One newspaper column
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Tamati Coffey, host of Moving out with Tamati, a weekly show about Aucklanders selling up and shipping out to the regions - a move TC himself had made - from the big smoke to Rotorua.
The show has just come to the end of its run on TVNZ 1 in a prime time slot and since it was made, Tamati Coffey's become an MP - winning the Maori seat of Waiariki for the Labour Party.
MOWT was funded by the MBFA TMP - which is the reason TC switches between English and Te Reo Maori with subtitles in English - the first time such an approach had been used in prime time TV - other than MTV's channels.
TMP CE Larry Parr told Mediawatch - it was part of an effort to normalise the language in the mainstream media:
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05 Nov 2017 SCRAP 1 tamati
And as we heard on Mediawatch - no-one seemed to mind Tamati talking in te reo at the time, acc to TVNZ and Larry Parr - though TC himself told the media he got some blowback personally via social media - such as this:
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The Maori language you are speaking is getting a bit boring and you will need to be careful that the public doesn’t turn off very soon.
By all means be proud of your heritage but you will lose a lot of pepole’s admiration if you continue to speak in dual tongue. Speaking in dual tongue will not work well for you.
However, no-one seemed bothered by even more prevalent "dual-tongue" on TVNZ 1 's bilingual morning Morena, also TMP funded - which Morena n ended its second season this week -
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AUDIO: 15 Oct 2017 MOVING 5 morena
In last Tuesday's one the bad language by TVNZ presenter Hillary Barry more likley to cause complaints:
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https://www.tvnz.co.nz/shows/morena/episodes/s2-e36
3'07
. . . but there were no complaints about Maori language on Morena in the morning on TVNZ 1.
Similarly the audience of TVNZ's Breakfast show seems not to mind a bit of Te reo at the tp and bottom of the hours
MP TC has also revealed he planned to draft member’s bill which would gurantee publicly-funded TV programmes would include 10-20 percent of the dialogue in te reo Maori.
There was no outcry about that either.
But reporters and presenters slipping into Te Reo in the intros and their signoffs on RNZ National certainly did up the nose of writer and outdoorsman Dave Witherow, a former Dunedin councillor and southern representive for Fish and Game.
In an opinion piece in the ODT last week headed: Haere mai - everything is far from ka pai
https://www.odt.co.nz/opinion/haere-mai-everything-far-ka-pai
- he said Inflicting te reo on the entire population was contemptuous:
VOICEOVER 1:
For the last couple of years, RNZ has been ahead of the pack in obsequiousness. Everything indigenous is sacrosanct, and even formerly redoubtable interviewers now shrink from the slightest demur when boring bigots drone on about the mana of all things native.
He went on to write that Radio New Zealand staff are "obliged to dispense their daily dose of te reo." under what he said were new rules at RNZ agreed in a back-room deal, and imposed without any notice
VOICEOVER 2:
There were just a few words to begin with. Then longer sentences which have kept on growing until the keener young grovellers now begin and end their spiels with expansive swatches of a lingo understood by only a minuscule proportion of their audience.
English is our daily language, he said and those who prefer te reo have no right ro inflict it on the majority.
The reaction from others in the media was swift, strong and overwhelmingly unfavourable.
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https://www.facebook.com/TheProjectNZ/videos/1114541625349156/
Kanoa Lloyd on the Project on Three -- who condemned Dave Wtherow's withering column as a blast from the more racist past.
Just a couple of years ago she was criticised for using Maroi places names in TV 3;s weather byulleins
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/te-manu-korihi/266367/3-news-defends-use-of-te-reo
- and the country has already moved on.
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On Stuff.co.nz, reporter Glenn McConnell called it "casual bigotry" - something he says grew tired of during five years learning te reo himself.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/99215710/how-to-know-if-youre-racist-hot-tip-saying-native-is-a-good-sign-you-are
And The Spinoff website's writer Madeleine Chapman labelled it the Worst Opinion Column of 2017.
VOICEOVER 3:
It’s funny to a point, but it also serves as a wake up call that these people still exist in our country. And while we can’t respond to every person who has ever said something racist or sexist or homophobic, we can at least call them out when they do it on a public platform.
There was plenty of that going on onine and in the mainstream media - though interestingly, most Maori news media seemed to ignore it.
So - does that mean Dave Witherow's was a a shrill yet lone voice ?
Not quite.
On Facebook, former leader of the National Party and the Act Party Don Brash he was "utterly sick" of people speaking Te Reo in "what are primarily English-language broadcasts."
VOICEOVER 4:
"Not one listener in hundreds has any knowledge of what he is talking about. It's 'virtue-signalling' at its worst!"
And the "worst offender" he said - was Morning Report host Guyon Espiner.
On Tuesday, three letters to the editor published in the ODT backed Dave Witherow.
One praised his testitcular fortitude and said
VOICEOVER 5:
He is only expressing the sentiments widely held by many New Zealanders sick of this politically correct nonsense.
https://twitter.com/southernscoop/status/935203022052802563
What then did the ODT itself make of the controversy?
Last Tuesday it said te reo has a mainstream media place, but in a time of social media echo chambers, the paper's opinion sections can undermine "conformity of thought'
Mr Witherow's piece, said the ODT, struck a chord for some readers and he was entitled to express them in the paper
VOICEOVER 7:
Tolerance and freedom of expression are precious foundations of democracy and civil society. While, inevitably, these must have limits, hurt feelings, offence and even social justice rights are insufficient grounds to stamp out the expression of opposing views.
New Zealand's dominant ''correct'' outlooks are in danger of bullying everyone else, of constructing an ideological straight-jacket that suppresses any chance of debate. Through healthy debate, and exchanges of views, perhaps we can all add to each other's education.
A long-winded way of saying - anything that stimulates debate is a good thing.
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The ODT concluded Dave Witherow's views were archaic, but not ''hate speech''.
Dismissing those he has no respoct for as PC snoflakes is crasss, but it doesn't meet that threshold - but "boring bigots" on the air at RNZ it would be braver to be specific about who he's talking about.
The ODT didn't mention the inaccuracies in DW's piece - the claim hapless staff obliged to dispense their daily dose of te reo.
But it did allow one of those Dave Witherow called ''young grovellers'' to politcal correctness to point a few out.
https://www.odt.co.nz/opinion/opinion-racism-dont-dress-it-when-dressing-down-required
It ran a rebuttal by RNZ's former Dunedin reporter Lydia Anderson
VOICEOVER 8:
It was a way for those of us who wanted to speak te reo, but weren't sure where to start on a daily basis, to practise and increase our own understanding.
She had no hesitation is calling his column racist - and those who had wrtten in to back it.
She wasn't the only angry one responding so bluntly and that reponse worried Tim Watkin, RNZ's editor of podcasts and series.
On his website Pundit he said "attacking intolerance with intolerance . . is going too far."
And "hounding can soon turn into martyrdom"
He adressed Dave Witherow directly - like this:
VOICEOVER 9:
You say “no-one campaigned for these impositions”. I think you mean no-one you know.
There is no zero sum game when it comes to language and culture. The growth of one often propels another.
Don't te reo speakers in New Zealand deserve to hear at least a skerrick of their language on their national radio station? Especially as this is the only country in the world the language is spoken.
Meanwhile at RNZ, Shannon Haunui-Thompson, the editor of Te Manu Korihi - the RNZ maori news service - threw a few the debate.
Last year for Māori language week RNZ ran some special stories, she explained, and a few te reo Māori lessons on-air with Guyon Espiner and Māori Issues correspondent Mihingarangi Forbes.
Reporters signed off their stories in Māori for the week, newsgathering chief Brient Edwards suggested sticking with it.
Not all RNZ listeners liked it, a few complained and one formal complaint was made to RNZ and the Broadcasting Standards Authority. It is a very confused complaint which the BSA considered "trivial and vexatious".
https://bsa.govt.nz/decisions/8217-hm-radio-new-zealand-limited-id2017-063?search_terms=HM+and+Radio+New+Zealand
And SHT shared the words she sends on reply to listners who got in touch to register thier disapproval of Te reo on RNZ:
VOICEOVER 6:
We encourage all our staff to, including those not on-air, use te reo Māori as much as possible. We do this because te reo Māori is an official language of our country and we are actually required to under the Radio NZ charter.
In the Radio NZ charter it states we must: "reflect New Zealand's cultural identity, including Māori language and culture"
One way we do this at RNZ is by encouraging and supporting all our staff to speak more Māori language on-air.
