The whole truth, published in a community newspaper, October 2021.
Stuff, a leading New Zealand's media organisation, announced today that it is now a Certified B Corporation.
B Corporations are companies verified by B Lab, an international network ‘transforming the global economy’.
The B stands for benefit.
B Corporation companies have shown they meet high standards, including accountability, and transparency.
But they do much more than that, according to the website: “We’re building the B Corp movement to change our economic system — and to do so, we must change the rules of the game. B Lab creates standards, policies, tools, and programs that shift the behaviour, culture, and structural underpinnings of capitalism.”
B Lab, endorsed by the late former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, appears to be largely USA based, but it has a presence in Australia and New Zealand and clearly Stuff plays a role as a story teller.
How is Stuff doing as a story teller?
Remember Stuff told us, ‘Long-term side-effects of Covid vaccination are not a thing’? We read it in The Whole Truth.
But things have changed. Emerging data indicates that the vaccine is indeed far more risky than we were led to believe.
A new peer reviewed paper summarises the current literature on mRNA and its effects on the molecular biology within human cells.
And another new paper tells of increased emergency cardiovascular events among under-40 population in Israel during vaccine rollout. The paper underscores the need for ‘the thorough investigation of the apparent association between COVID-19 vaccine administration and adverse cardiovascular outcomes among young adults.’
ACC data, updated to March 22, shows 2,322 claims were received for injuries relating to the Covid-19 vaccination. Of these 860 claims have been accepted, Most reported injuries were in the 40 to 49 year age group. Medsafe records more than 3,000 reported serious adverse effects and three deaths linked to Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine.
Never daunted, Stuff has launched a new series, It promises to explain public health topics prone to misinformation because “social media is awash with medical misinformation”.
Spot Stuff’s news selection on Thursday this week: “Parking wardens ticketing Parliament protester vehicles shoved and shouted at” and “Complaints to Waimakariri District Council over Matt King speaking event”.
I don’t recall Stuff talking to any of the 3000 people in New Zealand who have suffered serious vaccine injury.
I don’t recall any admission that Stuff might have got some facts wrong in their first ‘Whole Truth’ promotion. This campaign received funding from the Google News Initiative.
This initiative is called the ‘Covid-19 Vaccine Counter-Misinformation Open Fund’ and is intended to ‘support journalistic efforts to effectively fact-check misinformation about the Covid-19 immunization process, with a concentration on projects that aim to reach audiences under-served by fact-checking or targeted by misinformation.’
The new Whole Truth is created under Stuff's code of ethics, which includes a focus on balance.
But Stuff qualifies this key journalistic principle: ‘quoting vaccine misinformation as a counterpoint to comments from an epidemiologist or public health expert would not be genuine balance’.
Aaaah! So you can choose your expert and rubbish or ignore the rest.
Would you listen to the expert who concludes there’s a high rate of vaccine hesitancy in health care fields or would you go with the expert who says vaccine hesitancy is linked to bad childhood experiences?
There is a group of doctors that feels members of the public are intelligent enough to be able to listen to a variety of views and figure out whether what they are hearing makes sense to them or not.
But hang on. The Government is looking at regulating media and online content. So the big question is how long will there be access to a variety of views?
The aim of this new review is to implement a ‘new approach to content regulation that minimises the risk of harms caused by content to New Zealanders’.
Keep alert, people.