1992: NZBS
September 1, 2023
By AHNZ
Sometimes you might wish there were just one wretched source for the trouble New Zealand is in. Not just the imps and monsters, jokers and liars, spinners and deceivers but the dragon’s cave they hatch out of in the first place. Blow it up. Burn it down! Smash their cathedrals, confiscate their microphones and storyboards. Boot the toxic priesthood out by cutting it off at the very source of New Zealand Bullshit itself.
Well, here’s their main nest and they ironically call it the NZBS. Somehow it doesn’t officially stand for ‘New Zealand Bullshit’ but ‘New Zealand Broadcasting School’. Blinded by self-important piety it apparently never occurred to the NZBS that anyone would mistake their acronym. They are perhaps cut from the same cloth as the National Association of Secondary Deputy and Assistant Principals who took the same initials as the National Socialist German Workers’ Party! Ref. 1996: NASDAP, AHNZ
Established in 1992, the wretched hive of scum and villainy was previously called The Media Centre (est. 1986) before re-branding and offering Christchurch Polytechnic’s first ever degree program. The major man responsible was NZBS founder Brian Pauling who had been directing the miss-education of the Socialists and Communists at the Workers Education Association on Gloucester Street in Christchurch. Now Pauling would be paid much better and be able to reach many classes of impressionable young minds, grant them degrees, and watch them march forth to fill up the print, radio, and television stations of New Zealand.
Mike McRoberts, Clarke Gayford, Corin Dann, Jack Tame, Daniel Faitaua, Mei Heron, Kris Faafoi, Charlotte Graham, Matthew McLean, Ben Boyce, and Miriama Kamo. These are some of the well known graduates and practitioners with a degree in New Zealand Bull Shit. Brian’s children. Ref. Our Grads, NZBS (2023)
“The real story started in 1983 when, after working as the Director of the Workers Education Association for several years, Brian was enticed to Christchurch Polytechnic…a six-week block course in radio was delivered later in the same year. Then, in 1986, Christchurch Polytechnic formally established the Media Centre adding journalism and television certificates to the curriculum…Then, in 1992 the Media Centre became the New Zealand Broadcasting School and was approved to offer the Bachelor of Broadcasting Communications degree. It was the first degree ever taught at Christchurch Polytechnic and Brian Pauling was the driving force behind it. ” – New Zealand Broadcasting School, Facebook (June, 2020)
“Whoever controls the media controls the mind” – Jim Morrison
“The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. …We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. ” – Edward Bernays
“The country’s top broadcasting school has announced a raft of changes to the way its courses are run, after students told an external review about a culture of harassment, bullying and heavy drinking…a “lord of the flies” culture…a “sales” module will be overhauled and marks will no longer depend on revenue raised.” – Students advised of changes to address ‘toxic’ culture at top broadcasting school, Stuff (July 2022)
“One of the country’s best degree courses for aspiring journalists is struggling to recruit new students and has extended its application process…At its peak the three Bachelor of Broadcasting Communications courses at NZBS attracted 75 first year students who went through a rigorous selection process, including an assessment and an interview in conjunction with media organisations….“The school has been ordered to, if necessary, admit anyone who meets the minimum standard requirement for entry and also consider anyone who doesn’t.” – New Zealand Broadcasting School struggling to recruit new students, Stuff (November 2022)
Now in the 2020s New Zealand Bullshit has apparently fallen on hard times.
The decade kicked off with exposure of the “toxic” culture of abuse, bullying, alcoholism at the school as a review soon found. It seems that the kids picked out to be our next media priests were not groomed to be very decent human beings. But when had they been?
The BS school was not willing to educate just anyone in the media arts. Gatekeeping involved a “rigorous selection process” which also involved the say-so of established media organisations. The school is tight with TVNZ, NZME, Mediaworks, RNZ and Newshub. If you don’t meet the profile of the sort of media presenter these organisations decide then you don’t get access to Free Speech. Rather, you get a crippled sort of Free Speech while they get the cameras and microphones and studio skills and established networks.
Yet, not only are these elected media spinners of tomorrow and their mentors tearing at each other’s throats the word is out. People don’t want to sign up for NZ BS now!
In desperation to pull in more fee-paying wannabes, the school has dropped its standards. They now admit anyone who meets a minimum standard and will even give a good look to those who simply don’t even meet that! It seems obvious that such candidates are wanted for their tuition fees only and will be strung along with promises of fame and power so that the school can keep meeting its income goals. However, there will be no future for these kids if they do, by some chance, manage to graduate.
Perhaps, now, at last, after 40 years of contaminating us, this particular hive of villainy has contaminated itself and is ready to go.
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Image ref. PETER MEECHAM/STUFF
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. But almost simultaneously, decisions were being made about New Zealand’s immigration policies that were to have far reaching consequences for the cultural politics of New Zealand, although it was to be almost a decade before there was an awareness of what exactly this meant. Those decisions about immigration that saw policy altered from 1986 onwards have remade the cultural mix of New Zealand and have added a new layer to the evolving imagery and policy concerns of this country.
In these circumstances, key questions concern the way in which these changes and their impact have been understood by New Zealanders, both “new” and “old”. As with anything as significant as the demographic and cultural changes that have occurred, there are bound to be concerns. If democratic debate and constructive understanding is to emerge, then the quality of information provided in the public domain is an essential precondition. As with debates about biculturalism, the media play a critical role in determining the nature of public discussion and private/public understanding. Along with certain institutions, especially the education system, the media provide one of the most important, and possibly the most important, point of contact. The media, in all its diverse forms – print, radio, television, electronic – is a key institution in the creation and distribution of images and messages about our community(ies). Those significant others in our community, in the absence of in-depth personal contact or experience, will be described and explained to us via the media. It helps confirm who we are as individuals and members of various communities. As the demographic make-up of New Zealand has changed since the late 1980s, the media have played a critical role in exploring what this means for all of us.
DEFINING IDENTITY AND CREATING CITIZENS : THE MEDIA AND IMMIGRANTS IN NEW ZEALAND Paul Spoonley
To think that for millennia we have lived as distinct ethnic groups and now are require to admit other ethnic groups on an uncertain basis as to whether the lives of the majority are improved or not.
That being the case journalists will inform the public how to think about it under the 11th commandment: “Thou shalt not be racist” (ie be an ethnic group in a national territory). As we saw with the angry Ryan Bridge taking Hipkins to task for working with Winston Peters.
Trump would have wiped the floor with him.
Yes indeed.
They’re crossing their fingers they pay the truth makers. The balance sheet is breaking up the sky…”
See also Government accused of manipulating news with paid content on TVNZ and STUFF, NZB3
https://nzb3.anarkiwi.co.nz/2023/08/24/government-accused-of-manipulating-news-with-paid-content-on-tvnz-and-stuff/