How long can you pedal an invention?

On Friday March 6th the poll is out. It's bad for National and the media has concocted the idea that as a result of these numbers and the previous Monday's press conference about the war, that things have got so bad for the Prime Minister he is “considering his position over the weekend”.

They have also concluded numbers are being crunched, pressure is mounting and pressure is building for him to resign.

By the Monday, on this programme, March 9th it is clear no such thing has happened. No numbers are crunched and no considering of positions has been undertaken.

Is that the end of the story? No, it is not. It bubbles on for the rest of the week with literally nothing happening apart from the reiteration of what we already know not to be true.

By Thursday last week the NZ Herald runs an editorial declaring he has survived the week.

Survived from what? Their invention of a problem?

On Friday, Peter Dunne writes a piece that calls the media invented nonsense out.

On Saturday, Bruce Cotterill adds TVNZ woes to the list, but also points to the abject absurdity of the previous Monday's blitzkrieg at the airport as said Prime Minister and various Cabinet members arrive in Wellington to a pack of screeching journalists still refusing to believe that the story is entirely of their invention.

Then yesterday, March 16th, ten calendar days since the invention, Radio NZ were to have two talking heads discussing how the Prime Minister survived the pressure and the pending consideration of his position.

Assuming today there is no more, surely that has to be a record for continuing coverage of a pile of bollocks. Which leads to the question: how dangerous are our media when they invent a story and run with it? And then having had it dispelled, continue to run with it?

New week and there's a new story. The aforementioned Prime Minister ahead of his Pacific trip asked for a title, said the Samoan Prime Minister. "Not true," said the Prime Minister's office, yet they still ran with it until Monday when the Samoan Government said it's not true.

How many times do you have to say a story isn't true before it isn't a story?

Is it true to say if a story that isn't true is still run as a story, we most definably have an agenda here? A bias? A level of dishonesty?

Given that, do they wonder why their reputations are in tatters?

Do they even care?

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Mike's Minute: Invented stories and the media

The Mike Hosking Breakfast