Taranaki news and its propaganda past

For the people of Parihaka, the truth about them lies in their own historical songs or mo¯teatea, not in the newspapers of the past.

The atrocities wrought between 1879-83 on the south Taranaki settlement – synonymous with peace and passive resistance – are remembered through songs still being sung by the hauka¯inga (home people) nearly 140 years later.

Piukara is an account of the beginning of the soldiers’ march to Parihaka in November 1881 and the sound of the bugle being played at Pungarehu, which signalled the start of the invasion.

The last line of Piukara is often chanted with vigour and passion and speaks to the famous Parihaka resistance:

Piko mai e Ka¯wana, ko ahau to¯ ariki, ko koe taku pononga e te Kuini, kei mau nawa.

Come forth bow down before us Governor, I am your lord, you are my servant o Queen, source of our oppression, such trouble.

OUR NEWS RECKONING

Just as the Crown had its day of reckoning in 2017, when it formally apologised for its deeds at Parihaka, so do we need to account for the legacy of our journalism forefathers in Taranaki.

The Taranaki Herald was the first newspaper published in the region on August 4, 1852.

Five years later, the

Taranaki News began, changing its name to the

Taranaki Daily News in 1885. The Herald and Daily News amalgamated in 1962, and remained independent of each other until INL acquired the business, closing the Herald in 1989.

Stuff, through its ownership, has since inherited the history of both the Herald and Daily News.

An editorial published after the attack on Parihaka in 1881, by 1600 armed troops and volunteers, described it as a ‘‘peaceful victory’’.

That so-called win is now considered one of the worst acts committed against Ma¯ori by the Crown in New Zealand history.

At Parihaka, women were raped, people were forcibly removed, homes were pillaged and destroyed, taonga stolen and crops and livestock killed.

In the weeks leading up to the invasion of Parihaka in 1881, we published a Government proclamation setting out its plan of action, material which can only be described as propaganda.

It gave Te Whiti o Rongomai and Tohu Ka¯kahi, the two leaders of Parihaka, 14 days to accept a land settlement on behalf of their people, or risk being kicked off their whenua altogether.

‘‘If they don’t do this, they alone will be responsible for the passing away from them for ever of the lands, which are still being proffered by the Government, and for the great evil which must fall on them.’’ – Proclamation

The Government laid blame at the feet of the two prophets. Instead of questioning the actions of the politicians, we chose to back the Government’s message instead.

‘‘They have persistently neglected, and caused others to neglect the opportunity offered to them, and have repeatedly rejected proposals made with the hope of a settlement.’’ – Proclamation

Dr Ruakere Hond of Parihaka, says we acted as a mouthpiece for some strong ‘‘hard-liners’’ within the Government, including Native Minister John Bryce.

‘‘I think the media at the time were very political in nature,’’ says Hond.

The tone of our coverage revolved around trying to make Ma¯ori compliant, says Hond, for the ultimate goal of land settlement in Taranaki.

‘‘To a certain extent, Ma¯ori were seen as an impediment to the progress of the development of the region,’’ says Hond.

It was the Government’s goal to ‘‘very much manage the story’’ – a reason why it issued an edict, restricting reporters’ access to the site on the day of the attack.

If found, reporters faced arrest and detention for 24 hours, a move which was widely criticised by the newspapers at the time.

Hond says one of the things the uri (descendants) had been told subsequently about the timing of the attack was that it took place when other MPs, who expressed no support for taking action at Parihaka, were out of the country touring the Pacific Islands.

‘‘Those hard-liners had much larger numbers and could pass those policy decisions,’’ says Hond.

Our reporting at the time, shows we were complicit in the calculated attack by the Crown on Parihaka. We purposefully sided with the Government to protect the economic aspirations of settlers in Taranaki to the detriment of the rights of Ma¯ori.

Our research forms part of the national, Our Truth, Ta¯ Ma¯tou Pono project, which found Stuff and its newspapers have been racist, contributing to stigma, marginalisation and stereotypes against Ma¯ori.

We have apologised publicly and plans are in place to better represent Ma¯ori and all communities in Aotearoa.

OUR SUPPORT OF THE INVASION

The paper’s position to support the invasion of Parihaka would have come from the top. Its editor at the time was Irishborn William Seffern.

He arrived in New Zealand in 1856, where he worked in the print and newspaper trade, before coming to Taranaki to take up the editorship in 1868, a career which spanned 27 years.

He backed the seizure of Parihaka, and the arrest of the two prophets, as a way to fasttrack settlement in the region.

Te Whiti and Tohu, and their followers, were portrayed like a cult in the paper, seen as creating problems for the colony, rather than a legitimate, peace-based movement with indigenous rights to the land.

In 1866, Parihaka was set up as a refuge for Taranaki hapu¯ and other Ma¯ori from different iwi, who had lost their homes, livelihoods and land through confiscations and war.

The way of life at the settlement was modelled on the principles of compassion, unity and self-sufficiency, along with the promotion of peace between Ma¯ori and Pa¯keha¯.

We called the Crown’s actions ‘‘justified’’ during the invasion. There was only peaceful resistance from the people at Parihaka and Te Whiti and Tohu were arrested with other members from the settlement.

In our editorial at the time, we stated: ‘‘The complete separation of Te Whiti and his colleague from the native people will, no doubt, stop those monthly gatherings, which were so fruitful of injury to the Maori race and were so embarrassing to us, and consequently the superstitious beliefs in Te Whiti’s power will fade away.

‘‘We hope that the complete effacement of Parihaka as a centre of disaffection will soon result from this action that the Volunteer force will not be detained from their homes longer than is absolutely necessary; and that they will receive the thanks of the community for the gallant aid they have rendered the colony at a critical period in its history.’’

Overall, Hond calls the news coverage of the invasion, a ‘‘mixed bag’’.

In direct contrast to what was being reported in Taranaki, Hond says other papers, such as the Otago Daily Times and Lyttelton Times, had very different perspectives on Parihaka.

The Lyttelton paper described the decision to seize Parihaka as ‘‘one of the saddest and most shameful spectacles’’ witnessed.

One of the factors which explains the difference, says Hond, was the South Islandbased news media probably built better relationships with people connected to Parihaka over time, including those taken prisoner and sent to Dunedin to perform hard labour from 1879 to 1883.

In 2017, the Crown formally apologised to the people of Parihaka for the 1881 invasion.

Te Whiti o Rongomai, left, and Tohu Ka¯kahi were both detained without trial for 16 months after the 1881 invasion. They died nine months apart in 1907.

William Seffern, editor of The Taranaki Herald, at the time of the invasion of Parihaka in November 1881.

‘They became people again, rather than the dehumanisation aspect of warfare,’’ says Hond.

In the 1980s, there was an organised march to the paper’s New Plymouth office to raise concerns about how it seemed to publish negative stories about Ma¯ori or ones which lacked balance.

Hond says it felt like the Ma¯ori perspective was not valued as much as the ‘‘loyal customers’’ of the newspaper.

‘‘Our key issue was the newspaper appeared to take a strong line on behalf of the people who bought the paper.’’

Former Taranaki Herald editor Lance Girling-Butcher rates current coverage of Ma¯ori issues as being a 2 or 3 out of 10.

‘SHOCKING IN ITS LACK OF BALANCE’

Lance Girling-Butcher is a former editor of the Taranaki Herald, and after it ceased publication, moved to the Taranaki Daily News.

More than 20 years ago he took editorial and commercial risks and went against the tide of reader sentiment when he sent an inter-office memo to reporters, telling them that the region’s most notable landmark was to be referred to as Mt Taranaki, rather than Egmont.

A public poll had previously

Native Minister John Bryce, circa 1890s, who led the attack on Parihaka on November 5, 1881.

Editor Matt Rilkoff says the onesided coverage is a lesson in how media can’t let itself be captured by those in power.

been taken on the issue and readers were against the move. Subscribers even threatened to cancel the paper if the mountain was referred to as Taranaki.

But Girling-Butcher never felt comfortable using the name Egmont and it was an ongoing concern of Ma¯ori too, he says.

As an avid follower of Taranaki news in his retirement, he rates the overall reporting on Ma¯ori issues as a ‘‘two or three out of 10’’.

‘‘We just haven’t cracked it,’’ says Girling-Butcher.

Matt Rilkoff, current Taranaki regional editor for which publishes the

says the coverage of the Parihaka invasion ‘‘seems shocking in its lack of balance now’’.

‘‘It’s hard to understand how they could have come to that viewpoint from my position in 2020.

‘‘I don’t think back then there was any pretence of objectivity, and they were serving an audience essentially with what they wanted to,’’ he says.

‘‘It’s a very valid lesson to us in the media to always be wary about not being captured by the Government and other interests groups, to the detriment of, potentially, a smaller party.’’

While he elected not to give current Ma¯ori issues reporting a rating out of 10, he admits it can always improve.

HISTORICAL RACISM OF SETTLER MEDIA

Dr Tim McCreanor, senior researcher of the Massey University-based SHORE and Whariki Research Centre, says audience, editorial policy, political commitments and business interests can play a role in how specific stories are framed.

‘‘Clearly for all of these influences, they would be heightened by proximity to the action, the fears and perceived threat that Ma¯ori mana motuhake (self-government) could have on isolated and rather unstable, recently established, socially weakly connected settler communities.’’

McCreanor says other research undertaken reflects the historical racism of settler media in Aotearoa.

‘‘From the more recent histories of the situation in Taranaki, I suspect that Parihaka was regarded as threatening, a further stage of the hostilities and warfare that beset the entire region, from the late 1850s, through Titokowaru’s campaigns of the late 1860s to the Te Whiti and Tohu challenges of the peace movement of the 1880s.’’

Helped along by books about Parihaka like Dick Scott’s ground-breaking Ask That Mountain, and Hazel Riseborough’s Days of Darkness: Taranaki 1878-1884, it still took years of effort from Taranaki iwi to have the atrocities of Parihaka officially recognised by the Crown.

After a long period of negotiation, Te Ture Haeata ki Parihaka/Parihaka Reconciliation Act was passed into law in 2019.

The act includes the terms of a historic apology: ‘‘The Crown acknowledges that it utterly failed to recognise or respect the vision of self-determination and partnership that Parihaka represented. The Crown responded to peace with tyranny, to unity with division and to autonomy with oppression.’’

McCreanor says the correction of the historical record is critically important to social justice, and the media need to be highly mindful of this.

‘‘Redressing the imbalances and taking a critical approach to entrenched media practices in relation to Ma¯ori marginalisation and Pa¯keha¯ privilege is something that all media outlets should be pursuing in the name of decolonisation and social justice for Aotearoa,’’ McCreanor says.

For Hond, it’s also part of a wider need for relationships to be formed based on an acceptance and acknowledgement of each other’s truths.

‘‘Hiding things in the cupboard is not healthy for the country as a whole.’’