholden to the business world to shape their news coverage. If you join up, the daily service is free.

However, you can make donations if you wish.

Is this a propaganda machine churning out stories to keep those left, or right, of the political centre happy? Definitely not. Words like moderate, liberal, progressive, balanced come to mind.

Their approach is to use direct quotes in their articles, do some analysis and talk to major players and experts. Many of their stories are based on interviews as they search for the truth. Not easy in the current climate of dodgy communication!

Covering the field

Here is a sample of their stories for Thursday 16 February:

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STORY OF THE WEEK

Kāpiti’s proposed Te Uruhi Gateway at Paraparaumu Beach has been voted through after a day-long debate which include a haka in the District Council chamber and angry protests.

The Kapiti council faced a government deadline for $4.45 million project, with half to come from the Covid Recovery fund.

Vote went 7-4

It wasn’t until after 5.30 pm when the councillors and mayor voted 7-4 to give the go-ahead. The four anti votes came from councillors Jocelyn Prvanov, Gwynn Compton , Martin Halliday and Bernie Randall.

100 Years Ago — and the Maori Long March begins

Māori politics was dominated by the influential MPs (and sometime Cabinet ministers) Māui Pōmare ( Waitara statue photo above) and Apirana Ngata.

The 1920's also saw the rise of Tahupōtiki Wiremu Rātana’s religious movement, and the emergence of Te Puea Hērangi in Waikato.

Ngata worked hard to foster Māori scholarship and education and preserve traditional arts and culture.

He convinced the government to establish a Board of Maori Ethnological Research (1923), a Maori Purposes Fund Control Board (1924) and a School of Maori Arts and Crafts in Rotorua (1927).

The Reform government also took the first, tentative steps towards settling longstanding Māori grievances.

Agreements with Te Arawa in 1922 and Ngāti Tūwharetoa in 1926 recognised their respective rights over the Rotorua lakes and Lake Taupō, and led to the establishment of trust boards with some government funding.

Commissions of inquiry which examined Ngāi Tahu grievances (1920–21) and the Waikato and Taranaki confiscations (1926–27) recommended that modest compensation be paid.

A lot depends on what the TV News channel’s agenda is: with TVNZ it’s to get as much advertising revenue as possible by boosting ratings as much as possible. Many will remember when its innovative TV7, which was devoted to indepth reporting, was terminated for not bringing in enough dollars. Many overseas channels put advertising revenue at the top of their priorities, too.

Well-known channels with a blatantly political bias include Al Jazeera, Fox News, CNN, the BBC, MSNBC, and alternatives like the one you talk about here. Those who have the time could spend 2 hours a day watching all of them to get a reasonably good appreciation of what is happening out there, some overall semblance of the truth – and try to decide what’s believable.