Sellner 2 : NZ Media 0 – How the right manipulates the media

How a simple donation of $1242 bought a far-right demagogue plenty of air time in NZ.

In May, Patrick Gower of TV3’s Newshub started a series of investigations into the ideological background of the alleged Christchurch killer. He started off with a melodramatic and self-pitying mea culpa where he admitted to have completely ignored the existence of a far-right movement in NZ. Like most journalists, politicians or SIS spies.

Gower then produced three moderately interesting reports about various neo-Nazi groups and individuals, including Philip Arps who has recently been convicted for distributing the alleged killer’s video.

After a pause of a few weeks, Gower continued on Monday, 1 July 2019, with an instalment reporting links between the Austrian Identitarian Movement and the NZ far right. He showed a video of a group in Christchurch protesting against the signing of the UN Migration Compact, during which Winston Peters was called a traitor who should be hanged. One person, Philip Arps, made throat-cutting gestures.

This gave Winston Peters a wonderful platform to present himself as a victim of far-right extremism and to demand the resignation of Simon Bridges. Bridges, in Peters’ view, is responsible for the death threats because he fell for the far-right propaganda and also opposes the UN Migration Pact. So far so predictable, Peters has always had a knack for turning things upside down.

But then for some inexplicable reason, Gower felt the urge to interview Martin Sellner, leader of the Austrian Identitarians and recipient of a €1500 donation from the alleged Christchurch killer. During the interview Sellner cried about how he didn’t want the money because it was tainted with terrorism, and that he wanted to donate half of it to the Christchurch Victims Support fund. One minute of the five minute report was given to Sellner explaining how hurt and peaceful he was, without Gower questioning any of his statements or motives.

Then it got worse. The next morning, at 7:10am on 2 July, Corin Dann on Radio NZ’s Morning Report conducted another interview with Sellner, this time over several minutes. (The audio and any reference to the interview have been removed from the RNZ web site). Again, Sellner was given a platform to present himself as the victim of the Christchurch killer, who, by giving him the money, had brought Sellner into disrepute. “I don’t want anything to do with this kind of terrorism” he said and that all he wanted to do was “create awareness”. Again, Corin Dann did not question any of Sellner’s rubbish. Which is quite unlike him, because he is quite capable of conducting a critical interview when it comes to NZ politicians.

It beggars belief that two journalists would fall so easily into the trap that Sellner set. The simple act of donating the modest amount of $1242 to a charity has not only forced that charity to deal with him and his propaganda, but has also bought him several minutes of ad time on two of NZ’s most popular news programmes. A stroke of genius.

Not that it would have been hard to debunk Sellner’s claims of peacefulness. There are many reports, available online, about his past as a member of a fascist organisation, his friendship with US neo-Nazi Jack Donovan who sells t-shirts emblazoned with the words “Violence is Golden”, or his involvement, along with Lauren Southern, in a vigilante group “Defend Europe” to stop rescue ships in the Mediterranean (Defend Europe were stopped by the Italian coastguard who found 20 undocumented Sri Lankan crew members on board). Plus, Sellner is currently being investigated by Austrian authorities as to a possible criminal connection with the alleged Christchurch killer.

But for some reason none of that seemed to have been known to NZ journalists when they interviewed him. This is particularly worrying in the case of Morning Report, because following Gower’s piece on Monday evening, the Twitter sphere had been full of messages pointing out Sellner’s blatant lies along with calls not to give him a platform. Patrick Gower also seems to be very slow learner, because he had crashed completely in his attempt to interview Canadian provocateurs Lauren Southern and Stefan Molyneaux a year ago, who had a field day with him.

If the media can’t even report about the links between European Identitarian groups and NZ neo-Nazis without giving their leader a free reign on their programme, how on earth are they going to cover the trial against Tarrant without turning it into a fascist propaganda show?